Boy points finger like gun, gets suspended

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http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/03/04/boy-who-used-finger-like-gun-suspended.html

A Columbus principal suspended a student for three days last week after the child pointed a "lookalike firearm” at another student in class and pretended to shoot.

The boy’s age? 10. The “level 2 lookalike firearm” cited in his suspension letter? His finger.

“I was just playing around,” said Nathan Entingh, a fifth-grader at Devonshire Alternative Elementary School in a far northern section of the district. “People play around like this a lot at my school.”

Other kids have been caught playing pretend gun games on the playground at Devonshire and weren’t suspended, Nathan said.

Devonshire Principal Patricia Price has warned students about pretend gun play numerous times this year, and everyone should know the rules by now, district spokesman Jeff Warner said. Nathan put his finger to the side of the other student’s head and pretended to shoot “kind of execution style,” Warner said.

“The kids were told, ‘If you don’t stop doing this type of stuff, there would be consequences,’” Warner said. “It’s just been escalating.” Warnings included three newsletters sent home with kids, he said.

The boy’s father, Paul Entingh, said no one felt threatened, and it’s the adults who are acting childish in their response to a typical 10-year-old’s misstep.

“He said he was playing,” Paul Entingh said. “It would even make more sense maybe if he brought a plastic gun that looked like a real gun or something, but it was his finger.”

The other student didn’t even see the offense — a teacher witnessed the hand gesture, both sides agree.
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I just ...wow. A finger is a "lookalike firearm”?
 
tumblr_lyf9eminOA1qe9ug4o2_500.gif
 
So the parents just ignored the letter that said "hey your kids fake shooting people needs to stop"? Great parents. They were warned. The parents ignored the warning. The kids still acted stupid. Seem justified to me.
 
Effnine said:
They were warned, it's stupid behavior, the suspension is justified ...
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I'm going to have to agree. Normally I would be all " it's just his fingers this is stupid!", but the school warned the students not to do it and they made an example. Kids need to follow rules especially in school. It's a suspension, it the kid was expelled I'd feel differently.
 
Why has our first response to just about everything in this country is to simply harshly punish? Do something wrong in school? Get suspended. Do something wrong as an adult? Get ridiculous amounts of jail time. It's like we're purposefully shooting ourselves in the feet to try to look tough.
 
JdFoX187 said:
Why has our first response to just about everything in this country is to simply harshly punish? Do something wrong in school? Get suspended. Do something wrong as an adult? Get ridiculous amounts of jail time. It's like we're purposefully shooting ourselves in the feet to try to look tough.
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Pointing ourselves in the foot.
 
JdFoX187 said:
Why has our first response to just about everything in this country is to simply harshly punish? Do something wrong in school? Get suspended. Do something wrong as an adult? Get ridiculous amounts of jail time. It's like we're purposefully shooting ourselves in the feet to try to look tough.
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Rules? What are they? Would you rather there be anarchy in our schools and society? Suspension wasn't the first response in this case ... The suspension was not harsh ... the children were warned and it's a behavior that really shouldn't be condoned inside or outside of school ... let's try to be a better society than that, OK?
 
We can't pass a descent bill actually regulating firearms as adults but we regulate kids behavior just fine.

Bullies.
 
renitou said:
This is why stuff like this gets by. Enough people willing to roll over to authority even when it's stupidly wrong.
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JdFoX187 said:
Why has our first response to just about everything in this country is to simply harshly punish? Do something wrong in school? Get suspended. Do something wrong as an adult? Get ridiculous amounts of jail time. It's like we're purposefully shooting ourselves in the feet to try to look tough.
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In this case, though, it seems that they have been warned multiple times..a "warning shot" if you will :P

I'm not too big on the "over policing" stuff in schools either, but I think this one kinda explains itself well enough..opinions and all that.
 
As a student of pedagogy and a sub teacher myself, I'll have to agree with this. If there's a rule in place and the kids knowingly act against those rules, something has to be done. What he did (finger gun) has nothing to do with it.

Maybe getting suspended is a bit much, but disciplinary action had to be taken.
 
Effnine said:
Rules? What are they? Would you rather there be anarchy in our schools and society? Suspension wasn't the first response in this case ... The suspension was not harsh ... the children were warned and it's a behavior that really shouldn't be condoned inside or outside of school ... let's try to be a better society than that, OK?
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IT'S A FINGER GUN. He didn't grab the kid from behind, whisper about his lust for blood in the kid's ear, and then shoot him like a hostage. I don't see how suspending this boy betters society at all.
 
This is stupid. Zero Tolerance policies just allow these dink admins to mindlessly punish kids for shit that at best would be a detention or talking too.

The other reason is even their own policy on it doesn't cover what this kid did in the first place.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto...ike-guns-taken-seriously-in-city-schools.html

Fifth-grader Nathan Entingh said he was just playing around when he pointed his finger at a friend’s head and said “boom” in science class. But the district labeled it a “Level II” incident, as serious as fighting, bullying, sexual misconduct, extortion and theft.

District officials said Nathan had made his hand into a “firearm look-alike,” which district policy defines as “any item that resembles a firearm but does not have the explosive characteristics of a firearm, but may use a spring loaded device or air pressure by which to propel an object or substance (i.e., toy guns, cap guns, bb guns and pellet guns).”
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Records show Columbus City Schools officials take more-serious action than their colleagues in the rest of the state against students for gun look-alikes:

• Columbus City Schools account for less than 3 percent of the state’s more than 1.7 million students, but the district accounted for almost one-third of the expulsions for look-alike guns last school year.

Columbus expelled 12 students, more than any district in the state. Expulsion is the most serious punishment a district can inflict, kicking a student out of school for 11 days to one year.

• During the past five years, Columbus has ranked among the five or fewer districts that report 10 or more suspensions for look-alike firearms. Suspensions can last for up to 10 days.

• Of the 419 out-of-school suspensions for firearm look-alikes statewide last school year, Columbus accounted for 69 of them, or more than 16 percent. Only four other districts had 10 or more: Akron (47), Lockland (24), Dayton (16) and Cleveland (11).

• Black students were disproportionately more likely to be suspended for having a fake gun: 74 percent of the suspended students were black, records show, though only 57 percent of the district’s students are black.
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The issue isn't that they broke the rule, it's that it's a fucking rule in the first place.

Thank god I grew up in the 90s...
 
How would be able then to tell her teacher she was looking goooood

not my joke, all credit to Seth Meyers
 
_DrMario_ said:
The issue isn't that they broke the rule, it's that it's a fucking rule in the first place.

Take god I grew up in the 90s...
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Seriously.

We live in a climate of complete overreaction. It doesn't matter that he was warned not to do it. It shouldn't even be an issue in the first place.
 
Dangit can't find a gif of the kids from dark knight blowing up cars with their finger cannons...completely understand the schools fear can't have those dangerous weapons pointed around willy nilly.
 
renitou said:
This is why stuff like this gets by. Enough people willing to roll over to authority even when it's stupidly wrong.
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Yup. "Rules are rules" is a stupidly mindless stance to take on a situation like this. Sometimes the rules are fucking stupid and shouldn't be followed or enforced.
 
Effnine said:
Rules? What are they? Would you rather there be anarchy in our schools and society? Suspension wasn't the first response in this case ... The suspension was not harsh ... the children were warned and it's a behavior that really shouldn't be condoned inside or outside of school ... let's try to be a better society than that, OK?
Click to expand...

Oh my god, that kid pointed a finger at someone! He's going to murder him! Won't someone think of the children?

The escalation of response is absolutely ridiculous. "They were warned" is not an excuse, either. A school's job is to provide an education for children. As long as the child wasn't causing any harm to others, disrupting the class or otherwise causing issues that distract from said education, then there's no reason this should involve being suspended. Give him detention, at most. Suspending him for three days reeks of an overzealous response to look tough.
 
Effnine said:
Rules? What are they? Would you rather there be anarchy in our schools and society? Suspension wasn't the first response in this case ... The suspension was not harsh ... the children were warned and it's a behavior that really shouldn't be condoned inside or outside of school ... let's try to be a better society than that, OK?
Click to expand...

Of course there is no such thing as an unjustified rule.
 
Ripclawe said:
This is stupid. Zero Tolerance policies just allow these dink admins to mindlessly punish kids for shit that at best would be a detention or talking too.

The other reason is even their own policy on it doesn't cover what this kid did in the first place.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto...ike-guns-taken-seriously-in-city-schools.html
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Zero tolerance is behind the vast majority of these "CAN YOU BELIEVE A SCHOOL DID _______?!" stories.

Elimination of discretion is the elimination of common sense.
 
The school did the right thing.

The kid was warned, y'know? And this is all part of a larger training regime for the kid. Give him a bad experience so he genuinely hates school, ends up in the street and join some gang or something. Then, private prison time!

The state just wants to make money long term, yo.
 
Dang man. If I was an elementary age kid, I would have gotten in huge trouble for this. My friends and I has imaginary shoot outs after class all the time
 
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