Thursday, May 9, 2013

Zero tolerance and zero common sense

Zero tolerance and zero common sense

By Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA) May 8, 2013 6:55 am

http://www.gopusa.com/freshink/files/2013/05/marshall_pencil-300x180.jpgSUFFOLK -- The 7-year-old classmates pointed pencils at each other and made shooting noises -- innocent play between friends, the mother of one said.

"They were pretending they were in the military," Wendy Marshall said.

What she called harmless fun was considered threatening behavior by the Suffolk Public Schools. The boys, second-graders at Driver Elementary, were suspended because of Friday's pencil-pointing incident.

"We consider it intimidating and threatening," said Bethanne Bradshaw, school division spokeswoman. "It doesn't have a place in the classroom."

The boys were kept out of school Monday and Tuesday for violating the division's weapons policy. They initially faced up to 10 days' suspension.

When Marshall learned why her son, Christopher, had been punished, she deemed the situation "ridiculous."

"I thought they were going overboard," she said.

The boy -- whose father used to be an active-duty Marine -- meant no harm, Marshall said, and he's never been in trouble at school before.

"Common sense and judgment should have been used," Marshall said.

The school division's "no-tolerance" policy toward weapons has been in place for at least two decades, Bradshaw said. Pointing a finger in a threatening manner and drawing a picture of a gun also are forbidden, she said.

"It's an effort to try to get kids not to bring any form of violence -- even if it's violent play -- into the classroom," Bradshaw said.

For children as young as 7, pointing a pencil and making noises is one way they use their imaginations, said Andrea DeBruin-Parecki, graduate program director of early childhood education at Old Dominion University. They may simply be imitating something they saw on TV or in a movie, she said.

"It's a teachable moment. It's not a suspension moment for a 7-year-old," DeBruin-Parecki said. "You call the boys aside, and you explain to them why it's not appropriate to do this in school."

Pointing a pencil and making shooting noises could be considered a legitimate threat to some students, Bradshaw said. That's why the school system leaves little leeway, she said.

"There has to be a consequence because it's a rule," Bradshaw said. "And it's a rule that the principals go over."

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