Last week I read something that was very unusual for two different reasons. First it was totally nonsensical, and second it occurred in Alabama.
The headline from BlazeMedia:
“School suspends first-grader for pretending fingers were a gun during game of cops and robbers.”
“A school in Alabama suspended a first-grader for pretending his fingers were a gun during a game of cops and robbers with another student, according to reports.
Jarrod Belcher said his six-year-old son was suspended from Bagley Elementary School in Jefferson County, Alabama. The first-grade student was reportedly suspended for using his “index fingers as a gun” while playing a game of cops and robbers with another boy at school.”
I would think that those who work in an elementary school would be cognizant of the fact that six year olds have only a rudimentary concept of right vs. wrong. Even if we stretch the limit of rational thinking, pretending that your fingers are a gun while playing cops-and-robbers, is not a reason for school suspension. A reasonable person might caution first grader that playing with guns can be dangerous, but suspension … totally ludicrous!
The father, Jarrod Belcher told WBRC, “I asked her, I said, ‘Well did he threaten anyone?’ ‘No.’ ‘Was there violence?’ ‘No.’ ‘Was there any indication of a current or future threat?’ ‘No.’ ‘I said, ‘Well this kind of seems benign to me, it sounds like two students playing,’ and she said it was but in this climate, this day and age, we have to take all incidents very seriously.”
Now keep in mind that this is a school administrator. This nincompoop is someone that we, as citizens, have put in charge of our children. To make this even more nonsensical is that this occurred in Alabama, where I have thought that old fashion common sense was prevalent. If this had occurred in California or in Portland I probably would have thought, “what would you expect from these liberal yahoos.”
What makes this entire senselessness even worse is that the other boy playing cops and robbers was also suspended, according to reports. Did the second little guy pretend that he had been shot? … or did he pretend bullet missed?
The school claimed that the “shooter” boy committed a “3.22 Threat” violation, which the Student and Parent Handbook for Bagley Elementary defined as making a threat or intimidation of another student.
Fox News reported, “Potential violations include ‘A threat to do serious bodily harm or violence to another student by word or act, cyberbullying, or intimidation that may induce fear into another.'”
In my book this is not a “3.22 Threat,” but this is called “playing!” Perhaps if we had more children outside playing, we would engender more common sense in school administrators … not only in Alabama, but also even potentially in California and Portland!
9/11/23