More Child Abuse at Government Schools

October 16, 2019 by Dan Mitchell @ International Freedom

 

I’ve shared examples of brain-dead behavior by bureaucrats at the Transportation Security Agency.
But the folks at the TSA may be paragons of wisdom and judgement compared to administrators at government schools.

Those bureaucrats seem incapable of improving test scores, even when they get showered with tax dollars, but they’re always ready to go overboard when kids…gasp…play with toy guns.

Or even when they pretend a stick is a gun. Or when they pretend their fingers are a gun.

Here’s a crazy example that just happened.

A 12-year-old Overland Park girl formed a gun with her fingers, pointed at four of her Westridge Middle School classmates one at a time, and then turned the pretend weapon toward herself. Police hauled her out of school in handcuffs, arrested her and charged the child with a felony for threatening. …according to Johnson County District Court documents, on Sept. 18, the girl “unlawfully and feloniously communicated a threat to commit violence, with the intent to place another, in fear, or with the intent to cause the evacuation, lock down or disruption in regular, ongoing activities …” or created just the risk of causing such fear. …“I think that this is something that probably could have been handled in the principal’s office and got completely out of hand,” said Jon Cavanaugh, the girl’s grandfather in California, where the girl is now living. He said his granddaughter has no access to a real gun and she had no intent of harming anyone. “She was just mouthing off,” he said.

School bureaucrats also over-react if students like a picture of a toy gun.

Here’s a story from two years ago.

An Edgewood Middle School student was handed a 10-day suspension for “liking” a picture of a gun on Instagram with the caption “ready.” The parents of Zachary Bowlin posted a picture of the intended suspension notice which read, “The reason for the intended suspension is as follows: Liking a post on social media that indicated potential school violence.” “I was livid, I mean, I’m sitting here thinking ‘you just suspended him for ten days for liking a picture of a gun on a social media site,” father Marty Bowlin said. “He never shared, he never commented, he never made a threatening post… anything on the site, just liked it.” The picture in question is of an airsoft gun, and according to the students’ parents, their child didn’t comment on the post but simply liked the picture.

We’ll wrap up with another bizarre case from this year.

School bureaucrats also don’t approve if students engage in legal behavior when they’re not at school.

Two male students at Lacey Township High School in New Jersey posted photos of guns on Snapchat. One of the boys captioned his photo with “hot stuff” and “if there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, you know where to go.” The photos were not taken at school. They were not taken during school hours. They did not reference a school. They auto-deleted after 24 hours, which was well before the school became aware of them. And yet, administrators at Lacey Township High School suspended the boys for three days, and also gave them weekend detention. This was a clear violation of the students’ First Amendment rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union has now filed suit. …The two students had visited a gun range owned by an older brother on Saturday, March 10, 2018. They practiced shooting with “legally purchased and properly permitted” guns, according to the lawsuit. They also took a few photos and posted them on Snapchat. None of the snaps were threatening, and none of them referenced a school. Nevertheless, a parent of another student heard about the photos and contacted school authorities. On Monday, the boys were forced to meet with an assistant principal and an anti-bullying specialist, who quickly decided to punish them for clearly constitutionally-protected speech.

Kudos to the ACLU for getting involved on the right side.

I wish it was because they supported the 2nd Amendment as well as the 1st Amendment, but their involvement is a plus regardless.
But that’s a separate issue.

For today, our topic is misbehavior by school bureaucrats. Is there a way of discouraging these ridiculous suspensions?

The good news is that schools often back down when these episodes of political correctness get exposed. And maybe legal action also could help.

But I suspect the only effective answer is busting up a hopelessly bad government school monopoly.