March 1
...serving up your daily dish.
What can get your first-grader suspended at Edgemont Montessori in Montclair? Four little words... "I will kill you," got a six-year-old suspended. There was also the problem with a story about playing cap guns with his grandpa at sharing time that raised red flags. After the school insisted on a psychiatric evaluation and a letter indicating that the boy was not a "threat" before allowing him to return to school, the incensed parents took the story to Fox News (click on Student Suspended). The principal, Dr. Adunni Anderson, did not speak to Fox, but at the end of the story, we learn that the kid has been allowed back, with the proviso that the parents must check his backpack daily.
March 1, 2006 in Really Freaking Weird | Permalink
Oh, brother. Why am I not surprised this happened here? Psychiatric evaluation? That's ridiculous. Perhaps Dr. Adunni Anderson should be evaluated for paranoia.
This is how it should have gone down:
Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Parent?
Yes.
Little Johnny said today "I will kill you" to another student today.
oh?
Yes, and he was speaking of "pop gun" play as well. I am sorry to ask, but I just want to make sure Johnny doesn't have access to any real guns he might bring to school.
Of course not, no.
Ok, just had to ask. We'll chalk it up to normal six-year-old stuff.
Ok, sorry, we'll talk to him about appropriate behavior.
Thanks.
Posted by: Right of Center™ | Mar 1, 2006 12:22:57 PM
What do they think they'll find in the little lad's backpack save empty Caprisun juice containers and leftover Halloween candy? Grenades? C-14? Headscarves with Koranic verses written in blood? Lists of fellow students? This is simply typical administrative over-reaction, as ROC points out. And way too rough a way to treat the tyke.
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Mar 1, 2006 12:38:10 PM
The world is a different place today and events over the past 10 years have shown schools they need to take things like this seriously.
"the incensed parents " need to teach their child not to threaten other children. They also need to learn themselves that actions have consequences.
I'm willing to bet now that they've gone all fox news about this their little angel has a lot less playdates and party invitations.
Posted by: hrhppg | Mar 1, 2006 12:38:53 PM
"I'm willing to bet now that they've gone all fox news about this their little angel has a lot less playdates and party invitations."
Considering it is Fox News and the relative "tolerance" of our residents towards anyone who strays too far from BlueWavy orthodoxy, I think you are probably right.
Posted by: Right of Center™ | Mar 1, 2006 12:41:59 PM
Okay, here we again into the lists. It's one thing to gently chide a six-year-old for threatening playmates (which I nonetheless recall as rather common in my youth, but then I didn't grow up in Montclair), quite another to put the poor kid through an emotional and procedural wringer.
As for his possible lack of "playdates," who wants to live in a world where they even have such things and parents run them, as opposed to kids simply getting together on the block when they feel like it?
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Mar 1, 2006 12:44:06 PM
I googled kids guns schools suspension and got over 5 million hits. I'm sure zero tolerance would have added more.
Vermont Education Association has a primer for school admins and parents covering zero tolerance toward violent or threatening behavior, sexism, racism, homophobia, etc and the need to intervene with parents when any of the above is observed, even in the youngest children.
They observe that as VT becomes more diverse, such conduct is more often reported.
Posted by: Paul from OB | Mar 1, 2006 12:50:06 PM
As the mother of 2 boys I can attest that playing war w/toy guns (or anything handy) and saying accompanying phrases like "I'm gonna kill you" is pretty typical. Believe it or not they never actually tried to kill anyone or use a real gun. How about some common sense - give the kid and parents a stern talking to about appropriate/acceptable behavior at school and call it a day.
Posted by: clc | Mar 1, 2006 12:55:32 PM
No I don't, it's part of why I have time to spend on baristanet.
I am the oldest - by far - of six kids. I have babysat since I was 12, and I am cool aunt hrh to many. Not one of them would threaten another child.
A bit off topic - You'd be surprised at the amount of families with guns in our area. I grew up across the street from a family (nice, upper class, well educated, had a small child family) with guns kept in an unlocked cabinet.
One google - four different stories.
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/6792070/detail.html
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060211/NEWS/602110333/1006
http://oneutah.org/2006/02/05/student-brings-gun-to-high-school-in-roosevelt/
http://www.sullivan-county.com/x/north3.htm
Posted by: hrhppg | Mar 1, 2006 12:56:07 PM
six-year-old "sexism".
Can a better example of the insanity of political correctness be drawn?
I suppose charges of "cooties" are to be met with a requirment for Psychiatric evaluation?
"Psychiatry" the study of mental *illness* as in "disease".
I may have to move to Georgia.
Posted by: Right of Center™ | Mar 1, 2006 1:00:03 PM
Paul from OB, surely you realize that googling kids' gun-related suspensions and getting 5 million hits doesn't at all mean even 50,000 such incidents. Not even 5000. Maybe not even 500.
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Mar 1, 2006 1:08:40 PM
"You'd be surprised at the amount of families with guns in our area."
Last time I checked, owning a registered gun was not a crime. At least not yet.
I'm with {{{{shudders}}}}}ROC and the others on this one. Talk to the kid about what's appropriate/what's not in school and move on.
Posted by: Miss Martta | Mar 1, 2006 1:12:27 PM
"owning a registered gun was not a crime."
It isn't.
But the law states that it has to be kept in a locked cabinet. The reason I know about the guns and the cabinet being unlocked was the family's son had a party when we were in high school and kids had taken the guns out to play with - needless to say a lot of other kids left the party right away. Lucky no one got hurt.
Posted by: hrhppg | Mar 1, 2006 1:16:19 PM
if a kid called me names or said i had cooties in first grade we handled it like kids...we yelled at each other and maybe even wrestled each other to the ground. later, we probably were on the same side of a sandlot baseball game.
Posted by: The Iceman | Mar 1, 2006 1:16:35 PM
I agree about the locked cabinets, HRH. Especially if you are planning on having Dick Cheney over for cocktails.
Posted by: Miss Martta | Mar 1, 2006 1:19:11 PM
Martta! How politically correct! Dick's favorite new song is "I'm just wild about Harry..."
Posted by: Bill The Cat | Mar 1, 2006 1:21:50 PM
and some enterprising company announced monday that they are selling dick cheney hunting dolls
Posted by: The Iceman | Mar 1, 2006 1:23:08 PM
The only parties I ever attended where someone brought a piece, hrhppg, were when I was in my late 20's-early 30's. I remember one where some idiot brought his illegally converted M16 to show off, then left it in the bedroom along with everyone's coats. So USA vet me sneaked back in and field-stripped it and left the pieces on the bed, got my jacket and went home. I never did hear if he was snart enough to put it back together.
I knew no one growing up whose family had guns. I knew no one who hunted. But we had plenty of cap pistols. Nobody ever died and nobody ever became a mass murderer and nobody ever did a Hemingway, even, as a means of leaving this mortal coil.
Posted by: cathar (8T) | Mar 1, 2006 1:25:01 PM
Of course in this circumstance I suppose that part of what Dr. Adunni Anderson is concerned about is that *loaded* pop-guns we not in a locked cabinet but, rather, making grand pops with Grandpops.
Posted by: Right of Center™ | Mar 1, 2006 1:25:04 PM
Methinks Grandpops is probably too old to be playing with cap guns but that's another story, another time.
Posted by: Miss Martta | Mar 1, 2006 1:28:17 PM
"and some enterprising company announced monday that they are selling dick cheney hunting dolls"
Ice, I could spend all day punctuating and repunctuating that sentence :)
Posted by: Conan the Grammarian | Mar 1, 2006 1:28:18 PM
"So USA vet me sneaked back in and field-stripped it and left the pieces on the bed"
Did you empty the magazine and chamber too?
Posted by: RadonMan | Mar 1, 2006 1:35:12 PM
"As for his possible lack of "playdates," who wants to live in a world where they even have such things and parents run them, as opposed to kids simply getting together on the block when they feel like it?"
Did your kid, cathar, self-arrange her own playdates when she was a tike? How neglectful of you.
Posted by: walleroo | Mar 1, 2006 1:53:24 PM
