More and more schools have started to rely on the suspension and criminalization of students as a way to deal with normal discipline problems. The school suspension rate has doubled nationally in the last twenty years. Little children are often treated as criminals for natural age-appropriate behaviors. Politically correct teachers and administrators are acting as if they’ve been possessed by some insanity spirit. This can no longer be tolerated. It’s time to say NO!
Zero Tolerance For Mary Blair Elementaty School’s “Absolutes”
This past week 7-year-od Alex Evans threw an imaginary grenade into an imaginary box and got suspended by the Mary Blair Elementary School in the Thompson School District in Loveland, Colorado.
In this Orwellian school an imagination is a very dangerous thing.
"Mary Blair Elementary has a strict set of rules it calls "absolutes," which expressly prohibit any weapons, real or pretend."
The school lists “absolutes” designed to keep a safe environment. The list includes absolutely no fighting, real or imaginary; no weapons, real or imaginary. Click here to see the Mary Blair “Absolutes”
Contact Mary Blair Elementary School
860 E 29th St Loveland, CO 80538
(970) 613-6400
Email info@thompsonschools.org
Superintendent Stan Scheer,
Thompson School District
800 S. Taft Avenue
Loveland, CO 80537
Here are links to stories and videos about this incident:
Second Grader Suspended from School for Trying to Save the World with an ...
2nd grader suspended from school for using pretend weapon
Second grader suspended from school for 'saving the world'Second Grader Suspended for Trying to Save the WorldBoy, 7, suspended for throwing imaginary grenadeColorado 7-Year-Old Suspended For Throwing 'Imaginary Grenade' During ...
Schools' reactions to fake guns: Avoiding real danger?Boy, 7, Suspended for Playing Imaginary Game
A 7-year-old boy was handcuffed and arrested for stealing $5 from a classmate--but the case tells us much more about how our society functions, writes Don Lash. . . .
THE ARREST of a 7-year old who taken from his elementary school in the Bronx in handcuffs has outraged people across the country--and focused attention on the criminalization of youth and the "school-to-prison pipeline." . . .
. . .What is lost is any sense of outrage that an officer treats what could be characterized as "age-appropriate misbehavior" by a 7-year old as a routine robbery investigation; where schools seemingly have no problem with armed police pulling students out of class for arrest and interrogation; and where the school system can offer no alternative to a parent who believes her child is being bullied by a school peer other than to march into her local precinct to report a "crime."
This case illustrates long-term trends in treating issues that should be handled by educators--with appropriate staffing and resources--as matters for a delinquency court and the juvenile justice system. . . .
THE PROBLEM goes beyond arrests in school. "Zero tolerance" policies and reliance on suspension and expulsion rather than more effective means of addressing student behavior help to begin the process of pumping kids in to the pipeline.
The suspension rate nationally has doubled in the last two decades. Offenses that once warranted in-school punishment--"talking back" or being late--are now often the basis for interrupting students' instruction with suspension or expulsion. . . .
It’s time that parents launch a Zero Tolerance policy for schools. Let’s start collecting the names of the schools and the offending staff and publish them along with links to the stories. Let’s publish contact information so that parents can complain directly to the schools.
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