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	brennalarose 2009-10-16 11:32 pm UTC (link)
	Reform school. For bringing in a knife that probably wasn't even sharp enough to butter bread. Well, at least this link has good news. http://www.helpzachary.com/ (Reply to this)

	cassildra 2009-10-16 11:50 pm UTC (link)
	I believe the correct term is "what is this i can't even." Or else something like "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF" (Reply to this)

	cyndra_falin 2009-10-16 11:52 pm UTC (link)
	Last I heard, he was going back to regular school and that they were going to change their zero tolerance policy a bit. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	lilgoala 2009-10-17 12:12 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, his mom pleaded her case to the school board. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	persona 2009-10-17 12:14 am UTC (link)
	Ugh, that's good to hear, at least. (Reply to this)(Parent)

baranduyn
2009-10-17 01:10 am UTC (link)

I'm sorry, we cannot trust you to adequately educate the children when you possess ABSOLUTELY NO COMMON SENSE.

I'll grant you, I don't miss the days when kids would from time to time show up at school armed for WARGOODGODY'ALLWHATISITGOODFORABSOLUTELYNOTHIN'SAYITAGAIN But this is just mindlessly dim.

I used to have one of those kits when I was a Girl Scout. Childhood killing well in progress.

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	pathology_doc 2009-10-17 01:12 am UTC (link)
	Fucking idiots. Sack them and throw them in the street. At once. (Reply to this)

honorh
2009-10-17 03:06 am UTC (link)

See, this is part of why I'm leaning toward never having children: because I know I'd love them beyond all reason, and if something like this happened, I don't think I could be held responsible for my actions.

Zero-tolerance policies are utter shite, anyway. In one article I read about this incident, some apologist for the school board said that obviously, they can't have camp tools on campus because kids could put an eye out with them. Right. I believe the Joker in The Dark Knight would have something to say about pencils, in this case . . .

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	adevyish 2009-10-17 05:31 am UTC (link)
	I'm pretty sure most activities that landed me in the elementary school office involved pencils (surprisingly difficult to aim), plastic chairs (requires less aiming), craft scissors (good for simple lock-picking), bare hands, or teeth. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rodo 2009-10-17 09:58 am UTC (link)
	I can attest that repeated blows to the head with cushions can hurt quite a bit. Cushions! Also rather useful are balls (no sharp edges, but enough power, and your leg will turn blue), ellbows (you can ruin a blackboard with them) and enthusiastic sitting can break school tables in two. There also was that incident with the sofa that led to a broken thumb ... (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	adevyish 2009-10-17 10:33 am UTC (link)
	I loathed balls. I may have been accidentally smashed by a ball in the face once or twice. I never managed to break my thumb, but the class gerbils certainly tried. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rodo 2009-10-17 11:06 am UTC (link)
	Never the face, luckily, but the stomach isn't nice either. Playing goalie when your whole class hates you is much fun. And it wasn't my thumb. I was responsible for the sofa part, though. Way to show a boy that you have a crush on him. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	jaseroque 2009-10-17 02:08 pm UTC (link)
	I had a magnetic face as a child. There was a period in primary school that if we went out to sports lessons, I would get smacked in the face by the ball of whatever game we were playing. I was constantly glad we never played anything with hard balls -- I'm pretty sure I would have lost some teeth. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

tachikoma01
2009-10-18 03:31 am UTC (link)

I understand your pain, in that every single time I go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show live, I get hit in the toilet paper.

Every. Single. Time.

My friends have even made a game of it. They see how many toilet paper rolls they can smack away from me as I cover my head and cower, sobbing, in my seat.

It's really too bad I love going more than I hate getting hit with toilet paper. (And toilet paper rolls are surprisingly HARD!!!)

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	tachikoma01 2009-10-18 03:32 am UTC (link)
	Hit in the HEAD with toilet paper. Not used to this new laptop keyboard yet (Reply to this)(Parent)

	alienist 2009-10-17 09:42 pm UTC (link)
	Let me tell you what happens when you try to catch a soccer-ball one-handed and you have a weak wrist... (Reply to this)(Parent)

	yoritomo_reiko 2009-10-17 10:49 pm UTC (link)
	Foreheads and tag are very bad combinations...when you're the tallest girl in class, at least. I'm not entirely certain how I managed not to break my nose, but it was a near thing, apparently. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	snarkhunter 2009-10-17 05:12 pm UTC (link)
	Fingernails. Even short ones on tiny little girl-hands. I was an undersized child. When I was caught on the playground, I fought with everything I had. I drew blood. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

nifflet
2009-10-19 06:32 am UTC (link)

Throwing my own personal experience into the ring: the one and only write-up I ever received in my entire schooling career was for a "fight" where a fifteen-year-old boy bit my fourteen-year-old self. I scratched him.

I had teeth-shaped bruises on my arm, but I'm positive I drew blood on him.

Point of the story: I didn't even think about going for another weapon. Didn't enter my mind, and I had my school supplies close at hand. I just lashed out with what God gave me and that was the end of that.

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snarkhunter
2009-10-19 01:33 pm UTC (link)

I didn't get in trouble for mine. I was scared that I would, but he didn't tell the teacher.

I was about 8--and so was he. He'd caught me and had both arms around me. I used my nails to get free and run away. I had had some bad experiences when I was caught alone by boys on the playground, so I was vicious later on.

Also, WTF. He BIT you? What. The. Fuck. Please tell me this kid was delayed or non-neurotypical or SOMETHING.

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nifflet
2009-10-19 04:01 pm UTC (link)

No, he was pretty normal as far as neuroses went...he just...bit me. The principal called my mother to inform her of the incident and of the detentions I had received and all my mom could do was repeat "He...he bit her? Another student? Bit her? With his teeth?" She said it just wouldn't process and that it was probably one of the weirder phone conversations she's ever had.

SCARE HIM INTO SILENCE. That's the way! Also, I think that at eight years old, scratching is probably a little more understandable than, say, high schoolers attempting the same thing.

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	finchbird 2009-10-17 06:42 pm UTC (link)
	I just found out my bony fingers are really good at bruising my friends and doesn't take much effort on my part. If only I knew this fifteen years ago. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	solesakuma 2009-10-17 10:21 pm UTC (link)
	Walls. Those things landed me in the principal's office at least in two schools. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	snarkhunter 2009-10-19 01:34 pm UTC (link)
	ooh, yes! Walls = great weapons. (Once slammed a guy--about a foot taller than me, too--against one for patting me on the head one too many times. Held him up against the wall and growled, "I. am not. a dog.") (Reply to this)(Parent)

	blue_penguin 2009-10-18 06:24 am UTC (link)
	I used to hit people with my lunchbox. It wasn't even one of those hard metal ones, but apparently it really hurt sometimes. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	rosehiptea 2009-10-17 05:47 am UTC (link)
	They have reform school for six-year-olds? (Reply to this)

chibikaijuu
2009-10-17 06:27 am UTC (link)

The school's response was way, waaaaaaaaaay over the top (they even have reform schools for six-year-olds?), but why did his parents allow him to take the knife to school? Even if it isn't very sharp, he's six and it would be very, very easy for someone to get hurt because, well, little kids are clumsy, lack impulse control, and like to show off shiny things.

And I really don't give a shit about how awesome and wonderful this kid is, it's not relevant.

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honorh
2009-10-17 07:10 am UTC (link)

They may not even have known he had it. If he stuck it in his pocket, it might not have occurred to the parents to ask him about it.

And actually, how good the kid is is totally relevant. The problem with policies like this is that they treat the little shit who picks fights on the playground, explodes every time anybody tells him to do something and makes his teachers' lives hell exactly the same as the kid who has never caused a problem in his life. Look at the two of them objectively and tell me which one is more likely to bring a knife to school for nefarious purposes. No, it's not a good idea to have knives at school, but to treat every kid who, being a kid, doesn't register that his favorite Cub Scout tool might be contraband, like a criminal is just stupid.

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chibikaijuu
2009-10-17 07:23 am UTC (link)

It's stupid to treat any six-year-old like a criminal. Zero Tolerance policies are idiotic because they don't make allowances for situational differences, not because they don't allow for Golden Boy to get away with violating the rules. The utensil should have been confiscated and then returned with an explanation of why knives aren't allowed, as it should have been regardless of a child's behavioral issues (and if a six-year-old has behavioral issues as bad as the ones you described, he shouldn't be sent to reform school, he should be sent to a psychologist). At that age, a kid's intent is pretty much irrelevant to the amount of danger posed by a pocketknife.

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	solesakuma 2009-10-17 10:23 pm UTC (link)
	This. Some things are bad regardless to whom they happen to. Talking about how innocent the victims were only makes 'victim' synonym with 'innocent'. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	underwaterowl 2009-10-17 07:18 am UTC (link)
	I was suspended from school for an afternoon in grade three! My mum had used my school backpack on a camping trip (she was my brownie leader) and left a pack of matches in one of the spare pouches. (Reply to this)

rekall
2009-10-17 09:58 am UTC (link)

What baffled me the most about this story is that the school seemed to think that knives are the only type of weapon that kids know about to use.

Maybe I was a bit paranoid but even from a young age I always knew what school items I could use to defend myself if an adult tried to kidnap me on the way to/from school (fortunately that never happened). It wasn't a knife as my weapon of choice but a really sharp pencil and I knew to go straight for the eyes (I loved it when when I was old enough to carry a math compass since that was even sharper).

If kids really want to hurt each other, they don't need knives. They're not as dumb as some adults think they are.

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melannen
2009-10-17 04:50 pm UTC (link)

Yeah, exactly.

In fact, I was in elementary school when my county instituted its first no-exceptions weapons policy, and the first thing we all did was take inventory of the things we had that were allowed under the policy that we could cause major mayhem with. And take a ten-minute lesson at recess from the kid who new how to extract the razor blade from a manual pencil sharpener ... so the net effect was to give us greater access to blades at school, since the vast majority of us had never even thought about it until then.

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	snarkhunter 2009-10-17 05:14 pm UTC (link)
	That's awesome. You guys were like your own little DA. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	khym_chanur 2009-10-17 11:39 pm UTC (link)
	Ah, the law of unintended consequences. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	platedlizard 2009-10-19 04:29 am UTC (link)
	When I was in middle school one of the kids stabbed the principle in the arm with a sharpened pencil. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	chibi_chan 2009-10-19 12:52 pm UTC (link)
	At my high school they had to ban yo-yos because the wanna-be gangsters were using them as weapons (it was back during the time when those high-tech yo-yos were all the rage). Poor idiots couldn't pick out an adjective in a sentence, but they could come up with fifty ways in which Walk the Dog becomes choke that kid till he turns blue. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	urpletastic 2009-10-17 12:13 pm UTC (link)
	Sledgehammer, nut. Surely the appropriate response would be to (a) confiscate the object and (b) return it to the parents, informing them that if the child ever brought it to school again he would run the risk of being suspended? That's still zero-tolerance but nothing like as draconian. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	zyna_kat 2009-10-17 05:57 pm UTC (link)
	Yes, I was just going to post that suggestion. That's the perfect way to handle the situation -rationally- in keeping with the no-knife policy. Reform school, WTF? Great way to take a good kid and turn him into a problem. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	finchbird 2009-10-17 06:40 pm UTC (link)
	Stop using your common sense! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	finchbird 2009-10-17 06:40 pm UTC (link)
	I heard about this several days ago and still am going D: at the fact these asshats were going to send a six year old to a reform school. The zero-tolerance policies are bullshit. It isn't like clever young children can't figure out how to make common school items into weapons. I mean look at what the Joker did with a pencil! (Reply to this)

	velvet_mace 2009-10-17 07:19 pm UTC (link)
	This is why zero tolerance policies don't work. Taking the critical thinking out of judgement inevitably leads to stupidity and injustice. (Reply to this)

	agilebrit 2009-10-18 02:02 am UTC (link)
	And people wonder why I homeschool. Seriously, I have yet to read a news story about a public school that has changed my mind about this. I know they don't all suck, but damn. (Reply to this)(Thread)

*offers the secret homeschooler handshake*

spacelogic
2009-10-18 03:25 am UTC (link)

News stories are always sensationalized, though. I mean, there's a reason the only homeschoolers they like to give attention to are the religious fanatics, and it isn't that there are more of them than the sane kind. (I'm pretty sure there aren't.) Sure, bias against the minority accounts for some of that, but some of it's just that bad things are seen as the most newsworthy, and that applies to public-school coverage too.

That said, based on all the evidence I have, I agree with you.

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ardath_rekha
2009-10-18 07:13 am UTC (link)

This... just floors and confuses me so badly.

When I was in high school and on stage crew, most of us carried around utility knives and Swiss Army knives as a matter of course, and used them repeatedly during our work on sets. My ex-boyfriend from those days designed and built a broadsword in his shop class. Nobody batted an eye and nobody ended up dead.

I refuse to believe that "the kids today" are that much different from the way we were. I know some horrendous shit has happened in the past decade+ but I fail to see any correlation between a little boy who thinks his nifty knife-fork-spoon gadget is too cool not to show off to friends, and the kinds of antisocial lunatics who enter their schoolyard one day with automatic weapons.

Any solution that involves this little thought and these kinds of arbitrary penalties is likely to make the situation worse, not better.

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irised
2009-10-18 10:03 pm UTC (link)

When I was at college and had braces I used to bring knives to school to cut up my food with. I don't mean, like, butter knives. I mean sharp knives. How else could I eat apples? I wasn't allowed to bite into them. Frequently I brought long serrated knives, which I used to flash around freely as I butchered my apples and peeled my oranges. I got a real liking for eating with a knife and used to bring knives for fruit even after I had my braces off. My knife skill was such that I could peel an orange in one piece without breaking the peel! We used to joke about how I'd be arrested if I was in America :3 there was some story about a kid who got arrested for taking a butter knife to school ... I can believe it, reading this X.X goddamn, people. Just because it's called by the word 'knife' doesn't make it a fucking DEATH RAY KILLING IMPLEMENT. It's a blunt eating utensil! Good lord.

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	nifflet 2009-10-19 06:28 am UTC (link)
	Are you kidding? My (American) high school would not even tolerate plastic knives during lunch. I don't think they would kick you out for it, necessarily, but they weren't provided in the cafeteria, though forks and spoons were. I'm pretty sure an actual metal knife of any calibre would have gotten you a swift trip out the door. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

irised
2009-10-19 07:05 am UTC (link)

That level of knife phobia is just incomprehensibly amazing to me!

I'm sure it was possible for me to have gotten into some trouble for bringing longer knives it if maybe like, I dunno, some other kid was like "she has a weapon!" and caused a fuss ... I think I might remember someone getting into trouble for carrying a knife once, in the context that they were carrying it in a ~concealed weapon~ kind of way and threatening someone ... but I had them in my lunchbox, so yeah. I'm not a meat eater but the longest knives I brought were like those steak knifes people eat ... uh, steaks with. Just like, serrated for tomatoes instead. I also used to sharpen my pencils with my pocket knife in class now I think about it, I always had a pocket knife in my pencil case and I know other people had them at school. It was no biggie. I mean, I'm telling the story like 'lolz looks what I got away with' rather than 'this was the norm at my school we were all knife ninjas', but yeah XD when I offered people my pocket knife after they asked for a pencil sharpener it was like "you weirdo" not "omg knife" hahaha. It would have been stupid for them to go crazy on knives ... people who got hurt at school were beaten up with fists, not stabbed. And it's pretty hard to ban fists XD

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	ardath_rekha 2009-10-20 03:44 am UTC (link)
	Next up, running with scissors will become an expulsion-worthy offense for kindergartners. (Reply to this)(Parent)