Well, another contender for the Darwin Award has surfaced at Southeast Elementary in Brighton, Colorado, where a 5-year-old kindergartner was suspended from school for “bringing a gun on campus.” Yep, she did. A princess bubble blowing gun! It’s clear plastic with pink accessories and a bottle of bubbles attached to it. This tops the little boy who was suspended for chewing his Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun and was immediately suspended.
What has happened to the common sense in our world and in our schools? This is absolutely absurd! The poor little girl was so shaken by this that when her “sentence was over,” she wanted to stay home with mommy and clean house because she was afraid to go back to school. When did it become OK for the punishment become worse than the crime? Oh, yeah, I forgot. This is America. Land of the free, home of the over-reactors! Nathan Woodlif, the executive director of the ALCU of Colorado says, “This is a silly example of a very real problem. Zero Tolerance policies often mean zero common sense.”
The 5-year-old took her bubble gun out of her backpack to show her friends when a faculty member became “aware of the dangerous weapon on school grounds” and called her mother to tell her to come pick her daughter up, saying she had been “suspended immediately.”
What is happening? What kind of teacher would do that? This poor child. I have no answers and a million questions. Look, I appreciate trying to keep our kids safe, I really do, but there needs to be some common sense. It blows bubbles!
Susan Martin
Everett
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