Resolution, years later, in boy’s suspension over ‘pastry gun’

By Donna St. George

The Washington Post

A long-running student discipline case involving a Maryland boy who was suspended after he chewed a pastry into the shape of a gun and aimed it at his classmates has ended with a settlement between school officials and the child’s family.

Neither side would discuss the terms of the agreement, but the recent resolution brought closure to a three-and-a-half-year struggle that inspired legislative efforts regarding student discipline in several states and came to be known as “the Pop Tart case.”

It all started Mar. 1, 2013, when a 7-year-old allegedly misbehaved during the morning breakfast period in his class at Park Elementary School in Anne Arundel County, Md.

“Look I made a gun!” he yelled out, showing off a nibbled-up pastry bar and pointing the imaginary weapon at students in nearby desks and a hallway.

The boy, then a second-grader, was suspended for two days, which his family described as an overreaction. “It was harmless,” his father, William “B.J.” Welch, told The Washington Post in 2013. “It was a danish.”

The boy – who has ADHD, according to his parents – served his suspension and the family filed an appeal, asking that the incident be cleared from his school records. Their request was turned down by the county’s superintendent of schools, a hearing examiner, the county school board, the state board of education and a circuit court judge.

The parents did not give up, and the school system did not back down. The boy who once wielded a strawberry-filled pastry grew older; he’s now 11 years old, in middle school.

The Welches have long argued that the incident unnecessarily tarnished his school files. The boy’s disciplinary referral uses the word “gun” four times.

“It’s a mark on his record for something that doesn’t need to be there,” his father said in an interview in June. “There’s just a lot of unknowns, and I don’t want something that could potentially debilitate his future.”

But the school system successfully argued that the case was never about a pastry or a gun, but rather an ongoing behavioral problem. They said the boy disrupted the classroom repeatedly and the suspension came as a last resort.

“We had not been able to make him understand that he had to follow the rules,” Sandra Blondell, principal at the boy’s school, said at a hearing in 2014 that lasted more than six hours. The incident, she said, was “probably the 15th or 20th time there was a classroom disruption.”

The Maryland State Board of Education sided with Anne Arundel in 2015, saying the school had used “progressive intervention ” and that the suspension was justified “based on the incident in question and the student’s history.”

The case came 11 weeks after the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., which claimed the lives of 20 children and six staff members and heightened sensitivities about guns, even imaginary ones. In the Washington region, several young children were suspended from school for pointing their fingers like guns, or having play guns.

Florida lawmakers invoked the Maryland incident as they passed a Pop Tart law to limit zero-tolerance at schools, including discipline for “brandishing partially consumed pastry” or other food to simulate a weapon.

The resolution of the case followed the family’s latest appeal, to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. Both sides agreed to participate in mediation, and a judge-mediator, Thomas L. Craven, helped forge a settlement, which was signed last week, said Robin Ficker, the family’s lawyer.

“The matter has been settled,” Ficker said. He could not comment further under the terms of the settlement. Welch also said he was barred from making a comment.

Anne Arundel County schools spokesman Bob Mosier confirmed the settlement but declined further comment.

Kaitlin Banner, a senior staff attorney with the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization active on school discipline issues nationally, said student misbehavior often points to deeper issues that need to be addressed and that out-of-school suspension does not resolve such problems. She also expressed concerns about student missteps appearing on school records throughout a child’s academic career.

“This is an example of how far the overreach of school district policies can be,” Banner said.

Maryland State Senator J.B. Jennings, who sponsored an unsuccessful bill aimed at limiting such disciplinary actions, said he was glad for the resolution.

“The fact that the family has had to spend three and a half years to do what they felt was right for their child is wrong,” he said.

Earlier this year, when the family lost an appeal in Circuit Court, Anne Arundel County school officials said the decision in their favor showed the school system acted appropriately.

“We have believed from the outset that the actions of the school staff were not only appropriate and consistent with Board of Education policies and school system regulations, but in the best interests of all students,” said Mosier, the school system spokesman.

Ficker, the family’s attorney, argued at the time that school leaders should be able to deal with a 7-year-old in-house. “It would be different if this was a 17-year-old and he was threatening physical harm,” Ficker said.