In yet another show of zero tolerance policy, administrators at one central Ohio middle school sent a fifth-grader home for three days for shaping his fingers like a gun and pointing them at another student’s head.
The suspended boy’s father accused the administrators of acting childishly, and going overboard with the punishment, The Associated Press reported. The boy, 10, said he was “just playing around,” AP said.
But district spokesman Jeff Warner said to The Columbia Dispatch that Devonshire Alternative Elementary School principal Patricia Price has warned students on several occasions to not test the no-gun play rule — and that the student who was suspended should have known better.
Mr. Warner said the boy actually held his finger up to the other boy’s head and acted as if he were pulling the trigger, “kind of execution style,” AP reported.
In May, an 8-year-old Maryland boy was suspended for violating a Maryland school’s zero tolerance policy by chewing his Pop Tart into the shape of a gun. And a couple weeks ago, two 11-year-olds in Flint, Mich., were arrested on disorderly conduct for bringing a toy gun to their elementary school.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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