[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xzRfR0Kgbc[/youtube]
Providence, RI – Christan Morales said her son David just wanted to honor American troops when he wore a hat to school decorated with an American flag and small plastic Army figures.
But the school banned the hat because it ran afoul of the district’s zero-tolerance weapons policy. Why? The toy soldiers were carrying tiny guns.
Full Story – HERE
Stories like this just give me a headache. I can’t believe the collective amount of time this incident seems to have already wasted for everyone involved.
Why do some people feel it is alright to make kids feel like crap over something so trivial. Poor guy.
Comments
13 responses to “Toy Soldiers Glued To A Hat Violates School’s Weapons Ban”
Damn. You can hardly call those guns anyway! I see no bolt, I see no trigger, hell, you can barely say there’s a barrel on those things. There is no way to tell if the soldiers are carrying tiny plastic guns or tiny plastic sticks.
At what point do we as a people get up and say, “That is enough. Your asinine policies are ruing our children.”
ugh no kidding… everything from pointing your fingers in the shape of a gun and saying “pew pew” to holding a stick like a gun appears to violate some stupid policy now.
Well, this is certainly pretty silly and asinine. But the reason I say it’s silly, and not ridiculous or outrageous, is that it sounds like the school wasn’t making a big deal out of it anyway. The school didn’t say, “You’re in big trouble; you violated the no weapons policy; we’re suspending you.” They just told him he couldn’t wear the hat as long as it displayed the army guys (or their weapons anyway). Like you said, it’s trivial. It was asinine to worry about little toy guns violating a policy, but I think it’s even more asinine to make a fuss over not allowing the hat.
-Teacher called the family house and talked to the parents
-Principal called the family to tell them he could replace the army men carrying guns with ones not carrying guns
-Superintendent, and principal met with the retired commander of the Rhode Island national guard to discuss the situation
phone calls, instructions, meetings… sounds like a big deal to me. A ban on drug imagery I can see.. but military imagery? I’ll have to agree with the Lt. Gen on this when he says “The American soldier is armed. That’s why they’re called the armed forces, If you’re going to portray it any other way, you miss the point.”
Did he get suspended, expelled, or disciplined in any way for what they deemed a violation of policy? No. They didn’t make a big deal out of it like the student who brought an empty, blank shotgun shell to school not too long ago.
“Teacher called the family house and talked to the parents.” – That’s not a big deal; they deserved an explanation of why he couldn’t wear it.
“Principal called the family to tell them he could replace the army men carrying guns with ones not carrying guns.” – The story doesn’t say that the principal called the family; it says that he told the family. I would think a reasonable assumption would be that the family was not satisfied with the teacher’s explanation and called the principal. So, there begins the family making a big deal out of it, instead of just conceding that the school has rules that need to be followed.
“Superintendent, and principal met with the retired commander of the Rhode Island national guard to discuss the situation.” – Do you suppose this was the school’s idea? Again, I’m certain that this was prompted by the parents making a fuss.
“A ban on drug imagery I can see.. but military imagery? I’ll have to agree with the Lt. Gen on this when he says ‘The American soldier is armed. That’s why they’re called the armed forces, If you’re going to portray it any other way, you miss the point.’” – They aren’t banning military imagery, they’re banning imagery of firearms. The two don’t HAVE TO go hand in hand. It reminds me of someone saying that since their local bar banned smoking that they also banned drinking, because he can’t drink without smoking.
The school has a clear ZERO-tolerance policy that prohibits any depictions of firearms or toy firearms, etc. You want to tweak that policy to allow depictions of firearms when they are related to something military. But what happens when a student comes to school wearing a t-shirt with a depiction of an Army Ranger on it, aiming and firing his weapon at the viewer of the shirt? Many would consider this to be a “violent” depiction of the use of a firearm, and it would seem to be pretty clearly contrary to the intent of the ban on firearm imagery (and other violent imagery). But the defense to wearing it becomes, “you have to allow it because it is a soldier carrying the firearm.”
I said it’s silly because it involves little plastic toy men. But, the school has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to depictions of weapons. I don’t know about you, but to me, “zero-tolerance” implies that there is no wiggle room, no exceptions – it either depicts a weapon, and is therefore a violation, or it does not. Sometimes you just have to obey the rules and deal with it. Like I said, he didn’t get in trouble, he just had to take them off his hat. The school didn’t make a big deal out it, the parents did.
I see what you mean.. the ban is about firearms and not military imagery like I said in my comment. I suppose like you said if the school “gives them an inch, they will take a mile” and there will be guns in a more violent context being worn on shirts. I guess I don’t really like the “ZERO” tolerance thing though because stupid bans like this happen. The bottom line is that the kid’s hat had small plastic green army men on it carrying small plastic guns, not an actual picture of an Army ranger pointing a gun etc…
The one problem that I can see with my way of thinking though, is that it becomes too vague… what do you allow, what don’t you allow? You can’t just pick and choose if there is no actual metric to go by. I guess that’s why either banning everything or allowing everything seems to be the way they do things most often.
Exactly why this country is going down the tubes. Crapola like this is beyond dumb. I will refrain from expletives for the school administration.
Just plain silly
Mike, you should do a followup article about how the kid was awarded a medal. :)
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/06/ap_soldier_hat_medal_061810/
Thanks for the link… I just posted about it.
Hey, I’m sure somebody somewhere has proven a link between tiny plastic soldiers and Columbine! That principal needs to be commended for his knee-jerk enforcement of the no tolerance policy.
yep, lives were definitely saved that day :roll:
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