[post updated below]
Sit back and let me tell you a story about a little girl. She’s five years old and she’s in kindergarten at Bonham Elementary School in Sissonville, West Virginia. One day, her teacher handed out scissors to the class. Did they look like this?
No, they looked more like this:
When the teacher wasn’t looking, someone cut the lip of a boy in the class. Luckily, he didn’t require any medical attention, and he didn’t have to go home. Despite the fact that the teacher had not seen it happen, the girl was accused of cutting the boy’s lip. The school held a disciplinary hearing, and the girl was found guilty of possession of a deadly weapon and threatening to injure another student. She was expelled from school for ONE YEAR. If the parents agree to send their five-year-old daughter to a psychiatrist and the girl receives a “favorable report,” she may be able to return to school sooner.
The story’s so nuts that Dr. Phil has already asked the girl’s parents to appear on his show. They haven’t decided yet if they’ll do it, but from what the father is saying, it sounds like their decision might depend on whether or not they can get the school to reverse its decision.
His wife is pregnant and dealing with a lot right now, so Harper is not sure what they’ll do in terms of appearing on television.
“If I’ve got to go nationally about it, then I will,” he said.
Here’s a question: Is the school planning to punish the kindergarten teacher for furnishing a student with a deadly weapon? HA! Of course not.
The school system’s attorney says:
When a student uses an instrument to intentionally injure another child, we take that seriously.
When a teacher gives students sharp, pointy instruments and allows them to use the sharp, pointy instruments without supervision, do they take that seriously? Silly me, I thought the point of schools handing out rounded safety scissors to children was to make sure no children would be injured. How is the school’s/teacher’s negligence the fault of a five-year-old girl? And why on earth does she require psychiatric care (assuming she’s even the one who did it)?
Here’s another question: If a gym teacher gave a bunch of five-year-olds baseballs and a boy hit another kid with one, causing only minor injury, would the school expel him and recommend psychiatric treatment? HA! Silly rabbit, don’t you know boys will be boys? Oh, and I should add in my example that the gym teacher was busy organizing kickballs or something, so nobody actually saw the boy do it, so nobody can be sure it was even him, and if it was him, nobody can be sure whether or not he hit the other kid on purpose. Expulsion? Psychiatric treatment?
Unless there’s some major detail that is being left out of this story, I’m flabbergasted.
UPDATE, 10/23/07: After being evaluated by a psychologist who said she’s not a danger to other students, the girl is back in school today, after being out for six weeks. I hope her parents didn’t have to pay for the visit to the psychologist.
WTF? This is ridiculous.
Thanks for pointing out the inherent sexism in this incident. Something didn’t seem quite right to me now, and this was it.
Thanks!
Laurel
“It’s kind of like blaming a gun for killing someone,” Withrow said. “If I misuse a pencil, it can be deadly.”
So… according to this, it would be cool for teachers to hand out handguns, so long as the kids didn’t misuse them?
She’s what? FIVE? Aargh!
They should ban all pointy objects from schools. Children should fingerpaint the answers to questions on soccer balls… better make that tether balls.
It’s a red-letter season for education here in the Mountain State.
They’d hang each other with the tether.
I wonder though. Could this be the last of a long line of events of a kid that the school couldn’t control? Usually when something like this comes out the school has their hands tied and can’t comment on the story until much later than the 48 hour newscycle due to privacy concerns and the like. Usually there is more going on than the media reports.
Well, I did consider that possibility, which is why I said “unless some major detail is being left out.”
But she’s back in school now based on a psychologist’s evaluation that she’s not a danger to other students (see my update), so I’m guessing she doesn’t have a long string of incidents like this.
A very good point!