All right, I'm done with school administrators. It isn't funny or cute anymore. Line 'em up against the wall and shoot 'em.

Frankly I am beginning to lose patience with the parents and communities who keep putting up with this crap. Enough with all the crybabying about how mistreated your poor kids are, and just DO something the fuck about it. These schools are paid for by YOUR taxes and the administration works for YOU. If the best anyone can do is sit around and complain, and not - at the very least - pull their kids out of those sorry-assed schools and put them in private ones, then I guess they are getting the school systems they deserve.

This is what happens when parents cede their childrens' rights at the schoolhouse door.

End the Department of Education. End the government school system. End the teachers unions.

And get the whiny liberal bitches who came up with this whole scheme, line them up against the wall, and shoot them.

The revolution is here.

Un-fucking-believable. That knife looks like one of those safety knives that I let my 8 year old use to carve pumpkins. You couldn't cut skin with that unless you sawed back and forth for ten minutes! In comparison, I was a dangerous badass back in high school. I carried around razor-sharp exacto knives that could have easily slit someone's throat. I was an art student and it was a required tool.

amen Brian, the revolution is closer than most people think

So...I can't ever set foot on school property? I pack a Leatherman multitool on my belt, and a lock back knife. Not that model, but similar.

Does this mean I'm an armed and dangerous criminal? and for reference, I carried a Swiss Army knife all throughout my high school years. Come and get me, coppers! You'll never take me alive!

As for lining certain people up and shooting them, sadly that's a waste of ammuntion that you'll need for the coming zombie apocalypse.

Just sayin'. Maybe take 'em out with rusty spoons?

I'm just trying to figure out the whole train of thought here.

- School administration: Well, we must protect our students from dangerous weapons. Therefore, we will ban them and expel those caught with them. To apply this rule fairly (and protect ourselves from lawsuits), "dangerous weapon" will be defined by us, and intent will be ignored. The parenthetical phrase, of course, is of paramount importance.

- Parents: Students are bringing dangerous weapons to school! Mabel told me one boy brought a machete! He had it in his book bag! Somebody has to do something about this. About other people's kids, I mean.

I dunno, it just seems like every time we hear about something like this, it boils down to somebody trying to cover his or her posterior.

A coming revolution? You must be kidding.

For every person who is rightfully angered by this ridiculous situation, there are ninety-nine others who have no idea what is going on and don't care, because they view their child's school as taxpayer-sponsored daycare.

Maybe there are a few communities scattered here and there that aren't full of these complete mouth-breathing dullards. But this school obviously is not in one of those communities, or this shit wouldn't be happening in the first place.

Birth control in the water ...

These schools are paid for by YOUR taxes and the administration works for YOU. If the best anyone can do is sit around and complain, and not - at the very least - pull their kids out of those sorry-assed schools and put them in private ones, then I guess they are getting the school systems they deserve.

Private school here is about $8000 a year. Our taxes are roughly $8-20,000 a year and up depending on which part of our town you live in. My daughter wants to go to private next year despite us living in a very good school district and while I'd like to send her, I doubt I can afford it and it shouldn't have to be an option.

Years ago my son was getting bullied. Despite character education in the school teaching them to stand up to the bullies and constant communication between me and the teacher, the bully essentially got away with it. A kill list was found in his desk in the 5th grade and he was suspended. Enter his very wealthy lawyer parents, and cute little Damian was back in school the next day to terrorize the rest of the 5th graders. I am not one to sue people but did threaten my own law suit because my son was one of the ones being terrorized. The school did not bat an eye. Instead I told my son he was allowed to as well as expected to defend himself and anyone else he witnessed getting bullied which he did. He knocked the bully on his ass and ended up suspended due to the no tolerance for violence policy, I explained to him that life isn't always fair and that sometimes the bullies do get away with it despite all of the character ed programs in the school. I spent a nice day out with my son and rewarded him greatly for standing up for himself and for the other kid the bully was targeting. The bully never bothered him again.

The rich parents did contact me and threatened to sue me for my son's behavior. I told them I'd welcome their law suit and the chance to discuss their son's behavior in a public arena. I have never been served.

And just for the record, I'm not one to react with violence or teach violence, but I don't consider defending oneself violence.

Idiocy at its finest, it would appear. But the parenthetical thought up above about covers it. No one wants to be the first to use common sense if everyone else isn't.
Shootin's too good for 'em - stick 'em in the ground up to their necks, and let the kids play Whack-a-Head with 'em!

Here's the rub - a lot of parents actually approve of this sort of thing, or at least see it as a necessary evil. I know plenty of parents w/ school aged kids who freak out over any incident like this, even if there was no threat. They can't handle the idea that there's anything like a knife in school. So while the administrations response seems crazy, it's exactly what a lot of people want to see happen. They just want to make it go away.

It's very difficult to reason with parents who think this way, in my experience. Because they want you to prove that something bad could never happen if there's a knife, or whatever, accessible to the kids.

For those who didn't follow the links, here is what appears to be the applicable law:

"It shall be a Class 1 misdemeanor for any person to possess or carry, whether openly or concealed, any BB gun, stun gun, air rifle, air pistol, bowie knife, dirk, dagger, slungshot, leaded cane, switchblade knife, blackjack, metallic knuckles, razors and razor blades (except solely for personal shaving), firework, or any sharp‑pointed or edged instrument except instructional supplies, unaltered nail files and clips and tools used solely for preparation of food, instruction, and maintenance, on educational property."

Seems to me that she should be fine. In fact, she and all her friends should have the guts to insist on carrying a paring knife every bloody day.

Kristen, where do you live? Your taxes are insane. And for as much as you are paying, you seem to keep getting steamrolled by the school you have your kids in. Yet you still feel it is a good school district.

Most people seem to think they are in a good school district, but no one knows anything other than the gubmint school system they have always had. The bully shouldn't have been allowed back in.

Where are the other parents in your neighborhood? Aren't they as disgusted with the status quo as you are?

Seems like there's also a Fourth Amendment issue here, unless she actually consented to the search, which consent is not apparent from the article.

Since it was her lunchbox, it sure seems like there'd be a reasonable expectation of privacy under existing precedent, and unless there was some specific reason for searching her belongings (in the suggested "for drugs" case, a specific reason to imagine that she particularly would have some) that would not qualify as a basis for a search.

If the facts are as they appear, she should contact the ACLU and/or a private lawyer. Especially if ARG is correct about the statute, she might even consider suing the police department - cops, and especially district attorneys, are supposed to know the damned law they're charging you under.

I can excuse an initial arrest based on "hey, that's a weapon in school and we know those're illegal", but there's no excuse for charges being filed. There's more than enough time to have actually looked up the statute's wording... and I'm pretty sure the formal process of the charges involves referencing the statute.

(And that statute ARG quoted is a wonderful example of insipid laundry-list bans that reveal the utter cluelessness of the drafters.)

At Christmas I was talking to my relatives and found out my nephew (and some of his friends) were almost suspended for the rest of the year for playing a game in which they made pistol shapes with their hands and saying Phew! Since it was only reported by another student (and not witnessed by an adult) all they got was the parents called in and a strong talking to.

I wish I could say I was shocked, but I wasn't. Justs seems like the way things are.

Sigivald,

Odds are she won't have much if any of a 4th ammendment case. Courts have ruled that the schools are "in loco parentis" when the kids are on the grounds. Thats how they get around locker searches, drug testing and the drug searches.

As for the DAs charging and not reading the statutes, well I wish her luck. She would be best fighting that in the court of public opinion to get the DA to drop charges.

Not a parent. So I just have to repeat a question I've asked here before: is this stuff reeeeeaaly going on? Seriously?

You are paying the school administration plenty to exercise professional judgement. You are being defrauded.

Show up at your school board meeting and make an issue of it if you don't get satisfaction first. Pulling your kids out of the school you still have to pay for won't do it. They don't care about your kid. They've got your money.

My son was going to be suspended for fighting after he was repeatedly hit in the back of the head for no reason by a kid on the bus. The kid's parent actually had the nerve to complain that my son defended himself. I told him (the parent), the school police officer, and the principal that I wanted to press charges and that they had better keep the tape of the incident from the camera on the bus for the trial.

The suspension was cancelled on the spot.

Let me admit there were complications for the school. My son is half Asian and I was fully prepared to go to government and the newspapers if I got no satisfaction from the school. They considered their options and decided to see things my way.

Lest you think I overreacted, one of my son's classmates suffered serious injury from being slammed into a wall locker. This was over a decade ago, and the poor kid still has physical problems from the attack.

I've been out of school for six years. During that time and place, boys were expected to carry pocket knives. The school assembly at the beginning of the year made statements such as, "If you carry your knife in your pocket, we don't have a problem, because no one but you knows it's there. If you take it out and start showing it to people, then that's a problem and there are rules"

In my art class, we all brought in a small knife for soap carving.

Guess what? No one got stabbed. No one even cut themselves when chiseling silly things out of soap.

I'm saddened that idiots in this world have made it where I can't raise my kids in the same world I grew up in.

I can excuse an initial arrest based on "hey, that's a weapon in school and we know those're illegal",

There's no excuse for an arrest. It was not a weapon; it was a paring knife. It should not be too much to ask school administrators to exercise common sense. These miserable fools are nuts. They should be fired.

Many people...especially "progressives" and bureaucrats...increasingly assign moral agency to *objects* rather than to *individuals*. This showed its ridiculousness when the arming of airline pilots was first mooted, shortly after 9/11, and many commentators and others reacted with horror. One TV personality, for instance, said it would make her "nervous" to know that the pilot of her plane had a gun.

We have now gone beyond mindless stimulus-response reaction to the category "gun" to even more mindless stimulus-response reaction to the category "weapon," where the category is defined to include paring knives....

Pirate Jo, I live on Long Island and the taxes here are crazy, especially in waterfront towns on the north and south shore. There are parents like the rich lawyers who think their children can do no wrong and then normal parents like myself. I have lived in other parts of Long Island and came back here because the school district is one of the better ones on Long Island. I would love to leave and not pay the high taxes but my ex lives here too so moving the kids out of NY is not an option but trust me, I agree that the taxes are crazy!

"a lot of parents actually approve of this sort of thing, or at least see it as a necessary evil. "

We'll take care of them next, as soon as we're done with the school administrators. Assuming we have any ammo left.

Think about what these kind of policies mean: No one is allowed to exercise any kind of judgment any more.

When law and policy are used to cover every possible situation, then no man thinks for himself. We're not just over-lawyered and over-legislated, we're treated like children by the state. Someone else is always deciding for us.

So, neither the teacher nor the principal can exercise any judgment about whether this girl is a danger to others---even though they're employed on the presumption that they're experts in dealing with children. Instead, an administrator or legislator who never actually interacts with students decides for everyone. Disgusting.

This is one of the many reasons I homeschool my younger daughter. I got very tired of the running battle I had during my eldest daughters' school years, and promised Squeaker that she would not suffer the same fate. (The Mermaid and Squeaker are my kidlings online personas)
She graduates this year, and I couldn't be happier both with her progress as a civilized human being, and her love of learning that would no doubt have died a horrible death in the publik skool system.

I couldn't be happier both with her progress as a civilized human being, and her love of learning that would no doubt have died a horrible death in the publik skool system.

Well now, as a public school grad with a "love of learning," I don't think that's fair to say. :)

I do think that this story is ridiculous though. This poor kid is going to have to explain this on every college application, and she's getting robbed of her senior year. If I were her classmate, I'd try to organize a protest whereby every single student brings a paring knife in his/her lunch box every day.

Also, it may be worth noting the superintendent's response:

http://lee.schoolfusion.us/

No matter what though, I can't see how any student could do damage with a paring knife.

Amy, the embedded video at the WRAL web site has several shots of the lunch box in question. It's actually a cloth bag, not a box. But it's definitely not a purse. The report claims that she is now taking her courses online from a community college, which should be easy to verify. Someone is telling a bare-faced lie. I'm not sure who it is yet, but I have my suspicions.

I am all for common sense, but let me add this. Imagine a scenario where two different students get caught doing the same rule-breaking and get different punishments. Will Johnny Quarterback get off easy so he can play the big game? Will Scotty Smartmouth get a harsher sentence even though he and Johnny were doing the same thing? Is the punishment difference because of skin color? Sex? Money? Popularity? GPA?

It is all well and good until it is your kid that is getting a different, harder punishment for the same infraction as a kid that gets off lightly. Prove that intent.

There's a big can of worms here.

Regarding the 4th amendment issue, whuile it sucks that students dont have 4th amendment protectoin in public schools that seems to be the current legal rule.

However I would argue that as the luch box was not the students property but her fathers that she did not have the legal right to surrender her fathers 4th amendment rights and neither did the school have cause to search property not belonging to a student

You'd have to stab somebody just about 150 times with that thing in order to do any real harm, LOL!

"Here's the rub - a lot of parents actually approve of this sort of thing, or at least see it as a necessary evil. I know plenty of parents w/ school aged kids who freak out over any incident like this, even if there was no threat. They can't handle the idea that there's anything like a knife in school. So while the administrations response seems crazy, it's exactly what a lot of people want to see happen. They just want to make it go away."

I hope these parents get themselves sheared on a regular basis. Overgrown wool coats are so unseemly...

Appologies for the length of this reply, but I think this is appropriate.

This is a post I made in 2007 in response to the umpteenth bomb scare at my daughters' school. The difference then was that the admin actually handled the situation competantly, but that was then, this is now.
I'm one Pissed off Parent

Current mood:angry

Today there was a bomb threat at my daughter's school. One of a wave across the country, it was handled competently by school administrators and police, while frightened children called their parents for rides home. I explained to my little Drama Princess that the likelihood that this was a credible threat was very low (I mean, c'mon, the first nice spring Friday? Who'd a thunk it?) and from what she described of the activities of the officials, they believed it was a hoax as well. She calmed down, went back to class (only a half day today anyways) and ended up having one of those blow-off days where nothing gets done and you just hang with your friends.

You could ask why I didn't drop everything and rush up there to get her. If I had thought there was a slight chance of this being the real deal, I would have been there in a heartbeat. I understood from all the information and common sense that this was a hoax, perpetrated by some smacktard who wanted a long weekend, and I wasn't about to let my kid learn to live in fear of these sorts of things. No, I want her to be a member of the Pack, not the Herd. I want her to think it thru, and not panic, so that if the real thing ever confronts her, she will be able to act, and not freeze in fear. Nothing can ever truly prepare us for coming face to face with evil, but doses of common sense may help. (That's my theory, anyways)

I have a message for the Artards who pull this crap, as well. When you are caught, and you will be, I hope that you are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and then they write new ones just for you. You are not cool, you are not Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius, you will not get your 15 minutes of fame by either hoax, or God forbid truly planning something heinous.

You think you have been picked on, abused, been made miserable by "those bullies"? And that somehow gives you the *right* to snuff out the lights of people who have never done anything to you, to take away the precious gift that God gave of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness that we all possess? MY ARSE! You are the one abusing yourself, wallowing in your self-pity, eating yourself alive with your envy, unable to improve your situation because you don't have the guts, initiative, motivation, or are just plain lazy. You want to find the bully ruining your life, go look in the mirror Boyo. You want to make things better? Hey, that will take work, and something that you have obviously not thought of, HELP.

Yes, you need help, and lots of it. Not that namby pamby feel good krep, you need to get to the bottom of the well of self-pity, and plug it up, so that it runs dry. You need to get to the point where what you have is good, and what you do is what you like, and stop worrying about what the kid 3 doors down is doing. Talk to people, if the first person doesn't work out, keep trying.

Or not. And if you don't, I hope you find the deepest, darkest hole you can and crawl in, because our society is not going to tolerate your pathetic, whiny but violent cries for attention anymore.

From Pajamas Media, the school board is holding an emergency meeting today concerning Smithwick's case. Looks like the media coverage has got them spooked. Rats always run when you turn the light on.

Well, the meeting was a big "fuck you" to the citizens... they convened the meeting, immediately announced that they were going into closed session, left the room, came back later, and adjourned the meeting without making any statement about what took place. They made no official statements and accepted no comments from the public.

And it turned out that Superintendent Moss, in his previous job in another county, bankrupted the system he supervised.