An 8-year-old elementary school student in Georgia will be back in class today after serving a three-day suspension for allegedly crafting a weapon in school last week. The weapon in question? A few LEGO bricks put together in such a way that if you squint hard enough, it might vaguely resemble a gun.
The child’s mom reached out to local media after she was informed that her son had violated the school district’s weapons policy; a call that she says was completely unexpected
The mother said her son, who has autism and ADHD, did not threaten anyone or behave aggressively.
“My child did not go to school and say anything harmful or bad,” she said. “They could have simply explained to him, ‘Hey, we cannot build things that we think are a weapon or look like a gun.’”
She said she received a phone call from the school principal informing her that her son had brought a weapon to school.
“I was simply just in panic mode,” she said. “I was not sure what exactly he could have brought to school, because we don’t have any weapons or guns or anything at home.”
Now, this isn’t the first time that a kid has been suspended over making a gun shape out of LEGO bricks. We’ve even seen students suspended for taking a couple of bites out of their Pop Tart after school officials thought the resulting shape looked like a gun. In that case, the parents sued and the school district ultimately settled with the family after more than three years of litigation.
I don’t know if Chanti Little is planning a lawsuit of her own after the LEGO-related suspension, but at the very least the school district really needs to rethink and revisit its current policy.
While the Henry County School District said it could not comment on individual student disciplinary matters, a district spokesperson provided a statement saying, “The Henry County Board of Education’s Code of Conduct defines various levels of infractions, and school administrators consult these definitions in using their discretion to determine student consequences. In addition to consequences based on the level of violation, multiple violations during a school year could result in more severe consequences.”
So we can’t even blame this on a one-size-fits-all “zero tolerance” policy that doesn’t allow administrators any leeway. According to the district’s own statement, administrations get to use their discretion when determining the “consequences” for a student’s actions. It sounds like a principal could have ignored this entire situation, or simply have cautioned the student to be careful about what they create because some people might take it the wrong way.
Unless Little’s story leaves out some damning details, there was simply no reason for any administrator to escalate this non-issue to a three-day suspension… creating a national news story out of something that could have been handled with just a few words of instruction if necessary.
I understand the need for caution in school environments these days, but this was nothing more than security theater. If the school really thought this kid was a threat, or that his LEGO creation was a cry for help, administrators would have treated this even more seriously; calling mom in for a conference, or perhaps an evaluation with a counselor employed by the district before he could return to class. A three-day suspension sounds like more of a bureaucratic box-checking (and CYA) exercise to me… and one that will hopefully prompt an outcry at the next school board meeting from parents who expect school officials to show some common sense in the future.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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