The Idiocy of Zero-Tolerance Policy: Kid's Hat Banned Because of Toy Soldiers

Eight-year-old David Morales wanted to honor American troops, so he decorated a cap for his second-grade class assignment. Little did he know that he would run afoul of the school's zero-tolerance weapons policy:

Christan Morales said her son 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.

"His teacher called and said it wasn't appropriate," Morales said.

Morales' 8-year-old son, David, had been assigned to make a hat for the day when his second-grade class would meet their pen pals from another school. She and her son came up with an idea to add patriotic decorations to a camouflage hat.
Earlier this week, after the hat was banned, the principal at the Tiogue School in Coventry told the family that the hat would be fine if David replaced the Army men holding weapons with ones that didn't have any, according to Superintendent Kenneth R. Di Pietro.

The edumacators win again! http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iMXgWX1my2TrMvxt5JNxRShwyzBwD9GD9RV80 (Photo: WPRI)


I don't use this word lightly, but damn that is retarded.
Seriously? Banned b/c of those little green plastic guys carrying little green plastic guns. Wow..... just.. wow.
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All he had was "binocular guy" left because they stopped making "driving jeep" guy. :( Hopefully they do not know that "binocular guy" is actually surveying the field to call in an airstrike.

He should replace the little guns with little copies of the Second Amendment.

Good on Lt. Gen. Reginald Centracchio.
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Funny that I recently finished reading Superfreakonomics, where they make the argument that the women's liberation movement correlates to inferior teachers today. Case in point, see above. This teacher cares less about intellect teaching discretion than pleasing the ineffective politicians making up the senior management of the school district.
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Teach the little children how wrong weapons are and they'll grow up to teach their children the same thing... pretty soon only the police, mercenaries, military, and criminals (which may be a part of the previous three) have weapons. Stomp the little children who don't like being stomped on.
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"Teach the little children how wrong weapons are and they'll grow up to teach their children the same thing."

I'd be happy if that really happened, but teaching that guns are bad's not the idea. We have such a gun fetish culture in this country that schools come up with over-the-top rules like this to cover actual weapons and toys that look just like the real thing. The mindset behind the rules is the same as the one that comes up with idiotic three-strikes and mandatory minimum sentencing. If we can't leave judging to adults, it's not surprising that airtight rules get handed down to kids.
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my last post was supposed to have a picture of Cactus Jack making a gun out of his hand... the post was really funny with the picture.
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The problem is not that the student had army men figures with tiny plastic guns; the problem is that someone else pointed it out. A teacher can ignore a stupid rule such as a picky dress code easily enough, but when it's pointed out and whined about, then the teacher is forced to do something in fear of losing his/her job or being included in yet another indiscriminate lawsuit waged by angry parents who are self-righteously seeking vindication for whatever real or imagined slights they feel they've suffered under the "socialized oppression" the rest of us call "Public Education." When you have to deal with the entire socio-economic spectrum of children and parents from bottom-dwelling mouth-breathers to pompous and patronizing pricks, it's impossible to make everyone happy. Someone's always going to go home butt-hurt and blame the teachers or the administrators.

I didn't even research this particular case, but I'm willing to bet that someone is looking for "monetary restitution."
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the problem is, teachers can't think for themselves anymore! This zero tolerance policy has gone way too far! Let us support our men and women who are serving this country and those who died so we can have our freedom!
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Laws and rules are put in place and enforced so that teachers, police, social workers, soldiers, and just about everybody else, don't have to think. Just follow orders and you'll be fine.

Do what we tell you. Is that so hard to understand?
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"... the hat would be fine if David replaced the Army men holding weapons with ones that didn’t have any...". So we are to teach our children that Soldiers do not fight with guns?
"Well son...you see, your brother was in the desert playing hide-and-seek with the people from the desert- yes son, they were using binoculars - well while he was out there playing hide-and-seek global warming killed him" Is that what we should teach our kids? No way.
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Oy vey.

Yeah, these are the people we put in charge of teaching our children some wisdom via academics.

This is really a failure of zero tolerance policies as danced interpretively by klutzes.
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God. I know a guy who got suspended for having a zelda shirt that had link swinging a sword on it.
I would probably get suspended for having my finnish coat of arms necklace with me, it's a lion with a sword standing on a sword.
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Oh Max, spewing your venom so early in the morning. You are the stain on the matress. You are the turd in the punchbowl. You are what is expressed from dogs anal glands. Your mother must be so proud.
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@ e7C - the elementary school here has a playground rule of "no finger guns." I know of one child who was put into lunch detention because he tried to bypass the rule by saying it was a "laser pistol, and those do not exist". He had even made the "pew pew" noise. But "finger guns" are not allowed on the playground.
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Zero-tolerance policies are beyond idiotic. A kid at my high school was nearly expelled for almost the same thing. He found a tiny plastic gun in his jacket (like the toy soldier one) and a teacher found out.
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If teachers don't enforce the policies, they get fired. Considering almost all states are firing teachers right now, I'd be terrified about losing my job, too.

Administrators, seriously?! Zero-tolerance policies are just insane. We had a zero tolerance policy for rules in a certain section of the handbook at my high school, one of which was wearing boots with more than 20 "eyes". My friend glued googly eyes to her boots 21 on each. She was nearly suspended and was told that, technically, they could expel her.

This case reminds me of...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95594&page=1

Tweety chains are DANGEROUS!
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@frau, well of course that should be banned! I doubt anyone here would disagree... he needs to lower the settings from "pew" to "zap"
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This is stupid...I was brought up by social liberal parents who banned any sort of toy gun, bow, or sword in case it encouraged violent urges in me. I was nearly chucked out of school for fighting all the time, and my bros in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban!
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