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I note that Huffington Post is on this story as well and, with the exception of the posturing, are expressing outrage that equals yours.

What do you expect from a racist, kindergarten dropout?

Ooops...wrong story...

fuzzle do you mean maxipad?

The big reason why schools do this is to avoid lawsuits. If they dont and the kid stabs someone, they can get sued for millions.

Hence the joke: What do you call 1,000 lawyers at the bottom of the Ocean? A good start.

Of course anything can be a weapon. I saw many kids stabbed with pens and pencils when I went to school. They made shivs and shanks out of almost anything. One kid in metal shop made this nasty thing where he machine tooled a piece of metal with a long tapered pointy end. This was back in the early 80s. Then there were the stabbings during lunch using knives and forks in the cafeteria, but those were rare.

These zero tolerance policies have turned teachers and administrators into morons. Time to change them to common sense policies that allow administrators an option to exercise good judgment.

Farmer,

Yes, I believe I do...

Interesting that this is happening in Biden's state...

Forty-five days to a little 6 year-old is cruel and unusual punishment. I'm thinking civil rights violation here. The law was never intended to make us act like mindless morons which is exactly what these educators are.

Gee I wonder what kind of educational opportunities he'll get at a reform school. Probably come back a proper criminal after that.

I could only wish he comes back wearing a white hockey mask and carrying a machette. Serve 'em right. Asshats.

This country has turned into a total bunch of pussies.

My son's best buddy in high school got tossed on a weapons charge. The weapon..? a rubber band gun. The punishment... same as for a .44 mag and taking a couple shots at folks. Brilliant, just fucking brilliant.

Something similar happened to a young girl several years ago in Colorado. She mistakenly brought her mom's almost identical-looking lunch bag to school. At lunchtime, she looked inside and found a small paring knife. She then realized it was her mom's lunchbag. She did the honest thing. She told her teacher. She said it was her mom's lunchbag that looked similar if not exactly like hers. She didn't mean to bring a knife to school. She apologized to the teacher. It all went to hell after that. The teacher went ballastic. The teacher told the principal. The principal confiscated the knife and notified the girl's parents. The girl was called into the pricipal's office and she was eventually expelled from school. The news reports vented rage at the parents. The parents endured rage from other parents, including profanity-laced phone calls. All because of an innocent mistake and the honesty of a young girl. I believe this happened in Longmont. Longmont is located in Boulder County. Need I say more?

This more then an outrage. Why even have a principle if the rules are followed to the "T". What exactly is his job then? What is he getting paid for other then a big waste of taxpayers money. A principal should have the right to exercise judgement in all cases.
What is happening is these guys are going to school for over 5-8 years in college to become rule pushers and have no judgement at all in anything that goes on in their schools. That is not worth his salary to be a pencil pusher.
This is why our public school system is in such a bad state! When are we, the payers, going to have a say in this. To the extent that it can make a difference?

Reform school for a 6 year old? Seriously? This is obviously child abuse and all principals in this should be sued forthwith. For LOTS of dough. What if this child gets raped. Insanity rules.

Zachary's parents are apparently "going Galt" and home-schooling him. If there are many more of these stories, a lot of parents are going to be doing the same with their kids. If my daughter was still in public school, I would have pulled her out already.

Heck, with the resources of the internet and distance education what it is today, who needs government schools, and teachers and administrators who are alternately mindless automatons or left-wing shills?

Prediction: the public school system will collapse under the weight of its own incompetence in the next decade. Mmmm. Mmmm. Mmmm.

This is ridiculous. Is this child even old enough to understand why what he did was wrong, and why he is being punished?

Reform school? For a 6 yo? C'mon, how can that be enforced?
The other 'students' in his new school are there for drugs, rape, real weapons infractions etc and I doubt there are any other kids there even close to his age.

Its all a game of CYA by the teachers and staff. If some kid really commits a violent act and another kid is hurt later on then everybody will want to know why a 6 yo went to school with a knife with the lawsuits to follow. This way no decisions need to be made by staff and therefore no blame can be given to staff later on. Its got nothing to do with the kids at all! All those PhDs are just covering their tenured asses.

Posted by: Anonymous Countermoonbat at October 13, 2009 12:03 PM

I would argue that he did nothing wrong. He just isn't old enough to understand an adult's policy of paranoia.

This is ringing a similar tone to incident involving the little guy ( 5 or 6 maybe??) who got in trouble for kissing a girl he liked at school. Zachary seems perfectly charming and sincere in his expression of admitting what he did, but certainly with NO intent to do harm. What the real shame here seems to be is that Zachary has more character and moral fiber than any of the non-thinking and surely un-feeling idiots who are trying to send him to reform school ... perhaps he should stay home and be schooled by his obviously intelligent mother.
'Nuf said !!!

Common Sense - Don't expect them to use what they don't even teach. Just part of the wussification of America.

why he is being punished?

Short answer: progressive left statism. The whole philosophy behind zero tolerance is to deprive local administrators of discretion by creating a mandatory bureaucratic standard that, theoretically, treats everyone equally and is therefore "fair."

You see, if you let the localities use their discretion, who knows? They might be racist or something.

There you go, another issue of educated derelicts (which there are millions in this world)running the education oops.... indoctrination system. This poor kid is being subjected to this is unforgivable. Another excellent reason for school vouchers.

Liberals will get around to feeling sorry for kids like this when we stop picking on their heroes, people like say..... Roman Polanski. Besides. Liberalism is so ass backwards that they actually end up with lower moral standards than our prison population. Roman Polanski would be murdered in prison. Liberals would give him the key to their liquor cabinet and let him babysit their daughter.

Wow. I am shocked but at the same time I am woefully not surprised. Right0fReagan, let me tell you that I am a Ph.D. and a liberal and I am not like you describe at all. I am also appalled at the treatment of Zach just as you are. But please don't use this boy’s story to rant and rave about your right wing fringe opinions and wacky views. You and others like you are what is causing the division of the people of this country and making people like me afraid of the public process which includes such hateful spirits as you are demonstrating.

We don't agree about politics. OK, well let’s discuss why like civilized folks and in the end understand that there are other opinions and respect them. Everyone that disagrees with you is not some kind of crazy person, so chill out and contribute in a positive way.

Zachary is a boy that sets the highest standard for behavior as he presents himself on the news interviews. He would only be harmed if they insist on him going to a reform school. I would totally support

My message did not fully copy over. I was saying that I would totally support a protest of the school's administers and the local Board for letting this get so out of hand. Administrators are supposed to make decisions based on rational thouoght and should take in to account the specifics of the situation. OK zero tolerance is a factor, so simply place a statement in the boys file that he was educated on the issue and his punishment has been the actual visit to the principal's office and being educated on school policy. End of subject. Zero tolerance is respected and punishment has been delivered.

I also have a Masters in Education and with my understanding of child development what has already happened in this case flies in the face of good judgement.

I got just one question ......have ya been rehabilitated ?

He was cutting up his lunch, not other kids. If the kid took a cub scout knife to school it would suggest that he's a Cub Scout, i.e., in an organization wherein he's learning life skills, interacting with others, etc. Odds are that he's a good kid. At most, a teacher or principal should have held on to the knife for the remainder of the day, given it back as Zachary was going home, and instructed him to leave his cub scout knife at home in the future; this is the "sentence" I received when I did something similar around the same age. He's 6 years old, for Christ's sake! He does not deserve a month and a half in kiddy jail for a minor lapse in judgment.

I took a buck knife off a student last year. He forgot it was in his pocket when he put his pants on in the morning. I discretely gave it back to him at 4PM as he was boarding the bus. No big deal. No hurt, no foul. No incident, no paper trail. No LAWYERS!

I made a verbal report to my principal as a matter of courtesy. She, a conservative democrat, thanked me, but warned that my habit of bending the rules would someday land me in trouble. She was wrong.

I got in trouble when the great lady died in office (God rest her soul) and was replaced by a raving, lesbian feminist. Actually, I'm being rather kind. The new principal was a full-bore (boar?) Bolshevik ideologue with the word "purge" writ large in both eyes.

I barely survived her machinations; some of my colleagues did not. I can tell you now with certainty that there exists a cadre of traitors in this country who would rather rule the wreckage than build a future. Believe it.

I'm off now to a place you won't find on any map. I call it Galt's Redoubt. The location is secret. I'm forced to go by circumstances. The rest of you should prepare yourselves for the worst you can imagine.

Bolsheviks don't abandon power on the basis of an election result, or a constitutional mandate. When the tyrant is finally deposed, the result will be massive civil disorder. His slave constituency will rise willy-nilly to loot and burn our cities. The country folk will survive as they always have on a basis of self-reliance.

See you to it, brothers and sisters, see you to it. And God save the Republic!

PMSNBC describes that the Delaware school district's own moonbattery and fear of racism charges led to the stupid zero-tolerance policy this little 1st grade boy found himself embroiled with: "Christina, which, according to its Web site, is the largest school district in Delaware with some 17,000 students, made its policy zero-tolerance because of concerns over racial discrimination. Studies have shown in other districts that when school officials are given discretion over such cases, African-American students are disciplined at a disproportionately high rate.
A combination fork, knife, spoon and bottle opener is Zachary Christie’s favorite utensil — but it got him in trouble at school.
“The idea was to avoid discriminating against any student and to treat all students the same,” George Evans, president of the Christina school board, told NBC News." http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/33289924/ns/today-today_people/?gt1=43001

That is lunacy, you can't treat a six year old cub scout the same as a budding gangster, pure and simple. You have to have adminsitrators who can use their brains. If African American students were found by the educrats to be disciplined at a disproportionately higher rate, the first question should be are they engaging in a disproportionately higer rate of violence and delinquent activity. If that's true, its not discrimination to punish them disproportionately.

Tuesday night "The seven-member board voted unanimously to reduce the punishment for kindergartners and first-graders who bring weapons to school or commit other violent offenses to a suspension ranging from three to five days. Now, he could return Wednesday."

This is also stupid, it still preserves the zero tolerance policy just reducing it for younger kids. This particular child should not have to miss one day of school. The adminsitrators responsible for this stupidity, however, should each fired.

They should suspend that idiot principal and school board for the rest of the school year this is PC and ZERO TOLERENCE carried to the extremes of stupidness

You guys are really surprisingly moronic sometimes.

Zero Tolerance is a tough-on-crime, we don't want no excuses, throw-'em-in-jail CONSERVATIVE POLICY.

I don't know how many times you guys call for summary judgment on someone you don't like. But when someone actually does it, oh, it's those crazy liberals again!

Conservative parents pushed through Zero Tolerance, conservative associations advocate for it. When your failure to think is revealed for the stupidity that it is, don't make it worse by trying to blame others. You guys are responsible for this one.

There's such a thing as common sense. There would also be no need for zero tolerance policies were it not for Leftist influences in American culture in the first place.

I note that Huffington Post is on this story as well and, with the exception of the posturing, are expressing outrage that equals yours.
Posted by: Maxwell's Silver Hammer at October 13, 2009 9:43 AM

Why don't you show us the link and prove it then, instead of saying "I'll bet?"

You know (and this goes for your friends here, too)...if you don't like the show, why don't you just change the channel?

But please don't use this boy’s story to rant and rave about your right wing fringe opinions and wacky views. You and others like you are what is causing the division of the people of this country and making people like me afraid of the public process which includes such hateful spirits as you are demonstrating.
We don't agree about politics. OK, well let’s Everyone that disagrees with you is not some kind of crazy person, so chill out and contribute in a positive way.discuss why like civilized folks and in the end understand that there are other opinions and respect them.
Posted by: Kerry Colvin, Ph.D. at October 13, 2009 4:30 PM

Oh goody....another left-wing tool educated beyond his intelligence. It just goes to show that grad school doesn't impart common sense.

Another tool presuming to lecture US on "hate." I love how the Left constantly projects their own bigotry and prejudices onto others.

Here's a challenge for you, Spanky. Your edjamacated mind ought to be up for it. Why don't you show us where the "hate" is in highlighting a genuine example of a school bureaucracy run amok?

Because I don't see a lot of "discuss why like civilized folks and in the end understand that there are other opinions and respect them." I see a bunch of school administrators coming unglued over a little kid cutting up his lunch with a Scout knife. This is the very definition of overreaction.

I sure am sick of your type branding everyone who thinks different from yourselves as "haters."

Piss off, Lefty.

Zero Tolerance is a tough-on-crime, we don't want no excuses, throw-'em-in-jail CONSERVATIVE POLICY.

Zero Tolerance is a forget-the-context, forget common sense, LIBERAL POLICY.

I don't know how many times you guys call for summary judgment on someone you don't like. But when someone actually does it, oh, it's those crazy liberals again!

You mean like when you show up on a blog and start launching accusations of conservatives run amok, with no evidence that anyone of a conservative bent had anything to do with this incident?

Conservative parents pushed through Zero Tolerance, conservative associations advocate for it. When your failure to think is revealed for the stupidity that it is, don't make it worse by trying to blame others. You guys are responsible for this one.

Oh, I'd LOVE to hear this one explained.

Posted by: hey i'm a dumb ass at October 13, 2009 11:26 PM

Get a fucking life and buy a clue.

UPDATE: Zachary's suspension has been reduced to 4 or 5 days. A little over a thousand people attended the meeting at the elementary school last night, and the administrators were convinced that they should reduce the duration of the suspension in this particular case. He could return to school today.

Those that are suggesting that the black Superintendent, Dr. Marcia V. Lyles, or the black Mr. George Evans, President of the Board of Education, are nothing more than incompetent affirmative action beneficiaries unsuited to their posts, or that they are undeserving of their lavish six figure salaries are racists.

In post above by a certain Kerry Colvin, Ph.D., we learn the following:

"I ... have a Masters in Education"

This from a poster who writes:

"...I would totally support a protest of the school's administers ..."

"thouoght "

"OK zero tolerance is a factor, so simply place a statement in the boys file that he was educated "

"You and others like you are what is causing the division of the people of this country and making people like me afraid of the public process which includes such hateful spirits as you are demonstrating."

Kerry Colvin, Ph.D, you clearly have a doctorate in florid incompetence. It is frightening to think this nincompoop can go around requesting the honorific of "doctor" before his/her name, or that the poster may actually have a credential which permits him/her working within the education system in a position of authority.

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