And now for something completely different:
dailynews.yahoo.com
Wednesday January 31 6:59 PM ET
Boy Suspended for Pointing Chicken
JONESBORO, Ark. (AP) - An 8-year-old boy was suspended from school for 3 days after pointing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher and saying, ``Pow, pow, pow.''
The incident apparently violated the Jonesboro School District's zero-tolerance policy against weapons. The boy was suspended last week.
Kelli Kissinger, mother of first-grader Christopher, said she believed the punishment was too severe.
``I think a chicken strip is something insignificant,'' she said. ``It's just a piece of chicken. How could you play like it's a gun?''
South Elementary principal Dan Sullivan said he was prevented by law from discussing Christopher's suspension.
Sullivan said the school has zero-tolerance rules because the public wants them.
In March 1998, four students and a teacher were killed and 10 others wounded when two youths opened fire on a schoolyard at Jonesboro's Westside Middle School.
``People saw real threats to the safety and security of their students,'' Sullivan said.
A school discipline form provided by the boy's mother and signed by Sullivan says the child was suspended because he ``took a chicken strip off his plate, pointed it at (a teacher) and said 'Pow, pow, pow,' like he was shooting her.''
Sullivan said punishment for a threat ``depends on the tone, the demeanor, and in some manner you judge the intent. It's not the object in the hand, it's the thought in the mind. Is a plastic fork worse than a metal fork? Is a pencil a weapon?'' |
