4th grader suspended for pretending to have the One Ring

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Unless he's the worlds youngest Mafia hit man, him wanting to make the other kid disappear forever is harmless. Kids are allowed to hate other kids, kids are allowed to wish they could make them disappear forever. Even if he really wanted to do that and really thought that he could do it, so what? It's not like he's a 19 year old who thinks he can do it, so he's harmless. It's kids and their imagination. Kids are allowed to feel that way.

When I was a kid, after church, we would sometimes drive from Texas across Oklahoma to Kansas to eat Sunday Dinner.

We had one instance a couple of years ago when a kid forgot to take a shotgun shell out of his pocket before going to school on Monday morning. If I remember right, when he realized that it was there, he dropped it off at the school's office for them to dispose of it. With the no tolerance laws in Texas, the school was required to suspend him. They were very apologetic about it, but they were required to do it.

I got into a debate with one high school teacher about fifteen years ago over prescribed drugs. There had been a recent case where an asthmatic girl who was prescribed an inhaler died when her airways choked up. I don't know if the inhaler would have saved her, but the school would not permit her to carry it on school grounds because it was a drug. The high school teacher I was talking to thought that the schools prohibition was legitimate! They can't even distinguish between drugs prescribed by a doctor for specific purposes and illegal drugs.

I think I remember that story from a few years ago and I thought the school should be charged and who ever wouldn't let her carry that inhaler with murder. I would have panicked if I were in that situation and someone tried to take something from me that is a life saver. I would have just wanted to call home or walk out of that building. I would rather be out in the weather than risk dying.

Reading things like this, makes me rather glad that I am no longer in school. Furthermore I don't have to put up with this kind of nonsense.

and i suppose all of those ridiculous unwarranted suspensions go on a permanent record, where they are proudly displayed for every future institution to see, if he may transfer or when he graduates? i would like to see if he can be 'forgiven' for those suspensions if any possible future school/school district is less despotic.

noo!

i'm trying, right now, to comprehend why a student would be disciplined for bringing his own book with him. although, there may be a slight gleam of justification if it had sexually explicit content, but that is extremely doubtful for a children's science textbook. but even that should not warrant a suspension.
in 5th grade, i was once threatened with a meet with the principal for a simple doodle of sperm on an egg.

He was just having fun. I was like that in fourth grade, and I still am. I'm now 13.

The key word is imagination.

What if the kid had a real live gun?

I realize this was probably just make believe. I'm just thinking about this from an adult level treating a child as an adult. Perhaps there are some children who do wish to do harm. Perhaps this child had aggressive behaviors beyond this playful imagination that would warrant some sort of discipline.

In any case, I don't think suspension solves anything, and I don't actually think children usually have these types of thoughts. I mean do they? Would a child actually want to kill another? I know I never felt that way as a child. Just trying to explore every possibility.

This might sound rather stupid to other but it's sometimes hard for me to get in the mind of other people.

We had that problem with the inhaler with my older daughter in middle school. They insisted on keeping it in the office and when my daughter needed it, it might be several buildings and three floors away. That's not that much of a help. I solved the problem by leaving one in the office for her to use if she was near there, and having her carry another one in the zipper part of her purse inside her makeup bag to use discretely if she had to and couldn't get to the office. She had to use it a few times, and just went to the bathroom and did it. It's not like they search kids purses routinely there, although she did have hers searched a few years later when a lighter fell out and got suspended because she had two motrin in a bottle that I had sent with her to take after lunch for her cramps. The principal called me in when he suspended her and apologized profusely and said that it was stupid and that he had to do that and he thought that she should of course be able to carry it but because others saw it, he couldn't just tell her that the school says not to do it and if it's seen by others he has no choice but to suspend her. He gave her three days and from then on she made sure to keep anything like that in the zipper part of her purse, in a makeup bag.

Most parents in that situation do the exact same thing, and lots of girls carry things that way. I don't know how boys could carry something like that though, maybe in a jacket pocket that has a zipper or a pants pocket.

If the school board was ran by people who still possessed common sense, I could have left a bottle of motrin in the office or with the nurse for her, and she could have gone and gotten some when she needed it. The new law that year though was that even OTC meds must be prescribed by a doctor and have a prescription label on them and be accompanied by several signed forms with detailed instructions on the administration of such dangerous drugs, and would have to have whatever problem she had listed for her to be able to get motrin for it. In other words her doctor would have had to write a note saying she could take motrin for cramps and headache and that would be fine, but if she went to the nurse and said she had a toothache they wouldn't give it to her for that. It's ridiculous. It's also just motrin. She's taken a dose of phenergan with her in her purse before when she was having some nausea, and she's taken a dose of lortab with her before when she went back a couple days after surgery, and the office wouldn't have accepted the lortab to give her unless it was in the prescription bottle with the full number of pills in it. I couldnt even put most in a bottle for here and leave two or three at the school in the prescription bottle, they would want the whole, unopened prescription. She never had any problem with any of that and if someone had seen it, she would have simply swallowed it before they reported her, and since it's her prescription its not illegal although it might be against school rules.

It seems bizarre to me that a the people at a school would think that a prescription should either be taken at home or at school, but never both. Perhaps they think you should have two prescriptions -- one for home and one for school.

We had a thread going here a few years ago about a highschool student that accidently left a gun in his car and noticed it when he got out of his car at school. Knowing it was illegal to have the gun in the car on campus, he called one of his parents to come pick it up and take it off campus. Some meddling dumbass overheard the conversation and blew the whistle on him.
Results: He got arrested AND expelled from school for trying to right his wrong (small wrong that it was in reality).

What is the reasoning behind taking away inhalers for kids that need them? That's just putting them at unnessecary risk for no reason at all.

Personally I think most of this operates, on the what if worst first thinking.

It's all about documentation to cover the schools ass. If I brought up half a bottle that was labeled and left it there and kept the rest at home, even though we counted them and I initialed it on the drug sheet, I might decide to say that I brought a full bottle and the signature was faked and the pills were stolen. It's insane.

So is having a prescription for OTC meds that the parent can choose to give, for what and in what dose. When the kid is in high school, it's their choice too. But not at school.

Lawsuit happy people caused a lot of it. Also the mindset that is becoming more widespread, and that's "The authorities always know better than the parents and the parents must be monitored when possible, and corrected" is what causes a lot of it. I have actually seen our school nurse call my daughter's doctor and tell him that she thinks that my daughter shouldn't be on a certain med. It's not good for her. The doctor told her that when she practices medicine she can decide that, but until then leave the prescribing of meds to doctors and nurse practitioners. He said it nicely but he was furious about it. We talked about it. The people at the schools now seem to think that they know more about your child than anybody else because they went to college to learn about kids.

Because of the NCLBA and my daughters medically relevant absences, the judge said that when she needed to stay home, even though I had a blanket doctors note to cover the absences and she was an honor student, an office aid and eventually won the Character Award from the school and graduated with honors and never got in trouble in school except once in junior high, that because the school thought she wasn't doing as well as she could, (maybe there are higher grades than an A?) and so I was abusing the doctors note, I was to bring her to the school nurse in the mornings on days that she needed to stay home. Nevermind that she rode the bus to and from school because I had no car. I had to do it. I refused. Throw me in jail then. I didn't say it like that, but I strongly implied it and the judge is a friend (small town - on my FB, knows my husband well but is an Auburn fan, also into gardening and home repair and learning brick masonry and doing a good job at it too) and he knew I'd make a huge stink so he just ordered it and ignored that I didn't do it. I'd call the nurse and inform her of my decision and when she argued with me I'd hang up on her, but that was all. Another example of the school needing to fix anything and everything without actually knowing or understanding or willingly comprehending the situation.

Parent's rights to parent are slowly being taken away. It's not that noticible and it seems reasonable when people hear about it because we always assume there is more to the story and the parent really must not be very good. We all tend to trust the authorities that supposedly have our children's best interests at heart. When we were kids they were trying to do the best for us, so why wouldn't they be doing it for other kids now? Sure there are some bad applies but overall, the educational system is filled with caring and smart, educated people who have learned to have better judgment than someone who is just a parent. That's what we are supposed to think and what many do think, until they are screwed by the system and nobody listens.

Either more and more people will speak up and it will be just too many people speaking out about it to actually be bad parents, or it will quietly continue to the point where we allow them to take away our rights and gladly sign them away because we think that it's only going to effect the bad parents. By then it's too late.

TLDR; No common sense, stupid a**holes in charge.

Here are the things they are trying to avoid.

1. A child lending their inhaler to another child with asthma whose inhaler is empty. It could be the wrong kind, and even if it isn't that is illegal and the child is prescribing medicine without a license. (Kids with asthma are very aware of what kind of inhaler they use and to use only that kind. No kid with asthma who is old enough to carry and use their own inhaler is going to use the wrong one)

2. Rescue inhalers used to have albuterol and that worked as a stimulant and even though it didn't give a buzz, kids might think it was speed. It could be abused.

3. It could be stolen and the child may not have it when needed.

4. The child could lose it, and same as above.

5. It's against the rules for a child to carry prescription drugs or any drugs, if we let them carry inhalers then the school will soon be full of kids carrying adderall and oxycontins.

6. It might not really be the inhaler, it could be an illicit drug disguised as an inhaler

7. They are controlling idiots.

Our reaction after reading why he has been suspended.

I just had to!