The Core Knowledge Blog

First there was the Washington Post story about elementary school kids getting tagged as sexual harassers. Yesterday, Joanne Jacobs posted a story about an 8-year old in Colorado suspended for sniffing a Sharpie marker. It made us wonder what else students are getting in trouble for these days. A quick survey of suspension-worthy offenses making in news in the last week range from serious offenses to seriously strange.

Two girls were suspended from a Pennsylvania high school for writing a “murder list” with the names of 48 students and teachers on it; a boy in Palm Beach, Florida did something similar. A South Carolina 8th grader was suspended for wearing a KKK t-shirt, while a couple of Cleveland area middle schoolers were sent home for putting racially inflammatory posts on You Tube. A Chattanooga 7th grader hid a gun (real) in his locker, while three teenagers in Ontario, Canada were suspended for pointing a machine gun (fake) out of a car window in their school parking lot. A 8th grader in Phoenix realized he had left a knife in his knapsack over Spring Break and, mindful of the school’s strict weapon policy, reported himself to school officials. He was suspended anyway. A 7-year old in Maryland may be expelled for bringing his uncle’s gun to school, thinking it was a toy. In Florida, a 15-year old was charged with a felony for poisoning a teacher’s water with Visine because “he didn’t like the class or her.” Six Florida baseball players were suspended from the team after an alleged hazing incident. A large group of middle school students in James City, Virginia were caught texting each other to plan a cafeteria food fight. School officials thwarted the plot, suspending 15 miscreants. Meanwhile an even larger group of West Virginia high school students got ten days each for breaking into the school and moving about 600 desks into the hallways. They also hid thousands of dollars worth of telephones and calculators, but didn’t damage any of them, and ignited a book in a microwave.

A female high school student in Massachusetts wore the wrong color sweater to school and refused to take it off. A St. Louis freshman wore shorts on a recent 70-degree day and was suspended for violating a rule that prohibits them between November 1 and April 31. A Haverhill, Massachusetts 11-year old accused of sexually harrassing two girls claimed he was only quoting the TV show South Park. A case of suspended animation in Alaska, where a fifth-grade boy got in trouble for drawing Anime-style pictures of nude females. His parents say it’s artwork. Finally, a first grader in Brockton, Mass was suspended for three days after school officials said he sexually harassed a girl in his class by allegedly putting two fingers inside the girl’s waistband while she sat on the floor in front of him.

For the record, it’s not just the kids. A Santa Ana, California elementary school teacher was busted for having a gun in school, and the coach of the Marblehead (Mass.) High School football team drew a two-game suspension for chewing tobacco while coaching.