Okay, kids and guns don’t mix. We know. But some schools lately are bending over backwards to drive that point home, treating kids guilty of just “acting like kids” like they’re disturbed sociopaths.
Yes, another child has been suspended for playing guns .
An 8-year-old Florida boy was suspended from his school for using his finger as a play gun. Was he threatening a teacher? Was he menacingly bullying a peer? No, he was enjoying a mutual game of cops and robbers with a friend, his mom says.
Bonnie Bennett said that officials at the Harmony Community School in Osceola County went a little too far in punishing her son, Jordan.
“There was nothing in his hand. He used his thumb and index finger,” she told WKMG . “It was a game. He made no threatening advances or threats to harm anyone. No words were said.”
Bennett said that she concedes some form of punishment would have been fine, but worries that Jordan will be viewed as a violent student since he’s been suspended.
“They took a child that has never been in trouble before and went to the extreme,” said Bennett. “A child that has no history of violence is now classified as a violent offender.”
On the other side of the story, the Osceola Country School District said that “cops and robbers” it wasn’t, and that Jordan wasn’t playing a game.
While a school official said they wouldn’t comment on specifics (confidentiality, etc.), they determined that Jordan had violated the code of student conduct.
Super vague, we know, but Bennett said she’s still going to fight the charge and get her son’s suspension removed from his record.
“I’m prepared to go to court if I have to because this is wrong. It’s wrong for my son and any other child if they’re faced with the same thing because of a game,” Bennett said.
Bennett’s son said that the other student he was playing with was also sent home over the incident.
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