This is so pitiful

[lonewolfe]

I found this on another forum. This is when our school systems go over board.

The wife came home tonight and told me of a situation one of her co-workers is going through. Seems that this coworker has been taking some excessive time off having to deal with a problem at her son's high school.

In this day and age of political correctness and ultra-liberal mentality, not to mention knee-jerk reactionism to events, that we, as a society have now lost total sensibility. Case and point: The aforementioned coworker of my wife, has a teen aged senior in a local high school. This teen, although not at the "top" of his class academically, has a good head on his shoulders and is very mechanically inclined. He likes to work with his hands and he's good at it. As far as I know, he has no intentions of college and will probably be a regular blue collar kind of guy when he gets out of high school but hey, that's okay and is really not the point. The point is, he's an avid hunter, in fact he loves to hunt and loves archery.

This kid, belongs to a local club and shoots at an outdoor range pretty regularly. Last week, he was shooting at this range until dark and put his bow in his truck. The next day forgetting he has left the bow in the truck, he goes to school and on this day, they decide to to a random search of vehicles in the lot. A security guard looks in the kid's truck, and having to use a flashlight, they spot the bow behind the seat, calls the police and have him taken out of class and arrested for possessing a deadly weapon on school grounds.

Now, the kid is in a huge mess with the school and his parents are frantically trying to get things sorted out. The school wants him expelled, permanently from the school district and after much deliberation, at the very least, want him suspended for the rest of the school year.

Is it just me or is this complete and total over reaction?? The kid has never been in any trouble with the school much less the law. Geez... the bow was tucked in way behind the seat, where it took having to use a flashlight and some serious looking to see it. Even though the bow was technically a "deadly weapon", you'd hurt and even kill alot more people swinging a baseball bat than with a bow!

Let's here what you all think.. maybe I'm way off base with this whole thing

 

[lonewolfe]

And now the rest of the story

This is also part of the whole ordeal.

I've just learned new details in this case that compels me to ACT and do the right thing. I do not know this young man, have never met him or his parents but I cannot stand by and let an over-zealous, over-reacting school administration steamroll this young man and his future for the sheer purpose of making an example out of him.

A recap:

This young man, (name withheld at his parents request for fear of retribution), is a senior at Blue Springs High School R-IV in Blue Springs, Missouri. He's a good kid, with decent grades, keeps out of trouble and is enrolled in a Building Trades program at his High School. He's an avid hunter and archer and has already purchased his archery tags for this year in Missouri in anticipation of an exciting year of hunting Missouri Whitetail deer. In the recent weeks, he has been practicing diligently to perfect his skills as any responsible archer would do. He practices several times a week in the evenings after school and on the weekends at a local club and at a State run outdoor archery facility. One evening, after practicing and as usual, he stows his gear behind the seat of his truck. Forgetting that he has his bow stowed there, he drives to school, as usual the next day.

He parks his vehicle in the school student parking area, as he usually does every day and gets on the bus to be transported to an off site building trades school project sponsored by another school because Blue Springs does not have such a class available. As fate would have it, the school decides to perform a spontaneous search of the vehicles parked in the parking lot. Apparently, a security guard see's the kid's bow stowed behind his pickup seat after having to use a flashlight no less and reports his findings to the school. Promptly, the police are involved. The bus soon returns the kids to the school after their class and upon his exit from the bus, he is handcuffed in front of his peers and taken to jail by the police department to face charges for bringing a weapon on school grounds.

Further search of his vehicle results in finding an old fishing tackle box under his seat and of course, a pocket knife contained therein. More evidence... Even a few shotgun shells were found but no shotgun... this was because he is or rather was, a member of the school's skeet team. The school administration deemed him to possess violent tendencies and felt punishment was just and deserved and set to make an example of him.

After much discussion and deliberation between all parties, his judgment has been cast and imposed. They wanted to expel him permanently from the school system. They "SETTLED" for the following:

The young man is forced to attend anger management classes. He has no anger issues nor ever had them.

He has been remanded to the "special" school in the district where problem students are sent. This school was created to teach those with drug problems, attitude problems, social problems, etc and to keep them segregated from the public school population. He has none of those but has now been classified as being a "problem" student. As a result, he cannot even hope to graduate with his friends and peers but rather with a group that is neither similar in interests or background and certainly won’t accept him.

He must remain outside a 1000' radius of the High School and never cross into this area. He LIVES within 1000' of the High School! His grandparents live within 1000' of the High School and now cannot visit them legally because of this restriction. He has yards for people in his neighborhood that he has regularly mowed for extra money that he cannot do anymore because of this restriction. He cannot even take his younger brother to school anymore as he as done in the past because of this restriction imposed on him.

He has been suspended from the regular public High School for a term of 180 days... literally the rest of this school year. He cannot even transfer to another PUBLIC school by law, ANYWHERE in the US because this was a result of a WEAPONS related offense. If this were due to a firearm, he would be permanently barred from any public school, but a bow falls under the DISCRETIONARY category of weapons.

He has even been forced off and banned from further participation in the school sponsored SKEET TEAM. Is there a sense of contradiction going on here, or is it just me??

And, to add insult to injury, this young man is being forced to perform several MONTHS of community service, several times a week as further punishment.

The school superintendent and his staff have taken this young man's life, his senior year, a kid who has never been in any kind of trouble, and made a public trophy out of him at his expense!

This young man made a mistake, without a doubt. He was wrong in leaving that bow behind his seat. He has no history of violence or maliciousness. This zero-tolerance policy is being taken WAY out of context and he is paying the price.

It's not just, it's not fair and the school superintendent along with his administration needs to know that there are people that support this young man in spite of their poor judgment and rash decisions.

I'm asking each one of you who takes the time to read this post, to try and find some time out of your busy schedule to send the Superintendent of Blue Springs School district an email with your thoughts on how he has handled this situation.

PLEASE!! DO NOT SEND ANYTHING DEROGATORY! Do not send any threats, anything malicious or inappropriate. This will make it worse for the parties involved and already punished far more than they deserve to be and my intent is to express support for this young man. I'm going to post this to several archery forums and request the same from those members. Please feel free to copy and post this plea to any forums that I may miss.

This young man needs to know that the archery community is behind him 100%. He needs to know that he has friends NATIONWIDE that support him and his sport. He needs to know and be reassured that not every administration out there feels a need to take his life away from him because of his hobby or interests outside of school.

Send email to: Dr. Paul Kinder PKINDER@BSSD.NET Superintendent of Missouri R-IV

 

[sampatterson]

Some of our schools have archery clubs...

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Our country is going to hell in a handbasket.

It wasnt too long again where if you didn't have a weapon you were considered strange.

The next thing you will see is the banning of the movie "A Christmas Story" becuase Ralphie wants a Red Rider BB Gun.

 

[Mr Tony]

The next thing you will see is the banning of the movie "A Christmas Story" becuase Ralphie wants a Red Rider BB Gun.

don't give the ACLU any ideas. They'll ban it because it pisses off the Jewish people because it has the word "Christmas" in it