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Girl suspended for stick-figure doodle
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Girl suspended for stick-figure doodle
May 2, 2002 Posted: 3:01 PM EDT (1901 GMT)
MOUNT LEBANON, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A Pennsylvania school suspended an 11-year-old girl for drawing two teachers with arrows through their heads, saying the stick figures were more death threat than doodle.
Becca Johnson, an honor-roll sixth-grader at Mellon Middle School, drew the picture on the back of a vocabulary test on which she had gotten a D.
"That's my way of saying I'm angry," Becca said, adding she meant no harm to the teachers.
The stick figures, on a crudely drawn gallows with arrows in their heads, had the names of Becca's teacher and a substitute teacher written underneath. Another teacher spotted the doodle in the girl's binder Tuesday and reported it, prompting the three-day suspension.
Becca's parents, Philip and Barbara Johnson, denied the school's contention the drawings were "terrorist threats."
"She had done poorly on a test that was handed back to her. We've always told her that you can't take your feelings out on your teacher, so write about it or draw it, as a catharsis," Barbara Johnson said.
She accused the school of applying a zero-tolerance policy that "does away with due process and inflicts a penalty without a hearing or investigation."
The district said its zero-tolerance policy applies only to gun or drug possession, and denied that no investigation was done.
"All I can say is that when we have taken action related to the activities of students in the schools, we have done so after a thorough investigation," Mount Lebanon School District Superintendent Glenn Smartschan said.
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/02/doodle.death.threat.ap/
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
May 2, 2002 Posted: 3:01 PM EDT (1901 GMT)
MOUNT LEBANON, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A Pennsylvania school suspended an 11-year-old girl for drawing two teachers with arrows through their heads, saying the stick figures were more death threat than doodle.
Becca Johnson, an honor-roll sixth-grader at Mellon Middle School, drew the picture on the back of a vocabulary test on which she had gotten a D.
"That's my way of saying I'm angry," Becca said, adding she meant no harm to the teachers.
The stick figures, on a crudely drawn gallows with arrows in their heads, had the names of Becca's teacher and a substitute teacher written underneath. Another teacher spotted the doodle in the girl's binder Tuesday and reported it, prompting the three-day suspension.
Becca's parents, Philip and Barbara Johnson, denied the school's contention the drawings were "terrorist threats."
"She had done poorly on a test that was handed back to her. We've always told her that you can't take your feelings out on your teacher, so write about it or draw it, as a catharsis," Barbara Johnson said.
She accused the school of applying a zero-tolerance policy that "does away with due process and inflicts a penalty without a hearing or investigation."
The district said its zero-tolerance policy applies only to gun or drug possession, and denied that no investigation was done.
"All I can say is that when we have taken action related to the activities of students in the schools, we have done so after a thorough investigation," Mount Lebanon School District Superintendent Glenn Smartschan said.
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/02/doodle.death.threat.ap/
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
PC=BS
If you even "think" bad thoughts about "those who are in authority", you will be punished.
Boomer
Protect our Constitutional Rights.
Edited by - Boomerang on 05/03/2002 15:38:14
Most of the school officials understand that in Illinois at least, it is not a crime to draw a picture. The vast majority of these situations are easily dealt with without the need for suspension or any other outside intervention. JMHO