Tiny toy gun causes big trouble
02/26/04
HANNAH WOLFSON
News staff writer
A third-grader at Sun Valley Elementary was suspended this week for bringing a G.I. Joe toy handgun to school.
Austin Crittenden, 9, and his family say the school in eastern Birmingham went too far by sending him home for bringing a tiny plastic handgun that accompanied a G.I. Joe action figure.
"It's about an inch long," said Vicki Stewart, the boy's grandmother and guardian. "(The principal) had to tape it to a piece of paper to keep from losing it."
The length of the suspension has yet to be determined, said Birmingham City Schools spokeswoman Michaelle Chapman. Possible punishments for a Class III violation such as this one include expulsion and alternative school, she said.
According to a notice sent from the school to Crittenden's family by Sun Valley Principal Teresa Ragland, he was suspended at 2 p.m. Monday for "Possession of a weapon Firearm replica."
That's a violation of the code of conduct all students are given and asked to sign at the beginning of the school year, Chapman said.
"The code of student conduct specified that the violation of possession of weapons includes firearm replicas," she said.
There have been questions recently about whether strict adherence to such codes has gone too far, especially after a Clay-Chalkville teen was sent to an alternative school for violating the school's zero-tolerance policy after being caught taking a Motrin. Last April, two boys at Oak Mountain Middle School received one-day suspensions for playing with toy guns one had brought for a project on Treasure Island. A 10-year-old was arrested in October at an Alabaster school, accused of threatening someone with a toy gun.
It's not just Alabama: Last month, an 8-year-old was suspended from a Spokane, Wash., public school for taking two similar G.I. Joe guns to school.
In cases like this, it's up to the community to let schools know how they feel about the policies, said William Modzeleski, associate deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. But it's the schools' responsibility to use common sense enforcing them, he said.
"The punishment has to fit the crime," he said. "On some zero-tolerance policies, the punishment far outweighs the crime."
He also said teachers and principals should make the rules crystal clear to parents up front so they aren't surprised.
In the Sun Valley case, Crittenden's grandmother said she thought "replica" in the handbook meant a realistic-looking fake, not part of a doll's costume.
"I was flabbergasted," Stewart said. "It wasn't something that by any stretch of the imagination you could feel someone had threatened you with."
Crittenden's hearing, which will determine his punishment, has been scheduled for Monday morning. His grandmother said he has no history of violence and, although he is not supposed to take toys to school, just slipped the gun into his pocket on the way out in the morning. Now, she says, he will have this suspension on his record.
"He's not a discipline problem, he's a very sweet little boy," Stewart said. "And he just took a toy to school."
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