See no evil, hear no evil, and — whatever you do — speak no evil. It was this last sin that got a 6-year-old in trouble with the Pasco School District in Washington State.
The Tri-City Herald reports that on Wednesday the district overturned the suspension of Noah Aguirre, a first-grader at James McGee Elementary School, who had been sent home Feb. 28 for talking to another student about the Nerf guns the family bought during a trip to Lincoln City, Ore. Imagine what the punishment would have been had the boy talked about real guns.
Mike Aguirre, Noah’s father, said that he and his wife were told their son was suspended not only for saying the G-word at school but because the girl who reported him felt her “health and safety were threatened.” That seems like the sort of concern a first-grader would express, and no doubt it’s the way she’d articulate it.
Initially, administrators insisted that they were following the district’s discipline policy, which is spelled out in a handbook. But Aguirre pointed out that there is no prohibition in the book against students talking about guns at school, nor did the district provide evidence that Noah threatened another student.
On Wednesday, the district came to its senses. It released a statement reading in part:
After a review it was determined that no disciplinary action is warranted and all record of the incident will be expunged from the student’s record.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that district spokeswoman Leslee Caul said there is no plan to review current policies in light of the issue.
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