WASHINGTON — The parents of a 6-year-old boy are fighting the first-grader’s suspension from a public school in Montgomery County, Maryland for pointing his finger like a gun and saying “pow,” an incident school officials characterized in a disciplinary letter as a threat “to shoot a student.”
The first-grader was suspended for one day, Dec. 21. The family’s attorney filed an appeal Wednesday, asking that the incident be expunged from the boy’s school record amid concerns of long-term fallout.
The boy “had no intention to shoot anyone,” said attorney Robin Ficker, who described the child as soft-spoken, with no propensity for violence. “He’s skinny and meek. In his words, he was playing.”
The suspension came in a week when the nation was reeling from the massacre that claimed the lives of 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. — and left elected leaders, educators and parents debating how best to keep schools safe.
But it also comes as leaders in Maryland and a growing number of states are working to reduce out-of-school suspensions, which have increased greatly in the past several decades and are linked in studies to lower achievement and students dropping out of school.
Ficker attributed some of the reaction by school officials to the widespread alarm that followed the Newtown shootings. But he contended that the school system’s portrayal of the episode could be damaging to the boy. The Washington Post generally does not identify juveniles accused of crimes or other wrongdoing.
“They took the worst possible interpretation of this little child’s actions, and five years from now, if he gets into a tussle, they’re going to look back and say, ‘This is one bad little kid,’ ” Ficker said.
Montgomery schools spokesman Dana Tofig said he could not discuss individual students for privacy reasons. But in a written statement, Tofig said the suspension “was not a kneejerk reaction to a single incident.”
In disciplining young students, Tofig added: “We always make sure there is clear conversation with the student and parents about any behaviors that have to change and what the consequences are if that behavior doesn’t change.”
School officials recognize that “suspending a student is a serious matter, and that is especially true of a student who is in our early grades,” Tofig said, adding that school officials must deal with behavior that affects a school’s sense of safety and security.
Across the Washington region, school systems have suspended thousands of students in the early grades, according to a 2012 Washington Post analysis that showed kindergartners and first-graders had been ousted for disciplinary offenses in nearly every local school system.
In Silver Spring, Md., the 6-year-old’s parents received a Dec. 20 letter from Renee Garraway, an assistant principal at Roscoe Nix Elementary School, saying that their son “threatened to shoot a student” and that he had been spoken to earlier about similar behavior.
Responding to questions from the family’s attorney, school officials later offered more detail, responding in a letter that an assistant principal had warned one parent that the child’s behavior could lead to a suspension. At school, a counselor “had an extended conversation” with the child to emphasize “the inappropriateness of using objects to make shooting gestures,” and an assistant principal had talked to the boy about the “seriousness” of the issue, the letter said.
“Yet, after the meeting with the counselor and assistant principal, [the boy] chose to point his finger at a female classmate and say ‘Pow,’ ” wrote Judith Bresler, the school system’s attorney.
The boy attended school Wednesday, and school officials are considering the appeal, according to the family’s attorney.
The suspension comes as the Maryland State Board of Education is preparing for a final vote in the coming weeks on proposed regulations that would transform the use of out-of-school suspension for minor offenses. The new regulations ban zero-tolerance approaches and require school systems to adopt a rehabilitative philosophy toward discipline, with the goal of limiting suspensions and teaching positive behavior.
WOW..really?? Does that mean that kids cant use their imagination anymore??? and not play cops and robbers, or cowboys and indians? The world needs to stop being so GD politically INcorrect!!
we were raised in a house with guns. my dad was retired from the merchant marines, owned a farm, hunted, and put down is own animals if he had to.
one thing my entire family drilled in to our heads: GUNS ARE NOT TOYS!!! no toy guns in our house…no playing guns were ever allowed. Pointing a finger at someone as if you were shooting got you an immediate punishment, along with a chant “never never point a gun, shoot at me or anyone”.
In my house, we didn’t play guns. That’s where responsible gun ownership begins.
Allowing you child to play cowboys and indians or cops and robbers with toy guns is not irresponsible. Responsible gun ownership begins by teaching your child to know the difference!
if you want to raise your children to shoot people that’s your business. It’s not how we were raised. Guns yes. Playing with guns: no.
I also grew up around guns, and co-incidentally, on a farm. We played army games and all kinds of stuff in our woods with toy guns. I got my first rifle, a .22, at age 12, and have been around firearms for the 48 years since then. What we were tought was the difference between toys and the real thing. Pretty basic, really. What I gather from these school policies and over-reaction by faculty is that while people can earn college degrees, they can’t earn common sense at the same time. That had to come at a much younger age.
i agree with you, and after thinking about your point, I’d like to add this comment.
When kids are playing (cowboys and indians…cops and robbers) both sides are playing the game. we played war games all the time. Playing is different from one person making the pulled trigger gesture at someone else, perhaps in defense of being teased.
I don’t know the circumstances of this case, but as a parent, I know the difference between play and (an aggressive gesture).
Good point. I’m assuming that the 6 year old was just being a 6 year old and playing, but maybe there are underlying behavioral problems.
Good points.
Playing cowboys and Indians is incredibly racist. What are you thinking?!!!!
Funny story about that. When I was twelve I lived very close to an Indian Reservation. The Children from that res used to play with us white farm children. The res children always wanted to be the cowboys. That was OK with us, because the Indians had much better selection of weapons.
Too funny
Oh for crying out loud, get a grip. Cowboys and Indians was as common a childhood game as tag or hide and seek in the 50s and 60s (and earlier). It was a game…I’ll repeat…a game.
That was long before the PC people decided it’s better to raise kids on computers so they understand that the only “proper” thing is to not be racist while they’re killing each other with real weapons because they never learned the difference between games and real life.
Do you also let your kids play KKK and Negros or Nazis and Jews?
Driving indigenous people from their homeland by force isn’t a game.
I wasn’t brought up in a house with guns, but a lot of the play in the neighborhood I grew up in involved toy guns, sticks used as guns, some massive shootouts using these weapons, and all of us grew up to be decent adults and parents. About 1/3 of us are gun owners and/or hunters now, and are all responsible with our guns. One of us ended up teaching hunter safety.
You and I grew up with completely different upbringings in regard to guns, but it sounds like we ended up in relatively the same place. As MountainMan_73 stated, “Responsible gun ownership begins by teaching your child to know the difference!”
I agree with everything you said. I lived in Miami for years, there was a rash of student shootings, most of them deemed ‘accidental’, kids showing other kids where their parents guns were hidden. Kids pulling out guns to show off, not handling them properly and then they go off….that kind of thing.
I advocate gun safety be taught in schools. I worked at a hunting/fishing store (in Fl) in the 80’s; we were big proponents of gun education in the schools. The right doesn’t want sex ed in the schools, the left doesn’t want gun education…parents aren’t always the best example.
everyone…DUCK!!
Unfortunately like Millinocket it is almost impossible to teach gun safety because it is almost impossible to get a gun in school. We used to do it, until one person stopped it. It doesn’t take much.
Cops teach drug safety in the DARE program without bringing drugs into school. Fire Departments teach fire safety without setting the school on fire. Why can’t gun safety be taught in schools without having a gun present?
okay, i’ve thought about it.
playing with guns is fine when everyone is playing (say..cops and robbers, cowboys an indians, etc, we all did it as kids, everyone turned out just fine). but we all know the difference between a game and making the ‘trigger hand’ sign as a threat, right?
were the other kids involved playing cowboys and indians or was the boy in question responding (to being teased, or something). i think that’s the line that might have been crossed.
off to work i go…have a good day wtf.
That’s the way your family did it. I respect that. My family all had air rifles an every Saturday morning after Hop-a-long and Roy we would go out and shoot each other over and over again. Not one single one of my friends or acquaintances ever killed anyone until they entered the military. Then you and the rest of the population required that they go out and shoot little brown and yellow folks half way around the world.
I’m sorry we have a violent litigious society, but I hardly think that playing guns in the woods with friends when you are a child turnes you into a mass murderer.
Thanks Tux, I just think that somewhere in American culture we have forgotten that privilege comes with responsibility. Yes we all have a right to play, play play but ‘playing’ and guns don’t go together in anyone’s rational world.
If an adult did that to a police officer (make the pointed gun/trigger finger gesture), could he/she be arrested? I believe that is considered ‘assault’. anyone in law enforcement (jd) please discuss.
Not assault surely, but a desperate DA might try a “criminal threatening” charge. Hard to make that stick as in my generation, and the one before, the same gesture meant “Yep”, or “you’re right.”
As to “could he be arrested” the answer is always yes. Anyone can be arrested at any time the officer wants to put his job on the line. People are still arrested in the USA for “driving while black” or “loitering while Indian.”
The difficulty comes when trying these cases outside the State of Mississippi.
Amen. Although not saying this school administration handled this perfectly, apparently this young boy had been spoken to , more than once, and warned by school people that he should stop this behavior. He was defiant and refused to comply with the rules and school policy.
Our society is “Doomed”….we just don’t have the right answers for the issues around us.
ANSWERS? We don’t even know how to frame the questions. We need insurance companies and lawyers directing our behavior?
I’m thankfull I grew up in a time when it was not illeagal to be a little boy.
Amen to that brother! I remember life before cable T.V., video games, computers, cell phones, and political correctness. It made a lot more sense.
sadly times change…yup playing cowboys and indians was common when I was a kid.Using your finger as a gun was common, having a toy gun was common..That was before people started shooting kids “for real ” in school.
lol,, what’s missing since those days? think about it..
And these are the people the NRA wants to arm?? My goodness kicking a 6 year old out of school for pointing his finger and saying “Pow”. Hell if that were the case most of the boys and some of the teachers I had in grade school would have been expelled.
Hey, don’t leave out the girls. We were good shots with those imaginary guns made from sticks.
Absolutely. Thanks..
Are you kidding me? Over react much!??!!
School officials should be ashamed of themselves.
HOLY FRIGGIN’ POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!!!!! Enough already! Is this a contest between the parents, the attorney, and the school as to who can be more petty and ridiculous? They ALL need a boot in the can for being so foolish. Except the little boy that is.
The kid knew the action wasn’t permitted and did it again..Once is a mistake; doing it again , after a discussion with 2 people , is breaking the rules .What DO you expect teachers to do?? And what about the other students complaints to THEIR parents “MOM ,johnny pointed a gun at me today” Might THAT parent be alarmed ? It’s a balancing act.
Balance this you cretin. The child was SIX!!!
and 6 years old understand following the rules. They do it all the time. Kids have brought REAL guns into school for show and tell.,and just to show ( ‘accidentally”)
Yeah? where’s the link to that?
No need for that name calling just because his opinion differs from yours.
“johnny” didn’t point a gun – he pointed a finger.
Is there a school rule stating “no finger pointing”?
Was the finger a pistol or a revolver, and more importantly, was it menacingly black in color?
My understanding is that it was a semi-auto “assault” finger, and not just a run of the mill six year old digit, hence the seemingly over-reaction by the school faculty. Not just capable of “Pow”, but “Pow-Pow-Pow!”
At what point is this society going to be embarrassed by this stuff? I know I sure am.
The problem today is that parents DO NOT TEACH THEIR KIDS. They want everyone else to teach them so they have someone else to blame. Have any of you read the newspapers of the last decade? I don’t care how meek or little the boy is. Look at Columbine, they grew into monsters.
He is a 6 year old boy. I think many have lost that. How many who criticize the boy for his actions have a 6 y.o. boy? Show him what is right and wrong, but in this case suspension and permanent records are excessive, and loose their meaning as punishment.
so i take it, playing cops and robbers is no longer acceptable, oh my word, don’t tell me cowboys and desperado’s to!
Days of old it was acceptable to use your finger as a gun while playing with your friends and the lucky kids actually had cap guns to explore their imaginative journeys—Today’s kids have the internet to explore theirs with mind numbing graphics of death and destruction-but both era’s have the one common factor–pointing a gun at someone to erase another’s existence—Brutality it would seem will remain timeless and unfortunately akin to mankind.
School’s are for teaching, not overreacting to what comes naturally among first graders.
You can all hate me for this, but he most likely had behavioral problems since it says he was spoken to more than once about his behaviors, and if that is true than the school did the right thing.
A 6 year old that needed to be told more then once to do something – the horror.
PLEASE read the entire article. This boy was told REPEATEDLY not to play shoot his classmate. He was told this by numerous school officials.
His parents were notified.
And no matter how many times he was told to stop the behavior, he refused.
Your comment sounds like you’re saying the boy complied with school administrators after being told the second time, while the TRUTH is that he NEVER complied.
And the “irony” is that some of these same posters who are so outraged with this school administration’s response and handling of this, would likely be in agreement if this student had been defiant and in non-compliance about another issue (but since the issue involves guns……..)
Yes, I think you are correct.
There’s a lot of “irony” when it comes to that issue, eh?
The article clearly states this was not a knee-jerk reaction, and that they always work to change bad behavior first. They can’t discuss the actual student and incidents, but you can clearly read from this that this is a repeated behavior. I suspect the suspension is just as much a punishment against the parents to serve as a wake-up call. I’ve worked and been in schools for years under different positions, and I would bet my hat that this kid comes to school with a host of off behaviors, and may be mimicking stuff he’s seen outside of school. Probably warning signs all over. And yes, a kid as young as 6 can exhibit those behaviors and go on to turn into a nightmare. The goal is to catch it while they are young and impressionable still. But if the parents don’t work with you, but against you, it’s a losing battle. I think the knee-jerk is the way it’s being reported. We can only hear what the parents tell. If the school tells anything, they get a lawsuit for a FERPA violation.
I’ve seen a 6 year old kid bring a metal pipe in a backpack to school for protection here in Maine. He was relocated after Hurricane Katrina. When asked what that was for, he very blankly stated it was for “protection if someone messed with” him. Do you suppose a 6 year old’s interpretation of being messed with in his mind will justify using a pipe on another kid? Clearly this kid had seen some bad stuff, through neighborhood and older siblings, and who knows what he was capable of? Kids are not simple kids who go out and play cowboys and indians in the woods and then come back to a sit-down dinner with the family that says grace at the end of the day.
After reading all the negative comments concerning the school administration, I wonder if everyone read the entire article. The article clearly states that this boy had been warned repeatedly about such behavior. Indeed, according to the story, his parents were even notified that there was this specific problem.
So the scenario COULD have been:
Tommy points finger at Jane and says “pow”. Teacher tells him not to do that again.
Tommy does it again. Teacher tells him to stop.
Tommy does it again.
Teacher sends Tommy to talk with the vice principal who explains to Tommy why this behavior can not be tolerated. Tommy also speaks with a counsellor who also explains that Tommy’s behavior is not acceptable.
Tommy’s parents are also notified of this problem.
Tommy returns to the classroom, and points his finger at Jane and says “pow”.
So the obvious question is how many times is Tommy allowed to repeat behavior that he has been told time after time to stop, before some special discipline needs to be applied?
I don’t know if suspension was appropriate – I wasn’t there. But I support the IDEA that this behavior is inappropriate for the elementary school classroom, and that measures MUST be taken to prevent it.
And one more thought: What about the parents of the little girl who “Tommy” was repeatedly play shooting? I know how I’d feel if I found out there was a child who, in my daughter’s CLASSROOM, kept pointing his finger at MY daughter and saying “pow”. I would not like that ONE BIT. And I would bring it to the school’s attention and demand that it stop.
Just my opinion.
They glance at the headline and comment without reading the whole article.
Very well stated. Makes one think….
When I was in school, you could actually beat up somebody physically and not get suspended…today point a finger and say pow, you get suspended..in the first grade.
I would say that neither of those situations is ideal.
sheesh…my 5 year old points a finger and *pew pew*s me all the time “I got you mama!” and i get him back with tickle torture… These kids are too young to understand (for whatever reason) why the school’s are against this behavior.. In one ear and out the other. all they are going to get from it, is that they get to spend an extra day at home playing….
When I was a kid, we had snowball fights, no one took it as assult, battery or attempted murder or a hate action on another kids part because we got an iceball in the face. No one decided it was a sign of future violence or misbehavior. Parents said if you don’t want to take a chance of getting a snowball in the face or down your back, don’t get in snowball fights stay inside and clean your room. Usually a dry pair of mittens and the threat of cleaning their room was all it took to get a kid back out there in the middle of a snowball fight again.
But I guess these days people want to make something bad out of out something innocent. Anyone who thinks a 6 year old understands adult paranoia is asking too much of a child.
This story reminds me of the e-mail that floats around from time to time about what it was like when i was a kid. You all must get the point. It is just that today’s society doesn’t remember those days. Part of what is missing is discipline both in school and at home.
For God’s sake; now we’re after 6 year old kids; hasn’t anybody ever heard of the game of cowboys and indians or cops and robbers???? I quess that is politically incorrect to children, will have to stick to video games……………………
Before anyone jumps to conclusions I am thinking this boy has had other incidences? Was he doing it playing or was he angry at the other child? I know first graders who have knowledge of the world that would make your hair stand on end. I know some who would threaten to and shoot another kid.
ridiculous!…proves some of our educators are book smart and everyday dumb ! Absolutely no common sense at all!
I appears that these schools are trying to develop a mentality, where they teach complete submission to any situation. Most especially any behavior that can lead to self defense. Most of these people do not have the courage to stand up for themselves unless they are mobbed up with a lawyer, police and regulations in front of them.
My son and his friend got in trouble at school twenty something years ago for playing TMNT with imaginary kitanas. Zero tolerance we were told; you’re a bunch of fekkin’ idiots I replied. This is nothing new.
“The boy “had no intention to shoot anyone,” said attorney Robin Ficker, who described the child as soft-spoken, with no propensity for violence. “He’s skinny and meek. In his words, he was playing.”” Oh, sure Mr. Lawyer…and when the next time its a gun, what will you say?
When I was in school, you could bring your toy cap guns to school for play at recess but you couldn’t bring caps. None of the kids who used to play cowboys and indians or cops and robbers on the playground and in surrounding woods has ever used a gun inappropriately. Seems to me once again, we’ve got it backwards.