Souvenir rifle shell gets 4th-grader suspended

[Grasshopper]

May 29, 2008

Souvenir rifle shell gets 4th-grader suspended :kookaid::nonono:
Winchendon family shocked


By Gail Stanton CORRESPONDENT




WINCHENDON— Ten-year-old Bradley Geslak was suspended from school this week for bringing a Memorial Day souvenir to school.

The Toy Town Elementary School fourth-grader had received two empty rifle shell casings from blanks used during the town celebration held at the GAR Park Monday morning.

He brought one of the casings with him to school the next day.
“He was just playing with it at lunch,” explained Crystal Geslak, Bradley’s mother. “He wasn’t showing it to anyone; he had it in his hand and was playing with it.”

Bradley said a teacher saw him with it and told him to hand it over.

“The teacher told me to give it to her and I did,” he said.

After the piece of brass was confiscated, Ms. Geslak was called at work and told to come and pick up her son; he was being suspended for the next five days.

Her son was in tears when she got there.

“I was totally shocked. I couldn’t believe this was happening,” she said.

“Ordinarily, I try to think ahead about things, but to me, this was something good, not bad. It was just an empty shell, not even from a real bullet. A sharpened pencil would be more dangerous than this piece of metal.”

Her son had been given the two blank shells by a uniformed veteran who participated in the ceremony Monday. Bradley gave one to his grandfather and kept the other souvenir for himself.

Having received the souvenir from an adult, he never considered it wrong for him to have it, his mother said.

“He was so proud to have been given them. His dad’s a veteran, his uncle’s a veteran, both his grandfathers are veterans. Memorial Day is a big thing to us. It’s a very important holiday and we have a big celebration every year,” Ms. Geslak said.

She is now concerned about the impact that having the shell taken away will have on her son and his feelings about the holiday in the future.

According to the family, a school official said on Tuesday that the shell would not be returned to them. The family said they were also told that the next step might involve assigning a probation officer to Bradley.

They also said they don’t know the whole story yet.

“When I went to pick him up, I was told that the teacher hadn’t finished writing up her report on what took place and that I would get that later,” Ms. Geslak said. “I would have thought that when deciding to suspend my son that they would have had a complete report ready for me.”

School officials refused to comment on the incident yesterday, citing privacy regulations.

“I cannot give any comment on school suspensions,” Principal Deborah Peterson said. “I cannot confirm or deny a suspension took place, and I cannot speak about anything involving a minor. It’s all confidential, just like at a doctor’s office.”

Attempts to reach Superintendent Brooke Clenchy and School Committee Chairman Michael Niles for comment were unsuccessful.

“I am worried about what having a weapon-related suspension on his school record will mean to his future,” his mother said.

“He’s like any other 10-year-old kid. Sometimes he can have a bad attitude,” she said. “We dealt with that once earlier this year and I don’t want them to now think he is a bad kid or label him as one.

“If he had been suspended for having a bad attitude, I could have understood it. I would have supported them in that. But not for this. He didn’t even know he did anything wrong,” she said.

Ms. Geslak will have plenty of time to think about that in the coming days, because the suspension also means that she has had to give up hours at work to be with her son.

[IL DUCE]

Now that's going overboard big time!!!!!
I could see if it was a live shell, but for an empty brass case is insane.

[SteelCore]

It is due time for thee to LAWYER UP!:America::sparta:

Shell ain't a weapon, or an explosive, or anything.

Get that lawyer, and sue for that souveneir back too, and make them pay!

I mean, here is a perfect nanny-state thing, and an actual reason for a lawsuit.

(Man, i just know I'm gonna have to watch my daughter at school like a hawk...she's 5 and already has a rock collection, a Barbie collection, a seashell collection, and a rifle and pistol shell collection.

[okie shooter]

From here, The student handbook for that school.

http://www.winchendon.mec.edu/TTStudent%20Handbook%20-%20final%20copy.doc




WEAPONS

Weapons are not allowed under any circumstance. Students possessing weapons or any weapon-like article are subject to expulsion and legal action will be taken.



Kinda of cheezy but I imagine the fact it was a weapon-like article is what the school is standing on there. To the choir here this makes no sense but there is the rule in writeing from the schools website. Thus there is their rule.

Note: not saying I agree with it but just enlighting everyone here on the fact that there is basis for lots of stuff, some times no one tells you the rules, restrictions or laws, but everyone still is responsable.

[Woodman in MO]

I hate to call out the good old days, but I remember taking 'Chinese' throwing stars to school and we certainly took empty shell casings. I can even remember my good buddy going down a slide and cutting his leg up cause the casing kept scratching him.

This is yet another example of why zero tolerance isn't very good. And I still can't find an example of when zero tolerance is good.

[deth502]

(Man, i just know I'm gonna have to watch my daughter at school like a hawk...she's 5 and already has a rock collection,

i hope theyre not those "assualt rocks" there were selling on ebay, or she'll be expelled for sure!!!! :eek:


this whole fucking country has gone crazy. makes one wonder if were not already too far gone to be saved.

[okie shooter]

This is yet another example of why zero tolerance isn't very good. And I still can't find an example of when zero tolerance is good.
Agreed there, but then its all grey, and sometimes grey aint good either. One kids screw driver is anothers shank. Nineteen men hijacked four airliners with box cutters and letter openers.

[amd65]

I remember playing mummblypeg with one of my teachers, in school, both of us using our Gerber lock-blades. I had archery class in junior high, and my brother was taught to shoot a 22 in the Cleveland schools.

[Woodman in MO]

Nineteen men hijacked four airliners with box cutters and letter openers.


:eek:That's a stretch. Shades of gray would at least make administrators actually have to put thought into decisions and look at circumstances and leave them open to being able to change their mind. And won't allow them to hide behind a rule book.

[okie shooter]

I know its a streach but thats the problem, security didnt consider box cutters and letter openers weapons in that day. You and I know that there isnt a real risk with kids and empty blank cartrages but we didnt write the rule with zero tollerence either. The fact we are deluged in zero tollerence situations is due to previous ill metered punishments for things, in the schools and courts too. Thus mandated punishments to be meeted out for everyone, no exceptions.

[SteelCore]

Wow...that loophole would make anything an actionable offense.

I spent the last few years of hishcool drawing weapons on foleders and notebooks, just doodles really, but I could have been expelled in this place 21+ years later?!?!

PARDON MY Orwellian thoughtcrime, thou base school officials.

I also carried a little lockback from about 3rd grade on, no one ever saw me take it out or use it, and it was used sparingly.

Just goes to show how far schools have deteriorated (teacher: well, we can't teach worhta shite, but we sure can enforce all these rules!) into nanny state camps.
http://www.thewallanalysis.com/Pictures/MovieShots/FullSizeShots/Brick2-5.JPG

[DAA1]

That the kid could do lots more damage with a sharpened #2 pencil..... as for a brass blank shell casing come on............ no wonder America is the home of the dumb and dumber. I have a running joke with the wife about Dumb A$$ being in the water where we live and people drinking too much of it thus getting a severe case of the Dumb A$$..... This story proves my point that DUMB A$$ is everywhere.

Anyone remember the old Smokey Bear ad campaign about only you can prevent forest fires??????

Maybe it's time for a new ad campaign..... we get us a spokesman/woman/critter and the new slogan is "only you can prevent Dumb A$$" followed up by the new and improved SOS campaign, don't get "Stuck on Stupid"....

Used to be in Mexico folks would say don't drink the water.... Now I am scared to drink the water here... Lots of folks catching the dummy disease and getting SOS. My wife has the right idea..... BEER... and lots of it...

It is getting that bad out there....
What happend to all the smart people? Maybe smart people are the new minority in America if not the whole world?????

Let's hope there is a cure for this....

[nowhereman]

Look a empty cartridge is not weapon like. This is complete BS, there needs to be a line drawn somwhere. I already read this the other day on nra.org. Saying "we don't really know what makes a weapon or an object that is weaponlike" is nonsense.

[rustypirate]

I maintain that common sense left-the-building a long time ago when it comes to the education system.

The real problem is that I cannot figure out what needs to be done to fix it.

Home schooling, it seems like the best way right now.

[WildBillCody]

I hate to call out the good old days, but I remember taking 'Chinese' throwing stars

We used to make them in shop class, but then again we would have never thrown them at anyone, Kids these days, I'm not sure.

Hell, I made a cannon in shop class for my shooting coach. The teacher let me make the barrel out of aluminum, not steel, so he knew I wouldn't try and shoot it, but still, now days I would have been gone for sure.

We have a new saying at work, kinda fits here: "Ya can't fix stupid"

[LostInTexas]

Guess they need to suspend everyone that has a sheet of paper on them or in their lockers since paper can be used as a weapon to inflict nasty paper cuts.

Death by 1000 paper cuts!

[cfish]

We are reaping what we sow. This is just another example of the average American not understanding the natural order of life so to speak. Okie shooter no offense but the only reason that box cutters became weapons is because the average American no longer knows how to fight for survival or the concept of self preservation. This verbiage in the school handbook leaves the door wide open for the folks in charge to claim anything as a weapon like object. Heck what if a kid on the baseball team makes a comment to someone while at batting practice they could be expelled from school just because some idiot over reacted. I know bad analogy but you get the idea. There is to much grey in the verbiage as stated and its up to some bureaucrat to make a decision that could possibly result in a good kid losing out on life. There are solutions but the PC crowd and the leftist of this country have to loud a voice.

[brewskzilla]

An empty blank shell casing.

This is our fault. We let people get away with this crap. We never worry about it until it's our own kid. Oh, we talk about how stupid it is, or how it aint right, but when was the last time we stood up and said ENOUGH?
Those faculty members know good and well that he doesn't deserve what happened, but they're not going to admit they were wrong, either. They wont hold themselves accountable, so WE have to. WE allow our schools to get worse and worse. WE allowed them to take away corporal punishment. WE allowed the Zero Tolerance policy as it is currently written. Retarded as it is, WE didn't read the fine print and now it's the law.

I dont have time to get involved will be written on the tombstone of Liberty.

[jfowl31]

so...... what are you doing about it brew?

I for one think this kid is an idiot for taking a bullet casing to school. My strong guess would be that the kid serves his 5-day suspension, and we all forget about it soon enough. Rules are rules despite how stupid they are, and the kid's parents signed their name on some form that said he couldn't take a weapon or any kind of "paraphernalia" to school. While that casing (as we know) is completely harmless, its still gun related, and has no place in a school. His parents knew he had it, and probably should have told the kid to not take it to school.

I feel sorry for the fact that the kid has to serve a punishment that really belongs to his parents, but he broke a rule. Just because it only says "weapons" in the handbook, I can guarantee you his parents (possibly he himself) signed something saying nothing gun or weapon related. Its not the first time someone has gotten suspended for casings or shells. I hear about highschool kids getting in trouble for shotgun shells in the bed of the truck all the time.

Just remember that the only place we got this whole "weaponlike" argument was from their online handbook. We have no clue what they signed their names to just to get through registration.

[rifleman]

i always thought that weapon-like pertaned to anything that resembles a weapon, or is used to be thought as a weapon. I used my folder knife at school this year to carve some stuff for a mold, no teacher was around but the students freaked out, gasps everywhere like i was going to take em all out. luckly it was outside not on school property but on city property and less than four inches. still come on. to much being told what to do, they (our decesion makers) think we are mindless sheeple.

[nowhereman]

Our rights being forfeit to make everyone feel safe. Thats not America, not the one its supposed to be. Why should we fall in line with this sheeple ignorant zero tolerance. We have to all suffer b/c there are some bad people out there? Just shows where we are headed as a society, reaks of socialism. No I wont just settle for the way things are now. But what can I do? If it was my kid, home school.... I never ever thought I would say that but can we actually keep our kit from picking up a .22 casing or some other empty cartridge at the range and taking it to school? What do we pat there pockets every morning and see if they have them? Live ammo and firearms yes that is locked away from children. Maybe we should put a blind fold on them so they can't ever learn how to make the gun finger and sound effects? Maybe we should just be so afraid we don't pass along our heritage and belief in the 2nd amendment to children. We probably should just send them to public school and let them be programmed by liberal nuts. I just... Whatever....

[Grasshopper]

Too bad it is illegal to blanket party these commies.
There was an ACLU full blown communist woman years ago that tried to start some trouble down south. The locals didn't put up with it at all. What they did was wrong but they had relative peace for 10 years or so from the ACLU. Who remembers this? It was a strategic use of force, it scared the little Marvins, they got the point.

[SteelCore]

"running joke with the wife about Dumb A$$ being in the water where we live and people drinking too much of it thus getting a severe case of the Dumb A$$"

-->I gotsta use this...brilliant!

"What happend to all the smart people? Maybe smart people are the new minority in America if not the whole world?????"

-->Sadly, the intelligentsia are always outnumbered, US and worldwide...but we don't have to be outgunned! :2pistol::2pistol::2pistol:

As I heard a comedian once say "Take the average person on earth...now half of them are dumber than that!":eek:

[jfowl31]

My point in all this is simple..... The kids parents HAD their choice a long time ago. They signed their name to a paper saying they would abide by the rules or XX would happen. Now that XX has happened they are all up in arms.

Its like me signing a document saying that if I speed I will get a ticket, and then busting out crying that I got a ticket when I sped down the highway.

I agree the rule is retarded! But if the kids parents were worried about these rules, they should have refused to sign the papers, and taken their kid to a private school that doesn't have such blanket rules or homeschooled their kid. That's my issue with this whole deal. They should have known what they were getting into when they put their kid in that school. I am not gonna send my kid to a Catholic school and then complain that he's being taught catholic values................ Learn to read the papers you are signing, and educate yourself so you don't break the rules like this one. The kid should have been told as soon as he got those shells that he couldn't take them to school. I used to have a big collection of emptys and other firearm related stuff, but I was always told by my parents that that stuff never went with me to school.

He broke the rules, he and his parents need to serve their punishment..... THEN they can complain and try to get the rules changed....... but as written, they broke them. If they feel the rules need to be clarified, so be it.... petition to have it changed, but for now, they broke the rules. That's how things get done, not by doing something stupid then crying because you got caught.

[nowhereman]

Your point about the signing your name to rules your right. But, I still refuse to accept the "socialization of America." I have too much experience with European people and socialist parts of this world to know that is the exact direction America is headed. In my mind a empty cartridge being called a weapon and socialism are related. VERY RELATED... You do jail time in other countries for owning one... This is America and this kind of stuff makes my WWII Vet. grandfather sad...

[jfowl31]

Where did it say that he is suspended for having a weapon?

The only way we even jumped to this whole weapon talk is from a link to their handbook that was posted by one of the guys here. Nowhere in the story does it even say why they suspended him.

For all we know, the kid signed a paper saying he wouldn't bring ammunition or casings to school, and if he did, there was a mandatory 5-day suspension.

I don't care how dumb the rule is..... once you sign your name, youre obligated to follow it. If you sign something saying you wont bring hoodly-doos to school and you bring one, you are in trouble. The only guys accusing them of saying this was a weapon is the guys in this thread commenting.

[mofocus]

its too gray though, what they agreed to by signing is up to opinion, heck he could have a toy M16 for his GIJoes and its possible some1 could say its weaponlike for that matter.......friggin liberal teachers.....

[jfowl31]

for now.... we need to get "weaponlike" out of our heads. That phrase was never in the article, and we are jumping to our own conclusion by saying that THAT is the rule that the school suspended him for.

If I remember right, there was a specific "weapons" form that I signed in HS and I'm sure elementary too that said absolutely no ammunition, or even any parts of guns or weapons. It wouldn't be a far stretch to relate brass casings and a gun part.

Nowhere in this article does it state that the kid was suspended for having a weapon or a weaponlike article..... we added that to the discussion. All we know is the kid broke a rule and was punished accordingly.

I'll agree with everyone that the rule about "weaponlike" IS too gray and should be changed, but where is the source saying that rule is at all related to this article?

[okie shooter]

Too bad it is illegal to blanket party these commies.
There was an ACLU full blown communist woman years ago that tried to start some trouble down south. The locals didn't put up with it at all. What they did was wrong but they had relative peace for 10 years or so from the ACLU. Who remembers this? It was a strategic use of force, it scared the little Marvins, they got the point.
I am not even sure what this idea has to with this subject, hmmm blanket parties for those who enforce rules(wether they believe in them or you believe in them they are the rules) Guess you want to blanket party the last cop that gave you a ticket too? Is anyone that doesnt agree with you there now automatically a commie(the aclu, this school board, this administrator at the school) in your eyes here too? Hmmm wonder where I and others who disagree with your ideas on this subject lie in you opnion too.

Heck and this is over a five day suspension of a kid and parents that should have thought or asked wether the object was within the schools policy, which I would see how many folks who have kids that this would be against policy too. Heck I cannot take them to work either. When I was a kid, there were a list of things banned from school, none which were dangerious but disruptive, this the school can ban things for almost any reason.