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3rd-Grader Busted For Jolly Rancher Possession
theodp writes "A third-grader in a small Texas school district received a week's detention for merely possessing a Jolly Rancher. Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch Monday when a teacher confiscated the candy. Her parents said she was in tears when she arrived home later that afternoon and handed them the detention notice. But school officials are defending the sentence, saying the school was abiding by a state guideline that banned 'minimal nutrition' foods. 'Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,' said school superintendent Jack Ellis."
From our so-called educators.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
In my day we managed to carry around weed and not get caught. The fact that she got caught with a Jolly Rancher proves what I suspect - kids today are a little slower, mentally speaking.
Learning to get away with stuff is vital to the developmental process. I see a sad future where the adults of tomorrow are too stupid to run a decent ponzi scheme, and all the good ones are owned by foreigners.
This third grader, her parents and those who read the story are learning a valuable lesson about the nature of the state.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
while walking home from school after teacher implements zero tolerance policy and confiscates condition-regulating candy.
I suppose it would take something terrible like the hypothetical situation above to put tolerance back into the system.
If this EVER happend to my kid, I would be down at this principal's office, telling him to shove thier policy up their ass sideways and my son would absolutely not be serving any detention over a friggin' piece of candy.
They want to press? I'll be pressing buttons on the phone for my lawyer and the local newsmedia myself. Legal nightmare, PR nightmare, financial nightmare... they'll have all of that for sure.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
saying the school was abiding by a state guideline that banned 'minimal nutrition' foods. 'Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,' said school superintendent Jack Ellis."
Except that the state guideline is intended to restrict what the school provides to students, not what students bring into the school themselves. It's about making sure that the school is meeting nutritional requirements in the lunches it provides and not that it's taking state and federal funding dollars to provide the students with pizza bought from the Domino's franchise owned by the principal's brother. It's actually explicit even in the linked article without having to read the linked statute, and the administrators dance around it as "well the parent didn't provide it - it came from another student". Still didn't come from the school - still not covered by the law.
The school administrators making this claim are either idiots or liars. They could, I suppose, be idiots - plenty of idiots get moved into administration positions where they can do less harm to students than in front of a chalkboard. But it's more likely that they're liars who think that if they "blame the government" they can divert attention away from themselves. They don't want candy in school? That's fine - when I was a kid the administrators at my elementary school had the same rule. But they didn't try to pretend like they were conforming to some fictional government requirement to restrict candy in the school. They just said "no candy in school" and that was that. And if the parents had a problem with it they could bring it up at the school board meeting and get the school board to change the policy.
I don't see where getting it from a friend is any different from bringing it from home. It's a freakin' piece of candy. I'm from Texas and this is just stupid.
I also thought this part of the article was interesting:
Ellis said school officials had decided a stricter punishment was necessary after lesser penalties failed to serve as a deterrent.
How extreme do the punishments have to be before the powers that be realize that the rule sucks? Maybe deterring is pointless? I understand that Fast Food Nation and Supersize Me are bringing things to public awareness, and in general it's a good thing if the schools increase the nutritional quality of what they provide to the kids, but to try to take away a kid's right to choose whether she's going to eat a tiny piece of long-lasting candy is borderline insane. Rule makers, educators and legistlators: Please stop making new rules just to try to make things "better", when there are much better ways for you to spend your time.
Also, one other question: Do parents get to provide any feedback on this rule?
WHOOSH!!!!
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
Thanks man ... next time someone asks me why I oppose the criminalization of drugs, I'll just point them to that article. Sometimes reality provides it's own parody.
"Zero tolerance" is code for "I don't want to have to think critically," or "my staff is too unprofessional to avoid favoritism."
Thus, the only people who think zero tolerance is a good idea are inept managers, administrators and politicians.
"Zero tolerance is for things like, violence, gun possesion, possesion of drugs, harassment, cheating, etc, etc."
You are doing exactly what parent is criticizing, and for exactly the same reason. Violence (self defense), gun possession (BB Gun, toys), possession of drugs (OTC, prescription, etc), harassment (online? name calling?), cheating (plagiarism, failed footnote).
You really, really need to rethink.
> Instead of banning hard candies, ban making messes and punish those who do.
Nope, can't do that, see the gun control debate...
Excessive forking causes un-wanted children.