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."

Comments

Kids today.

[Petersko]

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 is Not all Bad News

[skywire]

This third grader, her parents and those who read the story are learning a valuable lesson about the nature of the state.

Re:This is Not all Bad News

[Buelldozer]

This article, and many more like it, prove the existence of a growing "Nanny State.". I often read people dismissing "Slippery Slope" arguments but here is a real life example.

Someone passed a guideline to try and help children eat healthier and suddenly children are being punished for possessing a piece of candy.

It doesn't take a genius to see how this is going to play out in other realms such as healthcare and finance. After all, the bureaucratic morons running the schools are essentially the same bureaucratic morons that you'll find doing the administrative work in local, state, and federal governments.

No, not all of the administrators in a school or the government are morons. Many of them are intelligent and capable people. The problem is that they're outnumbered by the morons.

This just in: Hypoglycemic child dies...

[razathorn]

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.

Liars

[Jer]

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.

Re:RTFA

[TheReij]

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.

Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy

[ImNotAtWork]

Please do not say children have no rights in schools, it is patently incorrect to spread that view. That view gets us into situations like that one girl who was stripped searched and made to expose herself to a nurse during the search for a tylenol.

"Students do not shed their constitutional rights when they enter the school house doors." -Tinker v. Desmoines

Re:Not her parents...

[c6gunner]

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.