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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."
What were the parents thinking ?
We are obviously faced with a loophole in the law here. We urgently need to enhance the law so we can prosecute the parents of the child with criminal charges.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
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.
The state law does not restrict what the parents may include in a child's lunch, however, the girl's parents did not include the candy, it was given to her by another student (probably a friend)... Still seems very stupid, especially if her parents were to give her other foods lacking in nutritional value.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
taking candy from a 3rd grader
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.
>>This has to be the most idiotic story I've read in years. Someone clearly isn't in touch with reality here.
Heh, when I was in high school back in the 90s, I was in journalism. We had very nearly the exact same story happen in our area. The reason was different (educators didn't want kids sticking them to desks), but the effect was the same.
We also got to run a story about a Boy Scout being kicked out of school and refused graduation because he brought a (dull-tipped) Swiss Army knife to school. I think that was upheld on appeal, too, but I can't recall the details.
In local news, a year back we had a school shooting at a local community college. The board met to discuss what should be done, since the guy clearly was in violation of the zero tolerance signs posted up all over campus.
Their decision? They made the font bigger on the signs.
Her parents think the detention is stupid, tell the school that she won't be staying for it, and there's nothing the school can do about it. Right?
In loco parentis doesn't trump erm, er, whatever the Latin for 'actual parents' is, does it?
Here in the UK when my teacher tried to include me in a class detention because most of the class were misbehaving, my parents told the school that they wouldn't be allowing me to be kept in, and that was the end of it.
FGD 135
The Texas Public School Nutrition Policy (TPSNP) explicitly states that it does not restrict what foods or beverages parents may provide for their own children's consumption. The policy also explicitly states that school officials may adopt a local policy that is more restrictive than the state's.
State guidelines my big fat triple stacker cheeseburger. That would have had to been a school imposed Policy, according to this.
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
It's even stupider than that. The rules the board are citing clearly states that they do NOT restrict what foods parents can give their children.
But the candy didn't come from her parents, it was given to her by another student, who had gotten it from HER parents.
Nobody is suggesting punishing the other child though.
I seem to recall when I was in school, if you brought candy you were ENCOURAGED to share with the class. Now if you share a piece of candy with your friend - your friend gets detention !
Seriously, it's noble for the department to ensure that children get a decent, healthy and nutritional meal at lunchtime. Punishing a child for taking part in the time honored tradition of sharing (especially the recipient) is just outright stupid.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
then crack. Clearly the guidelines are in place to protect children from this heinous gateway drug/candy.
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.
> In local news, a year back we had a school shooting at a local community college. The board met to discuss what should be done, since the guy clearly was in violation of the zero tolerance signs posted up all over campus.
> Their decision? They made the font bigger on the signs.
Well those guys really are idiots. I mean, they shouldn't wonder if it happens again cuz they totally forgot to add Braille!!
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.
Much more enlightening than the coverage provided was a story in a local newspaper. They (gasp!) actually took the time to talk to the school officials involved and determine why such a ban exists, and why the punishment was so harsh. Heavens! It's almost like they engaged in, dare I say it, journalism! What's really telling is that it was on about page 7 of the Google search results list, well after all the blogs and screaming and angst over this injustice.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/education/Candy_is_dandy__but_not_at_school_3rd-grader_learns.html
Candy was not banned at the school because of a "nutritional" requirement, certain types of candy were banned because the kids were making a mess with them, and it was getting expensive to have to keep cleaning it up. Personally, I'd make any kid caught making a mess with candy give up a week or two of recess and spend time helping to clean the school. Or send their parents the janitor's bill for a day and let them enforce the problem with their little darlings. But a ban is probably an easier, if less fair, way to deal with the minority who were making a mess.
This still might be an overly harsh punishment for an action that doesn't even deserve punishment, but the real reason is far more interesting than the knee-jerk sells-newspapers coverage I've seen everywhere else.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
+4, +3 Insightful? Wow Mods, whoosh. This is funny. Your lack of noticing the tongue-in-cheek comment is even funnier.
Sometimes it's funnier to mod a funny post "insightful". It's a way of drawing even more attention to the comment in an even more serious light - which makes undercutting this with humor even more effective...
Granted, it's sort of an abuse of the moderation system, but, god damn it, just because someone reacts differently to a joke than you did does not mean they didn't get it! I'm sick of "whoosh", people overuse it and misuse it all the time.
Bow-ties are cool.
we should prosecute the friend. and declare the War on Candy
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Then the friend should be punished according to the state's policy. Oh, wait, there's no punishment mandated for students violating the policy (it's enforced against the schools by the Dept. Of Agriculture). Sounds like another case of the local school administrator thinking with something other than his or her brain.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/education/Candy_is_dandy__but_not_at_school_3rd-grader_learns.html
Candy was not banned at the school because of a "nutritional" requirement, certain types of candy were banned because the kids were making a mess with them. Oh, and by the way, the friend was also punished with the same detention.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
... when every couple of years one of the not-so-well-adjusted kids gets himself a gun and makes them pay. As far as I'm concerned, actually I'm surprised that it's only one of them every couple of years.
Shouldn't the eating areas be constructed to facilitate cleaning?
I understand chewing gum bans, but jolly ranchers?
As far as junk food bans, this is getting crazy.
A friend of mine had her daughters zero calorie soda confiscated, yet other kids can keep their kool aid and juice boxes, which are less healthy by many accounts.
The governments solution to bad decisions by parents is to empower teachers and administration to make bad decisions instead.
This is ridiculous.
Kids should eat in an easy to clean area, they should be able to eat whatever the parents decide to send.
If you take MY candy, I will take it from YOUR cold dead hands.
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I read the attached article, but I still call BS. From the 2nd until 8th grade,I sold candy at school: Now and Laters, Jolly Ranchers, Blow Pops, and a slew of other "hard candy." Not once did it make a mess. I have a 2nd grader and the kids share candy all the time in the cafeteria. There's no mess. You can paint this anyway you want, but educators know better. Jolly Ranchers aren't new and it's not like there's been a rash of Jolly incidents. Gum, ok, I can understand. However, there's no commonailty between gum and hard candy. FWIW, I take a JR and throw it against the wall as hard as I can and the mess (assuming the wrapper comes open) can be cleaned in about 2 minutes. That's nothing compared to what happens with green peas. Those suckers go everywhere. Should we outlaw peas, carrots, mashed potatoes (hard to get out of ears and noses)? Again, BS.
Interesting that that statement came after the story about the school getting a letter from the state saying they went too far.
I'm from Texas and this is just stupid.
Well... you said it, not me.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Schools enforce any arbitrary rules that they want. I ran into 1st amendment problems in high school (freedom of the press). I was told "You can't do that.". I countered that with "The constitution says I can." They responded with "That doesn't matter, you're in our school, we say what the law is."
The local print media picked up the story, and then the school changed it's stance to "As long as his paper does not include libelous or defamatory content." Since we had stuck with running facts (mostly, I was just a teenager) interspersed with opinions, we were safe, but still told not to do it.
Food stuffs aren't constitutionally protected, as far as I know. Constitutionally protected items are ignored as they see fit.
I believe these rules come from school administration having been in their position for years without significant oversight unless an event such as these happen. They continue to extend their rules as they see fit without confirming the legality with anyone with a law background.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
How interesting. That article reads very differently.
To sum up:
- 5 days of detention served at lunchtime and breaks
- School has banned hard candy and gum because of the mess
- Nutritional value is only applicable to food served by the school, not packed lunch
- Girl was given the candy by a friend who also got detention
- Candy was not actually consumed. It was confiscated.
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Reading the article AND finding multiple sources? Welcome, you must be new here!
I suppose it's a good thing you don't have a law degree, as you'd be an awful attorney. Minors do not universally enjoy the same expression of constitutional rights as adults (as an example, the principle of in loco parentis regarding school environments). The Supreme Court has held that certain minor rights may be abridged under certain circumstances, as explained in references like this one, along with countless others.
You are advised to educate yourself before continuing to post on this topic.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
> 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.