Christian Science Monitor: “The suspension last week of an Ohio fifth-grader who formed his hand into the shape of a gun and pointed his finger “execution-style” at a classmate is fueling the debate over whether school administrators under pressure to keep schools safe are punishing students excessively for imaginative play.
Officials at Devonshire Alternative Elementary School defended their decision to suspend 10-year-old Nathan Entingh, whose hand they designated as a “level 2 lookalike gun.” Gun play at the school had become a problem, they said, and students and parents had been warned against it.
But the three-day suspension is already fodder for a movement in several state legislatures that seeks to force school officials to let up on what many parents and educators see as the overzealous prosecution of “zero tolerance” policies that bypass common sense and hurt children by punishing healthy imaginations and play.
Since the 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act mandated “zero tolerance” for students bringing guns to school, school officials have expanded that basic notion to include gun play with toy guns, food shaped into guns, and, now, in Ohio, even hand gestures. Recent school shootings, including the Sandy Hook massacre in December 2012, have ratcheted up tensions – and principals’ sensitivities.”
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