Iowa school district suspends first-grade home-schooler

[Liberal_in_LA]

Iowa school district suspends first-grade home-schooler

By Staci Hupp, The Des Moines Register
DES MOINES — First-grader Matthias Beattie this week joined the hundreds of U.S. children suspended each year under post-Columbine "zero tolerance" policies when he took a shotgun shell to his school.

The difference is that Matthias is home-schooled.

The 6-year-old Carlisle boy takes a class once a week through a Des Moines school district program that pairs public school teachers with home-schooled children.

The boy's parents say his one-week suspension lacks common sense.

"Matthias is a little kid from the farm, and he did not have intent to do any harm," his mother, Charlene Beattie, said.


http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-02-04-home-schooler-suspended_N.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno

[frazzled]

1. That's fine with me

A rule is a rule, and it will make kids aware of the danger. A week's suspension for a kid who only attends once a week anyway is hardly onerous punishment. Thumbs up on the school district's zero-tolerance policy. It's the only way to enforce rules.

[noamnety]

2. Doesn't sound like the school was out of line.

I have a problem with the parents' implication that it's okay for rural kids to bring shotgun shells to school, but not urban kids.

He goes to class once a week, he got suspended for one week which means he misses one day of class - at age 6. I hardly think that's a severe crushing "zero tolerance" model of punishment that he can't recover from.

[Robb]

3. Agreed. I lived in some seriously rural areas quite recently.

I don't think you get a pass on this because you live in the sticks. Quite the opposite, actually.

[Kievan Rus]

4. Zero tolerance = zero sense

[noamnety]

5. While I agree that "zero tolerance" is problematic

this exceedingly minor slap on the wrist is not a horror story of zero tolerance gone wrong.

The horror stories are more like getting suspended for making a gun gesture with thumb and pointer on the playground.