Student indefinitely suspended over model rocket engine
School suspends boy over model engine
A student at Pinelands Regional Junior High (caution: noisy website) had a model rocket engine in his locker. A fellow student reported this to administrators and the boy (described only as a 7th or 8th grader) was suspended indefinitely while police try to determine the student’s ‘intent’.
Wanting to quash rumors there was a bomb in the school, [Superintendent Detlef Kern] said the device was technically legal, though it still constituted a potential fire hazard.
“There (was) no imminent danger to anything,” he said, adding that the school was not evacuated.
A legal device that created “no imminent danger to anything” resulted in a police investigation and indefinite suspension. Why?
It was legal - why are the police involved at all? It created no danger - why is the boy suspended? The suspension will go on forever until the boy’s “intent” is determined - why can’t the administrators determine this themselves?
Not only have they made a mountain out of a molehill, they are refusing to even attempt to climb it.
(Tip credit to Victoria Miller)
Poor kid probably wanted to show it to his science teacher. My brother made a rocket as part of his science project years ago.
New Jersey school officials are particulary stupid when it comes to zero tolerance.
How sad. The airplane club is how all the professional engineers have an opportunity to work with kids in the area. It’s such a rewarding thing for everyone involved.
I felt the same way about this teacher:
http://us.cnn.com/2005/US/02/16/teacher.arrested.ap/index.html
Teacher accused of instructing students on bomb-making
Pieski told investigators he detonated chemicals in a coffee can by a ball field four times for his students, the sheriff’s office said. He said he did this as a chemistry project to show a reaction rate, the arrest report said.
It could have described my son’s chemistry teacher, (who has a phd from Yale).
At the middle school I attended, there were DOZENS of rocket engines at the school at any given time. We had a rocketry club led by one of the physics/chemistry teachers, and kids brought materials to school for the club, and the back of one science classroom was their dedicated space (you need room to build a wind tunnel.) They designed, built, and launched rockets after school and at the annual open house. This is ridiculous.
Again…. do we have the whole story here? What did the kid who turned in the kid with the rocket motor tell the principal? If it was that “billy has some explosives in his locker and wants to blow up study hall” then the principal would be considered a hero. As of now he sounds like a dork.
But we will never know the whole story here. Usual reason…..
barry
Barry,
It would take one huge model rocket engine to blow up study hall, y’know? And you’re right - it doesn’t say much about the device - was it by itself, was it actually installed into a model rocket? The fact of the matter is that they were having to “dig” to find out what the kid’s intent was, so would could assume that his classmate didn’t go to the teacher saying that the kid was going to blow up study hall - otherwise the kid would have been arrested for making threats.
Barry,
Your comment makes zero sense. Who CARES what the kid who reported it said? Is this the Salem witch trials, or the Spanish Inquisition?
Last time I checked, the standard for proving wrongdoing depended on more than the excited utterance of some snot nosed pre teen.
Barry, would it be reasonable for Homeland Security to haul your butt down to Gitmo for a little interrogation based on my saying you were going to blow up something?