Georgia bans students over butter knife
Cake Knife Gets Girls Banned From Baccalaureate
Ashley Pickens and Candace Grier, seniors at Martin Luther King, Jr. High School in the Dekalb County Public School District, brought a cake to school. They found a butter knife in the school’s band room to serve it but were unable to return it as the door had been locked. A teacher discovered the knife and wrote the girls up. They were then suspended for 10 days and banned from baccalaureate ceremonies under the school’s zero tolerance weapon policy.
“[The teacher] said it really didn’t matter [that it was used for a cake],” Pickens said. “[He said] it’s a knife on school grounds, and you have to be written up for it — you ought to be glad we didn’t have you arrested.”
Both girls accepted the 10-day suspension, volunteering at a homeless shelter during that time, but they and their parents think this is a case of zero tolerance gone overboard.
“The knife was not brought to school,” said Wendy Pickens, Ashley’s mother. “The knife was in the band suite. When they finished washing the items, the band suite doors were closed. They couldn’t return it.”
Dekalb superintendent Dr. Crawford Lewis upheld the suspension and ban with one exception. The girls will be allowed to attend graduation ceremonies.
Contact Information:
Principal Sylvester Nelloms
(Tip credit to Eric DeMar, Jason Trommetter, Bob Laurence and Opinion Journal)
Dekalb superintendent Dr. Crawford Lewis upheld the suspension and ban with one exception. The girls will be allowed to attend graduation ceremonies.
How considerate of the fascist twirp.
This one takes the cake — ZT stuporattendant of the year.
They need to find out who brought the butter knife to school. Once they learn which teacher it was, have them arrested and charged with child endangerment.
Exactly. They FOUND the knife in school. They should be rewarded for ferreting out this deadly hazard.
What kind completely brain dead, pathetic excuse for an “educator” can’t tell the difference between a butter knife and a deadly weapon? This “teacher” the entire administration of this school should be held up as exactly why our schools are dismal failures.
Their very names should be the punchline of a lot of jokes.
I read a case similar to this where the parents took it to the Supreme Court and the Judge overturned the school’s ruling. He said the school had no evidence whatsoever that the student caught with a “similar weapon” (butter knife) had any intent at all to harm anyone. One smart judge……
Where does it end??? I’ll put money on the fact that the teachers must possess many “weapons” in the teacher’s lounge. I think the doors should be dead bolted…..
One more year for my son to make it through Public school and then I am done with this complete lack of common sense bull—-.
Deb