School tells boy to leave My Little Pony backpack at home (FAIL)

[CreekDog]

School tells boy to leave My Little Pony backpack at home
Posted on Tuesday, March 18 at 12:53pm | By Amy Graff

A North Carolina public elementary school is forbidding a 9-year-old boy from wearing a My Little Pony backpack because school officials have decided it’s a trigger for bullying. Kids were making fun of Grayson Bruce because they thought his Rainbow Dash backpack was girly. “They’re taking it a little too far, with punching me, pushing me down, calling me horrible names, stuff that really shouldn’t happen,” Grayson told WLOS-TV.

Buncombe County Schools decided the best way to solve the problem was to tell Grayson to leave his beloved pack at home.
Grayson’s mother, Noreen Bruce, doesn’t agree with the school’s decision, especially because her son is wearing a backpack advertising a show that promotes friendship.
“There’s no bad words, there’s no violence, it’s hard to find that, even in cartoons now,” Noreen told WLOS-TV.

To express her discontent around the school’s decision and rally support around her son, Noreen started a Support for Grayson Facebook page that already has over 31,000 fans.

Grayson is a loyal fan of the Hub children’s cable network series “Friendship is Magic,” that follows a studious unicorn named Twilight Sparkle and her friends Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie...Hasbro created the show for a girl audience but it has quickly become popular among all sexes and a recent New York Times story opens with a scene featuring a boy sitting on No. 4 train in Manhattan wearing a 3-foot-tall Pinkie Pie doll on his back. In other words, Grayson is far from the only boy watching this show. I think whether the show is intended for boys or girls is irrelevant...

http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/2014/03/18/school-tells-boy-to-leave-my-little-pony-backpack-at-home/

https://www.facebook.com/SupportForGrayson

[MineralMan]

1. Ah, more knee-jerk victim blaming.

Stupid people do stupid things, it seems.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Massive fail. It's the little bullying shits who need to change their behavior.

[get the red out]

9. Absolutely

Why is it so hard to realize that it is the job of the adults to teach kids to behave decently toward one another?

[lame54]

3. Why the hell is it always North Carolina?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

6. i think you mean FL, or TX or ...

FFS...

sP

[lame54]

7. I mean NC...

ever since I moved there has been one bigoted story after another

coincidence?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

10. yeah... i see

[CreekDog]

12. i know what is upsetting you

everything but what was described in the OP.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

14. as usual from you...

just snark. the op points to a serious problem of victim blaming and illustrates a lot of what is wrong with this country. however, the comment about it 'always' being NC (by lame54...to whom I was responding) is just moronic... and reflective of posts commonly placed on this board complaining problem A or problem B is 'always' a <insert_state_name_here> problem.

nice of you to drop by, though. your input is always consistent and appreciated.

sP

[Warpy]

4. Schools always seem to side with the bully boys

It was true when I went to school so many decades ago and it's true now.

If they ever start to see bullying as the pathological behavior it is, they might turn into places where learning is prized over conformity.

[RKP5637]

11. Yep, same in my school. Jocks and bullies when to the top of the list as OK, the

rest of us were seen as less. Later, it drastically improved!!!

One principal even hid in his closet in his office because the bullies yelled at him, he went in and locked the door. Finally, TPTB got rid of him. They moved him to a very academic post for which he was better suited and he excelled at that.

They put in a very tough no nonsense principal and things vastly improved. He was hard, but fair and took no sh** from anyone. And the entire school system improved for a bunch of reasons.

They also instituted a policy that every teacher had to have a minimum of a masters degree and went through some type of qualification testing. We had superb teachers.

There were verbal bullies, and the teachers took them to task and demeaned them in class to a POS. That, was what some of these assholes needed, and it worked.

I just feel so fortunate in life to have gone to a school system that figured out how to deal with bullies and how to treat "ALL" students fairly.

I excelled in music. One day the head football coach got up in an Assembly, recognized me for my achievements, and told the students I deserved the same respect and recognition as his top players, several of which went on as professional players. He said all people in life have talents and each needs to be respected for their particular talents, none are better than others just because they play sports and all.

That, was a wonderful experience. And IMO, how a school system should work. I was so lucky!

[Democracyinkind]

5. I hope tha this time no DUer will argue that the school was basically right in saying that. nt

[get the red out]

8. By this logic

The solution to my being bullied in school should have been simple. My Mother should have shaved off my curly hair and put a straight haired wig on me so as not to upset the abusers preference for straight-haired girls.

Of course in my day and my school bullying was the norm and no one cared about any kids getting abused at all.

[madinmaryland]

13. What bothers me know is that schools have been decimated by the teabaggers and there

is no money left to bring in more hall monitors, bus monitors, etc. All it leaves the schools to do is tell the victim not to bring in things that could provoke bullies.

I am assuming the boy takes the bus in, so that he is in control of the school from the point he leaves his home until returns in the evening. It should be the schools duty to protect all children, and they should be feel comfortable in school just as they are.

[littlewolf]

15. we would not need monitors if the children's parents

put their foot up their little darlings hindparts and stopped the
bullying.

[madinmaryland]

16. It is where we have to start. That is the only way to stop the cycle of violence.

Unfortunately, the teabaggers will not allow the cycle to end.