Arundel school officials say boy wasn't suspended solely for 'pastry gun' incident

[alp227]

Source: Baltimore Sun

Officials for the Anne Arundel County school system said Tuesday a second-grader suspended last year after being accused of nibbling a pastry into the shape of a gun was not sanctioned solely for that incident, but also for disruptive behavior leading up to it.

A school system appointed hearing examiner is conducting a review of the matter involving then-second grader Joshua Welch, who received a two-day suspension in March of last year after he nibbling a pastry into a gun.

The case drew national attention and attempts from the General Assembly to alter language regarding student suspensions. Welch's father, J.B. Welch, has been outspoken on his son's suspension, and the family has since transferred him to another school. But their attempts to have the matter removed from his record have been denied by school officials, prompting the appeal.

Welch and his family were present at Tuesday's hearing, which was heard by hearing examiner Andrew Nussbaum. After the matter is heard, Nussbaum will forward a recommendation to the school board, which will render a decision.

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/anne-arundel/glen-burnie/bs-md-ar-pastry-kid-hearing-20140428,0,3201506.story

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Meanwhile in this same county district, a high schooler got expelled for leaving a hunting gun in his car.

I'd like to tell this school: thanks for turning this kid into a far-right martyr and for tarnishing public education in America!

This story has made national headlines.

[bossy22]

1. zero tolerance = zero sense

[yeoman6987]

2. The school and district

let the message get out of hand. They should have controlled the message better.

[VA_Jill]

3. Oh, for pity's sake!

So he did the same thing the day before. So what. A gun-shaped pop tart is a THREAT to exactly WHO? (or whom, don't confuse me with grammar issues, I'm no longer in school!) This whole thing is beyond silly and shows nothing so much as the ridiculousness of zero tolerance, and the necessity of some grown-ups (I can't dignify them with the name adults) to aways be in the right.
/rant mode off.

[Arkana]

4. Horseshit.

They're trying to smear this kid because they know they overreacted, so they figure telling everyone he was just a useless juvenile delinquent anyway will ameliorate the bad press they're getting.

[KamaAina]

5. Remember, pastry doesn't kill people, people kill people.

[LibertyLover]

6. I live in Anne Arundel County

and what the Baltimore Sun article didn't mention but local news did, was that there had been a number of other incidents with this kid being disruptive in class. In fact the pastry nibbling incident referred to in the article was the second of its kind in 2 days. The kid had been warned after the first time he nibbled a breakfast pastry into a gun shape and damned if he didn't go and do it again the very next day. It wasn't that he had made himself a toy from a toaster pastry, but that he was also waving the "gun" around and shouting to the other kids in his class that he had a gun, which frightened some of his classmates. The school board had been trying to keep the whole story about the 2 gun incidents as well as the other incidents of disruption quiet so as not to cause problems for the kid in his new school, but when the family demanded that the boy's record be revised the board had to explain the school's reasoning. Local news also showed the father stating that he had not known of the earlier problems his son had had in school. It wasn't a case of zero tolerance after just one incident of 'youthful hijinks' at all.

[alp227]

7. Apparently if your special snowflake is a gun lover

he gets to be a right wing martyr!

Link to the info?

[LibertyLover]

9. Local news reports mention the earlier incidents

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/04/pop-tart-gun-josh-welch-s-personal-record-may-or-may-not-be-cleared-102626.html

http://www.abc2news.com/news/region/anne-arundel-county/boy-suspended-for-pop-tart-gun-trying-to-clear-record

[alp227]

11. Thanks. both stories quote the dad

saying he never heard of the previous incidents. If that was the case, the Welch family was denied due process since they did not get the full story from the school. But did his behavior really warrant suspension in the first place?

[LibertyLover]

12. I think there his behavior did warrant it because

it wasn't just a one-off incident that prompted the suspension, but a series of problems with the kid. As for the father not knowing, well, maybe yes, but probably no. Each school in the county works somewhat differently. The first elementary school my daughter went to, her teachers never told us anything. In fact we finally had to have a meeting with the principal and her 1st grade teacher so that we could get the full story on an incident regarding lunch money being taken from our child by the teacher. It turned out to be a situation where all parties were equally to blame for stupidity, including us, for having given the kid a five dollar bill rather than a one dollar bill (because we didn't happen to have one and we didn't want to give her quarters because we knew she would loose them).

In the second elementary school she went to, the communication between us and the school was fantastic. Of course, some of that came from the fact that my husband walked her to and from school and got to know the teachers, principal and aides very well, not to mention that he volunteered for a lot of stuff like going on field trips.

But with her new school system, both for elementary and now middle school and still in Anne Arundel County, we are back to being mushrooms, especially with her band teacher. The elementary school wasn't as bad, and the band teacher there was great, but now in middle school we can't get shit from the teachers. Nor are they very helpful. Yet, I understand from some of the neighbors that the high school is completely different and does keep parents informed via a number of pathways, including electronic.

I know that there is a boy who was in my daughter's elementary school here, in fact before we moved last August he lived just a few houses away, who is a behavioral nightmare. He got thrown off the bus regularly for fighting and was finally put on on-school suspension and permanently enjoined from using the bus for his actions. He also got detention and finally a suspension for fighting in school. I also know that his mother claimed she was never told about his "problems" when for a fact I saw the kid a number of walking home from the bus stop, before he lost bus riding privileges, ripping up the note he'd been sent home with and bragging about it to his posse.

Anne Arundel Public Schools aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they generally don't go off half-cocked either.

[alp227]

13. what it boils down to is whether the school fully informed the parents of their son's misbehavior

If the school is making up this claim about a pattern of disruptive behavior like the student yelling "GUN!", the student's record should be cleaned.

This Balt Sun article from 3/4/13 reports:

Welch said an assistant principal at Park Elementary School told him that his son pointed the pastry at a classmate — though the child maintains he pointed it at the ceiling.

"In my eyes, it's irrelevant; I don't care who he pointed it at," Welch said. "It was harmless. It was a Danish."

And from this article in OP:

B.J. Welch said he was led to believe his son's two-day suspension was triggered by heightened concerns officials had about guns, and said many of the school system's assertions about his son's behavior and punishments had not been conveyed to him until Tuesday.

This WBAL article reports:

The boy told CNN what happened when he unwrapped his pastry at school last week.

"I showed him what the pastry looked like. It was blue and it was a rectangle -- it was a cherry one -- and this one was about five quarters long, and when I was done, it turned out to be a gun -- yeah," the boy said.

Josh's father, B.J. Welch, said the school called him and said his son was suspended for shaping his pastry into a gun and saying, "bang bang."

Josh has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to his father, who is furious about the two-day suspension.

[LibertyLover]

14. We are just going to have to disagree

I think the father is in massive denial about his son's behavior and the school system had every right to suspend him and to not cleanse his record. I have a child in the Anne Arundel school system, so I have a vested interest in seeing that they maintain a safe environment for her to learn.

[Scruffy Rumbler]

8. Equating chewing a pop tart into the shape of a gun

with being a juvenile delinquent is the same as saying biting the heads of Animal Crackers is the leads to animal abuse.

And unless there is a recording of the kid saying he had a gun.... well, people have lied about children before to protect themselves.

[LibertyLover]

10. No, it was a repeated pattern

of disruption in class by the kid that finally got him the suspension. Apparently he is doing better in his new school.

[penultimate]

15. My problem is that if they find a 'gun shaped' pop tart to be a major disruption to lunch

then it calls into their question their judgment when it comes to the other disruptions they claim. The issues listed seem so minor that must have been far better ways of handling it. I used to work with and around school aged children, and I witnessed teachers behave in what can best be described as irrational. Most of the time it was just because they were having a rough day, but sometimes it was simply because they sucked at their job and had control issues. If they can't handle the kids without taking things to the extreme, then maybe they should find a different line of work.