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Girl suspended for stick-figure doodle


Can you say, "idiotic?"

Apparently some people don't remember how it was like when they were that age or ever in that situation (not the suspended part, but the getting pissed from a bad grade part).

she would have been better off flipping the bird at both teachers...


Girl suspended for stick-figure doodle
May 2, 2002 Posted: 3:01 PM EDT (1901 GMT)

MOUNT LEBANON, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A Pennsylvania school suspended an 11-year-old girl for drawing two teachers with arrows through their heads, saying the stick figures were more death threat than doodle.

Becca Johnson, an honor-roll sixth-grader at Mellon Middle School, drew the picture on the back of a vocabulary test on which she had gotten a D.

"That's my way of saying I'm angry," Becca said, adding she meant no harm to the teachers.

The stick figures, on a crudely drawn gallows with arrows in their heads, had the names of Becca's teacher and a substitute teacher written underneath. Another teacher spotted the doodle in the girl's binder Tuesday and reported it, prompting the three-day suspension.

Becca's parents, Philip and Barbara Johnson, denied the school's contention the drawings were "terrorist threats."

"She had done poorly on a test that was handed back to her. We've always told her that you can't take your feelings out on your teacher, so write about it or draw it, as a catharsis," Barbara Johnson said.

She accused the school of applying a zero-tolerance policy that "does away with due process and inflicts a penalty without a hearing or investigation."

The district said its zero-tolerance policy applies only to gun or drug possession, and denied that no investigation was done.

"All I can say is that when we have taken action related to the activities of students in the schools, we have done so after a thorough investigation," Mount Lebanon School District Superintendent Glenn Smartschan said.

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

May 2, 2002 | 8:46 PM Comments  0 comments

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Comments

tosswinklethepirate Torin Clack
May 2, 2002 | 10:43 PM

I think it was funny. Harsh for the kid, but everyone'll get over it.
rsmarg Robert Margolis
May 3, 2002 | 9:11 AM
Typical
I remember the administrators at my high school as being very bureaucratic and procedural. They always would "fail-safe" to prevent parental complaints. While it is good to be accountable, it can stifle student expression and even teach the wrong lessons.
nick Nick Moraitis
June 6, 2002 | 11:03 PM
TERRORIST!!
ooo. every kid suspended from school for three days is now a terrorist???
what, like, osama bin laden has been behind all those school yard bullies and that exam cheating?
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