Oh No! Kid gots a spoon!

According to the New York Times (and I saw this on yahoo news too), Zachary Christie, a six year old, was suspended from going to school in the Christina School District, Delaware, for bringing a camping utensil to school. Zachary had gotten a multi-tool from his boy scouts group and was excited to eat using said tool at school. Unfortunately, the tool is also a fork and a knife, which caused the boy to get suspended. His school district employs a zero tolerance policy on weapons.

However, where do you draw the line at zero tolerance? Apparently, Zachary's mom draws it far away from her son's action, since she feels it is absolutely ridiculous. Lawmakers are also scrambling on young Zachary's case, since they have been trying to make this zero tolerance policy dependent on a "case to case" basis. Last year, another girl was suspended since her grandma sent her to school with a knife, with the intent to KILL. Just kidding, it was for a cake that her grandmother made. Apparently the teacher had first used the knife to cut the cake, then called the principle to get this girl suspended (presumbly using one hand to fork a huge piece of cake and the other to complain to the principle about the tremendous danger of this generous girl).

Although this seems very unfair especially to our nation's very young people, it is not unjustified. Many incidences of school dangers have occurred very recently. Columbine, Virginia Tech and our very own Hillsdale High School. Although many people doubt that these small toddlers are insane and capable to bringing guns to school and shooting up the place, it is nevertheless, better to be safe than sorry.

However, I do think that a case to case basis should be considered, since it is really not fair to six year olds who probably do not even know of things like Columbine or Virginia Tech. Now, poor Zachary has to get home schooled, which may not be a bad thing, but is nevertheless missing his experiences of being a young student. If you want to help out Zachary, or find out more from his mother's side, click here.

Where do you draw the line?

-Henry Zhang