Peas weigh in- friend’s little boy expelled

Apologies, I don't have any experience, but oh my goodness that poor little boy. I think his parents should have been present at the questioning. If he were in the UK, if he doesn't have mental capacity, he has to be allowed a representative.

I also think that parents need to take some responsibility and not allow him to have any knives (or anything forbidden) that might end up in school by accident, because that's what zero-tolerance means. What a sad story.

I have issues with zero tolerance policies on the whole. I just don't believe anything is ever as black and white as life would have to be in order for that kind of policy to truly work. And because of that, we will continue to hear of instances where it just doesn't work.

And in my opinion, this is certainly one of those instances where it is not working. That poor kid. They didn't even realize they had it with them.

This is a hard one. I'd have your friend contact a lawyer and see how it works in your state.

My friend's husband tried to give my kids pocket knives as a gift and she said absolutely not. She knew that little boys bring that stuff to school and get in trouble/expelled.

There is what is called a BIP. Behavioral intervention plan. I’ve never seen them written with a modification to standard consequences though, especially in this case where the knife is considered a weapon. The mom needs an advocate if nothing else

 
So can a student who doesn't have a disability be expelled permanently? If so, that's some BS.

Hopefully the parents learned their lesson and took full responsibility for allowing their young child to possess a weapon.

Yes they can be expelled permanently but it’s rare. I do know of a couple of cases that it happened and it was because the teenager I think either brought drugs to sell at school or had a weapon which I believe was a gun. The other thing is that the school districts are still responsible to educate that child. The case that I know where it was a special ed student who was suspended For I think 15 or 20 school days the school still had to offer tutoring. Some of our districts in the area actually have a specific program for those kids who have been suspended to still receive instruction. Now sometimes parents refuse the instruction but more often than not the child does receive continued education. 

Ugh. Zero tolerance policies suck all the way around. I’m sorry this has happened. Yes, parents should have been aware but the punishment for their lack of awareness should not be on the kid.

I might be turning into a tinfoil hat person but when I hear about this kind of thing I tend to think the principal saw an easy way to to exit a special needs kid from the school. Happens in charter schools and other schools of choice all the time - many of these are nominally public schools.

I hope the lawyer and advocate are able to get this boy back into his school. I also hope his classroom teacher wasn’t part of the decision to expel him. I’d like to think she’ll welcome him back with open arms.

Heck, dh was 6 when he got his first one.

Just echoing previous posts.

Lawyer

Advocate

Contact the district AND county special ed services departments.

Contact district AND county superintendent. Move up the chain to state if needed.

Contact news papers.

Contact news stations. Districts HATE bad publicity.

If could has services - private, ask them to reach out and advocate too.

Dh went camping a lot and did wilderness stuff from a very early age. Would I give a 6 yr old a pocket knife just cuz? No. But with proper training, handling, and rules yes.

I've seen 5 yr Olds using knives to cut food.

I would argue if a child is too young to understand the ramifications of bringing a pocket knife to school they are also way too young to possess one.

This is a general response not to the quoted part: I don't understand what kind of parent gives a child a knife. I can understand a parent using a knife with a child in a shared activity but we just are so careless with it we leave it in a crayon box?

Nope, I’m on that bench with you. Just the fact that the kid had the knife and misplaced it says something to me, because in my house that would have been something that I would have put away until we had a project we could use it on together. What if an even younger kid would have discovered it while coloring with those crayons and hurt themselves?

I’ve always been unusually sensitive to younger kids using knives without adult assistance. One of my high school friends was blinded in one eye as a child trying to cut an apple with a sharp knife by herself when she was in grade school. Accidents happen. Kids do dumb things. Responsible adults try to prevent them when they can.

I am opposed to zero-tolerance policies (I've even written about them) and agree with others that it is time to explore legal options if they are otherwise happy with the school.

I also agree with others that if the child is too immature to treat the knife with care, he is too immature to own it or to have unsupervised access to it.

A number of thoughts:

I still wouldn't give my boys with autism pocket knives and they are 21 & 23. They couldn't be safe with them for different reasons. We have no idea how severe the child in the OP is and that is important information.

The school district owes the child a free and appropriate education. That does not mean that they owe him an education at the school of his/his parents’ choice. I understand that the boy loves the school, but none of us has the full picture and whether that is the best placement/least restrictive environment that is safe for him and his classmates.

What someone with neuro typical children who homeschools them is not particularly applicable to a child with autism who attends a public school. It is interesting information, but it isn’t necessarily relevant. I eat whole wheat bread. It is safe for me. Another 3rd grade teacher on my team has celiac disease. The fact that it is perfectly fine and safe for me to eat wheat doesn't mean it is for her.

None of us knows the actual child, what his level of functioning is, whether a knife was appropriate at his age, whether there are other issues - behavioral and academic - that might make this placement problematic. That at his young age this is “the first school he has ever loved” means that he has been to multiple schools for some reason(s) that none of us know.

Honestly, there is too much unknown information for me to know if the school behaved inappropriately.