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Bringing Novelty Gum to School Could Get Student Expelled
Filed under: In The News, Weird But True
Bear in mind this is not the kind of novelty gum you used to order off the back of your comic books -- you know, the kind that tasteed like garlic. This is weapons-grade novelty gum. It gives off a mild electric shock.
Like a joy buzzer.
Fortunately, a 13-year-old at Andrew Jackson Middle School in Cross Lanes, W.Va., did not bring a joy buzzer on a school field trip. That might have landed him in Guantanamo Bay. Because we're talking novelty gum, he may get by with just being expelled from school.
For novelty gum?!
Times have changed. WOWK, the CBS affiliate in Charleston, W. Va., reports school officials consider any gag items that give off electric shocks to be potentially deadly weapons. A joy buzzer could presumably kill someone with a heart condition.
The gum-packing hooligan apparently wasn't considering such a grim possibility when he brought the gum on a school field trip last month. WOWK reports a teacher confiscated the gum, and the boy was immediately suspended for 10 days -- pending an expulsion hearing.
Kanawha County School District Superintendent Ron Duerring refused to answer questions from the station on the case. He simply cited state law that school districts are required to follow in such cases.
"Obviously, I'm upset, because my son has never been in trouble before," the boy's father, Harry Glaspell, tells the station. "It's a toy. I don't understand how they consider it a deadly weapon. It's not a gun or a knife."
Glaspell tells WOWK school officials recommend his son be expelled for 12 months.
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ReaderComments (Page 3 of 3)
6-13-2011 @ 6:51PM
ken said...With all the strange rules schools has these days, I hope sumwhere in the future, that all school will be boarded up & close. It's a good I don't have kids, but if I had kids, they would NEVER step inside any school.They be home schooled.
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6-13-2011 @ 7:00PM
tracey said...Great! With your language and writing skills I'm sure they would be adequately prepared. Did you ever think that a teacher just might be on your side and WANT to help children?
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6-13-2011 @ 7:35PM
Leighalittletyke said...I'm pretty sure this kid thought he just had some cool gum and wanted to show his friends. How was he supposed to know that such a thing could be deadly? He's a child. Soon they're going to put a ban on pens, pencils, and unguarded scissors. Those are far more likely to hurt someone intentionally than a stick of gum.
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6-14-2011 @ 7:53PM
Tish said...There have been children in the same county as AJ Middle School that have stabbed other children with pencils and threatened to stab teachers with scissors and received a much less severe punishment.
6-14-2011 @ 7:26AM
Rich said...Are they going to take all their pencils away also ??? they said anything that could be used as a weapon , and that would include pencils.....
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6-13-2011 @ 7:46PM
jbjg24m said...must be another slow news day for AOL
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6-13-2011 @ 7:48PM
Linda said...Thank you, justme171 -- glad to hear there is still someone with common sense out there. Maybe if parents shared the same punishments as the kids, they'd be inconvenienced enough to finally step up the plate and do their jobs.
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6-13-2011 @ 8:31PM
David said...A joy buzzer is normally not an electrical device, but wind-up toy. Aluminum foil, chewed by someone with fillings or crowns, will also give a slight shock (completely harmless, regardless of heart problems). The gum is no different but unfortunately the principal, charged with trying to teach students to think, is apparently incapable of doing the same. "ZT" does not stand for Zero Tolerance, it really means "Zero Thinking"
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6-13-2011 @ 8:01PM
Mike F said...Well we better ban ALL ELECTRICTY in schools. A bare wire can kill.A lightbulb can explode and the flying glass can kill.
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6-13-2011 @ 8:40PM
Lisa said...I can't believe how ridiculous this world has become. We have become so ploitically correct and paranoid about lawsuits that we have bent over so far that we can now kiss our own asses good-bye. Idiotic behavior on the part of the school district, not the kid.
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6-13-2011 @ 9:50PM
Liz said...This is rediculos. Why did that stupid teacher even make an issue of it? A prank like that might warrant a couple days detention, or, a written punishment of some kind, but expelling is such a farce. If these teachers today can't properly handle a prank such as this then they are pathetic. The teachers can sit with the kids watching what amounts to porn all in the name of sex education, but, you bring that joke gum in and you'll be drawn and quartered. How dare a 13 year old act like a 13 year old.
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6-14-2011 @ 12:55AM
shannon said...Gracious! Now that is that A-1 unbiased and well edited reporting that we have all come to appreicate!
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6-14-2011 @ 4:03PM
Amy said...I don't think anyone is crying about what a good boy he is (which he is. Up to now he's never been in trouble for anything) I think we, his parents, are saying that it is ridiculous to say that a harmless pack of novelty gum is a deadly weapon and have that follow him on his record for the remainder of his school years. I say harmless because it is not capable of producing enough "shock" to hurt anyone...even a heart patient. (we have a cardiac nurse and a person with a pacemaker who are willing to testify to this) It is powered by four batteries each of which is only capable of producing .07 milliamps. It takes 1 milliamp for the body to even register that it's touched anything and at least 500 milliamps to interfere with a pacemaker or fibrilate the heart. So your "first grader/older kid" scenario doesn't fly. As for your comment that he shouldn't be taking gum to school anyway...there isn't actually any gum in it.
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6-14-2011 @ 7:48PM
Tish said...It amazes me how people give their opinions without checking their facts or what they are writing about. It also amazes me at the grammar that is used. It's no wonder that WV gets a bad rap as "dumb hillbillys."
There are lots of children that take this prank gum to school in Kanawha County. They are not suspended or even receive detention. They are told not to bring it to school again because of the shock it gives.
He is being made an example of because of his last name. The whole situation is ridiculous and should not have gone as far as it did.
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