{"id":74024,"date":"2013-09-27T19:28:59","date_gmt":"2013-09-27T18:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/pennsylvania-school-sued-for-suspending-student-over-his-toy-pen\/74024\/"},"modified":"2013-09-27T21:57:04","modified_gmt":"2013-09-27T20:57:04","slug":"pennsylvania-school-sued-for-suspending-student-over-his-toy-pen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/pennsylvania-school-sued-for-suspending-student-over-his-toy-pen\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania school sued for suspending student over his toy pen"},"content":{"rendered":"
A Pennsylvania elementary school is being sued by the parents of a 7-year-old student who was suspended for bringing a novelty pen to class earlier this year.<\/div>\n

The child, identified only in court documents as G.B., was barred
\nfrom attending Hershey Elementary School in
\nPennsylvania for four days earlier this year after a bus driver
\nconfiscated the pen, a writing implement that emits a small buzz
\nwhen triggered.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Later, the school’s principal said the toy was in
\nviolation of the school’s weapon policy and issued the
\nsuspension.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Principal Joy MacKenzie, the eight members of the Derry Township
\nSchool Board and the acting superintendent of schools are all
\nbeing sued by attorney’s representing the student’s family.<\/p>\n

According to the parents, educators arbitrarily deprived their
\nchild \u201cof his state-created property interest in public
\nschooling without due process of law on the basis of nothing but
\nhysterical and overly-zealous application of a
\nconstitutionally-deficient school policy.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

The pen, attorneys for the parents claim, is “similar to a
\n‘clown’ type buzzer that one would hold in the palm of one’s hand
\nto emit a small buzz when shaking hands<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacKenzie said the pen was in violation of the school’s weapons
\npolicy, however, which bans \u201cany poison gas, knife, cutting
\ninstrument, cutting tools, nunchaku stick, firearm, shotgun,
\nrifle, and any other tool, instrument or implement capable of
\ninflicting bodily injury or property damage\u201d f<\/i>rom being
\nbrought to class.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the plaintiffs said the school went too far by
\nusing the rule to remove the child from class.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor G’s simple act of taking this pen with him on the bus to
\nschool, G was disciplined with a four-day suspension and G has
\nnow been permanently classified by the school district as a
\nviolator of the district’s weapons policy. G’s permanent
\ndisciplinary record has been marred, and he has been regulated to
\nthe same category as violent criminals who bring knives, guns and
\nexplosives onto school property for the purpose of assault,
\nmurder and even terrorism<\/i>,\u201d<\/i> they write.<\/p>\n

The policy, attorneys add, is unconstitutional because \u201cit
\nfails to define with specificity the kind of activity that is
\nproscribed so that a student can conform his or her conduct to
\nthe Policy’s requirements<\/i>.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cPennsylvania criminal law requires that any potential bodily
\nharm from an item alleged to be a weapon be ‘serious’ as an
\nappropriate limiting condition,\u201d<\/i> they attorneys write, adding
\nthat the buzzing pen shouldn’t be considered an implement that
\nfits that criteria.<\/p>\n

The parents are asking the court to place a permanent injunction
\nagainst enforcement of the school’s weapons policy and to expunge
\n\u201cthe incomprehensibly absurd ‘weapons violator’ status G now
\nbears<\/i>.”<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the school district told Courthouse News Service
\nthat “out of respect for confidentiality we would never
\ndiscuss the discipline of an individual minor student, and for
\nthat matter we don’t comment on active litigation either<\/i>.”<\/p>\n

Complaint, courtesy of TechDirt<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright: RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Pennsylvania elementary school is being sued by the parents of a 7-year-old student who was suspended for bringing a novelty pen to class earlier this year. The child, identified only in court documents as G.B., was barred from attending Hershey Elementary School in Pennsylvania for four days earlier this year after a bus driver […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-74024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}