School Officials Lack Humanity

Mister Speaker:

When I read that a 5-year-old boy in Calvert County, Maryland had been suspended from school for 10 days simply for showing a toy cap gun to his friend on the school bus, I was shocked and saddened.

I became even sadder when I read the little boy was questioned for over 2 hours by school officials before his parents were called, and the boy uncharacteristically wet his pants during this interrogation.

His mother said later that this boy was all-boy, and was all about rocks, frogs, and cowboys.

This interrogation was ridiculous and 10-day suspension was ridiculous overkill, and I wondered if these school officials who did this to this little boy had lost their common sense and human decency.

I now am pleased the situation has been partially rectified by cutting the 10-day suspension back to the three days he has already served, and I hope the parents' request to remove the incident from the boys school records are granted.

Rigid, one-size-fits-all solutions almost never work and frequently lead to very bad, very unfair solutions.

I hope that school boards all across this country will at least come to their senses and do away with so-called zero tolerance policies, especially when it comes to very small children.

And especially 5-year-old boys who simply want to be boys.

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