Stories
of public schools dishing out ridiculous punishments to students
who did absolutely nothing wrong generally fail to shock me at this
point. They have to clear a very high bar of absurdity to be even
noteworthy, given how common they are.
Okay, brace yourselves.
A Mobile County, Alabama, 5-year-old allegedly pointed her
crayon at a fellow kindergartner and said something like, “pew,
pew.” (That’s the sound some guns make when fired, I suppose,
although for obvious reasons I don’t know what noise imaginary guns
make when fired.) School officials at E.R. Dickson Elementary
responded with what is perhaps the most uniquely crazy punishment I
have ever heard of: They made the girl sign a contract promising
not to kill anyone, including herself. According to
NBC News and Rare:
Without her permission, [the girl’s mother] says her
five-year-old was then given this Mobile County Public Schools
safety contract to sign, stating that she wouldn’t kill herself or
others.“While I was in the lobby waiting, they had my five-year-old
sign a contact about suicide and homicide,” she said.
NBC News notes that the contract is not legally binding, since
the kindergartner was about 14 years shy of the age of
adulthood.
The little girl was also forced to take a psychological
evaluation to gauge her likelihood of suicide. Unsurprisingly, she
didn’t even know what the word meant:
“My child interrupted us and said, ‘what is suicide? Mommy,
daddy, what is suicide?'”
At least she learned something at school today? District
officials did not respond to NBC News. If I have better luck, I
will post an update.
Hat tip: Rare
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