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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

3rd-Graders Plot To Hurt Teacher

This is a story from the AP. What has happened to our society when even children this young are able to plot to hurt and maybe kill a teacher for daring to speak harshly to a child for standing on their seat, which disobedience to the rules placed that child in danger? This is what we get when Liberals and the NEA educate our children, violence and fear in the classroom.

3rd-Graders Plot to Hurt Teacher
WAYCROSS, Ga. (AP)

Police say a group of third-graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward.
The plot by as many as nine boys and girls at Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner said Tuesday.
“We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely,” Tanner said. “We feel like if they weren’t interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been successful? We don’t know.”
The children, ages 8 and 9, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said.
They could be expelled, but a prosecutor said they are too young to be charged with a crime under Georgia law.
Tanner said school officials alerted police Friday after a pupil tipped off a teacher that a girl had brought a weapon to school.
Police seized a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape, electrical and transparent tape, ribbons and a crystal paperweight from the students, who apparently intended to use them against the teacher, Tanner said.
The alleged target is a veteran educator who teaches third-grade students with a range of learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said.
Tanner said the scheme involved a division of roles. One child’s job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, he said. Another was supposed to clean up after the attack.
“We estimate between six to nine students were involved. ... We’re not sure at this point in the investigation how many of the students actually knew the intent was to hurt the teacher,” Tanner said.
The parents of the students have cooperated with investigators, who aren’t allowed to question the children without their parents’ or guardians’ consent, he said. Authorities have withheld the children’s names.
Police expected to forward the results of their investigation to prosecutors, Tanner said.
Children in Georgia can’t be charged with a crime unless they are at least 13, District Attorney Rick Currie said.
Theresa Martin, spokeswoman for the Ware County school system, told The Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville, Fla., that administrators would follow school system policy and state law in disciplining the students.
“From what I understand, they were considered pretty good kids,” Martin said. “But we have to take this seriously, whether they were serious or not about carrying this through, and that’s what we did.”
Four mothers of other third-grade students at Center Elementary called for the immediate expulsion of the suspected plotters.
Stacy Carter and Deana Hiott both cited school system policy stating that any student who brings “anything reasonably considered to be a weapon” is to be expelled for at least the remainder of the school year.
“We don’t want our children around them,” Carter told the Times-Union. “The one with the knife could have stabbed my child or someone else’s child at lunch or out on the playground.”
“This is an isolated incident, an aberration. ... We have good kids,” Center Principal Angie Coleman told the newspaper.

http://www6.comcast.net/news/articles/national/2008/04/01/Children_s.Plot/

Comments

Seriously, the fact that these kids are special needs is going to be used by their parents to justify their actions, wait for it.

It’s pretty obvious though that with the amount of planning involved, they knew what they were doing.  I would really like to see the parents jailed for negligence because they allowed these children who have such terrible judgment to have access to weapons (not to mention, placed them in a public school which is probably not capable of dealing with their issues).  Jail the parents, put the kids into the laughing factory.  Imagine what they’ll be capable of when they’re teenagers.

k_lunch on April 1, 2008 at 01:29 pm

K_Lunch: I work with Special Needs Children, I am returning to work in a few minutes. If you only knew the level of violence in our public schools today even by Special Needs children, as young as 5-years-old attacking other students and teachers. After these acts usually only three days of suspenion are allowed on the first incidence and it can take months or years to get them placed in special schools where they can get help. Young teachers and their aides are not teaching as much as their are wrestling with students and restraining violent outbursts. Plus, every problem is caused by the teachers to hear most of these parents defend their angels, dedicated, well trained teachers that are the problem not the kids, not the parents.


No matter the age or state of health, for a military man it is always glorious to tilt at windmills, rescue a fair Dulcinea and be a gallant knight in armor in a glorious cause.

Neiman on April 1, 2008 at 01:34 pm

Neiman, that’s precisely why I placed the blame on the parents, not the teachers.  I didn’t even mention the teachers.  No one’s blaming the teachers yet, so lets not give people ideas.

k_lunch on April 1, 2008 at 01:55 pm

Ah that teacher must be a real capital B, why else would so many students get together with one another. Some teachers have such a napoleon complex I assume this is one of them.

Maybe they should look into this teachers behavior. But all in all it does not wash away the students plot to harm her. They do deserve to be punished.

I don’t think that it boils down to the parents are to blame 100% of the time, but in this incident it’s hard to say that sometimes kids do really stupid things.

I don’t know, as much as I hated some of my teachers I don’t think I would ever join in a plot to hurt one of them but I remember a few friends that probably would have.

But then they usually took it upon themselves and threw chairs at them, that and other things. Anyway, ask me if sometimes the teacher deserved it and I would say no, but I will also say that some of them never should of been teachers to begin with.

WETBACK on April 1, 2008 at 02:27 pm

Honestly, would 9 8-year olds really be able to pull this off?  Would they have really tried?

I would have liked to seen this headline instead: 9 3rd-grade boys and girls bound and gag teacher

I remember being planning schemes at that age and circulating them amongst a group of frivilous 3rd graders. All boys do it.

The example IS a little extreme, other influences must have played a part.

dirl126 on April 1, 2008 at 05:09 pm

Great! As if kids and adults with learning disabilities don’t have enough stigmas to deal with in society. I wonder where a bunch of 8 and 9 year olds got the idea to do such a thing?

I remember wistfully listening in on plots to do away with a math teacher in middle school. The weapons of choice were to be super glue and chocolate laxatives. We didn’t think that math teachers should wear mini skirts and have nails so long that they needed a special device to hold the chalk. And we really didn’t appreciate her sitting in class and filing them.

Samantha on April 1, 2008 at 05:20 pm

Neiman, I am constantly amazed by your descriptions of your work environment. I would sooner open a vein then send my kids into conditions like that.

Samantha on April 1, 2008 at 05:25 pm

It isn’t just this school district, this is a national phenomenon. In Middle Schools and High Schools they graduate to knives and guns. I don’t mean there are shootings or knivings every day, only that weapons are found on rather regular basis. Earlier this year a 9-year-old in my class gave a knife to an 8-year-old, just sharing for fun! Another boy brought a shotgun shell to class. A seven year old gets sent home quite often for hitting or kicking his teachers and once stabbed one student in the head with a pencil. Girls at Middle School get in fights every day, sometimes using whatever is nearby for a weapon.

That is why I shared this story above, to show that this is not unusual at all. We are witnessing increased violence in our schools and an inability to deal with them except get them drugged up every day.

I guess some here wouldn’t be convinced unless these kids seriously harmed or killed the teacher and even then they would claim it is an isolated case and the teacher was at fault.


No matter the age or state of health, for a military man it is always glorious to tilt at windmills, rescue a fair Dulcinea and be a gallant knight in armor in a glorious cause.

Neiman on April 1, 2008 at 07:43 pm

...Perhaps another step-child of today’s culture…

dirl126 on April 2, 2008 at 10:38 am
Avatar for Leslie

I am frustrated to hear stuff like it’s usually the parents fault, I have four kids and only one that has problems, has any one ever stopped to consider that there may just be something wrong with the child, I have done every thing possible to help my daughter, and raise her right, just like the other children, and they are all fine. Second of all have you ever noticed that when they took spanking away from the schools that is when all hell broke loose in schools, noyhing more for them to be afraid of and no one can do anything except kick them out of school, which is what a lot of kids want, when the act up, they would rather be at home then getting up early for school.  I feel if they would bring back the paddle in a principles hands we would not have as much problems and if the government would give back the right to discipline your own kids the way you feel is best for that child, instead of this time out stuff and pulling cards there is just some kids that do not respond to this approach, and I don’t hardly spank but some of these kids that is what they need only the scare of these spankings straighten them out, and don’t say you think spanking is wrong because I know that most of your parents spanked and you spanked, and they spanked, I would rather my child have a little bit of fear then to turn around and shoot someone at school, it is not abuse they need to focus on the kids that are actually being abused than those who spank a child

Leslie on April 2, 2008 at 01:40 pm
Avatar for clarke

none of these kids disabilities have violent tendencies so blaming that can be argued but the fact that these kids are that angry with the way they had been treated is interesting. I was learning disabled as a kid as well and i got angry when teachers would make hurtful comments, and im not saying she did, but the stigma that was put around me and my peers was heard to deal with and with video games and t.v. being as violent as they are it wouldn’t surprise me if thats where they got there idea. So maybe we can blame the parents or maybe we can blame the education system..... but i no that times have changed

clarke on April 2, 2008 at 05:32 pm
Avatar for clarke

none of these kids disabilities have violent tendencies so blaming that can be argued but the fact that these kids are that angry with the way they had been treated is interesting. I was learning disabled as a kid as well and i got angry when teachers would make hurtful comments, and im not saying she did, but the stigma that was put around me and my peers was heard to deal with and with video games and t.v. being as violent as they are it wouldn’t surprise me if thats where they got there idea. So maybe we can blame the parents or maybe we can blame the education system..... but i no that times have changed

clarke on April 2, 2008 at 05:33 pm

Leslie, you have the best comment yet!

I totally agree.  It should be brought back.

Sometimes, people need to be disciplined to act right.

dirl126 on April 2, 2008 at 06:01 pm

Sometimes, people need to be disciplined to act right.

Sometimes?


What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.


The Whistler's signature
The Whistler on April 2, 2008 at 06:04 pm
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