A 13-year-old boy in Vernon, New Jersey was suspended from school last week after being accused of holding his pencil like a gun.
Ethan Chaplin, a seventh-grade student at Glen Meadow Middle School, was twirling his pencil in math class when a fellow student suddenly yelled out, “He’s making gun motions, send him to juvie!”
Ethan was immediately taken to the principal’s office, suspended, and told he would not be able to return to school until he passed a psychological evaluation.
“I was shocked because I’m like, how am I not going to come back to school? I didn’t even do anything,” Ethan told News 12.
Despite telling school administrators that his classmate had been bullying him and was simply attempting to get him in trouble, Ethan says his comments were completely ignored.
When questioned, Vernon Schools Superintendent Charles Maranzano stood by the principal’s decision, insinuating that Ethan could be plotting a violent attack against his school.
“We never know what’s percolating in the minds of children,” Maranzano said. “And when they demonstrate behaviors that raise red flags, we must do our duty.”
Michael Chaplin, Ethan’s father, was just as shocked by the school’s handling of the situation.
“I’m absolutely livid,” Michael said. “I think it’s gross misconduct at its finest. They took something so minimal and took it so far over the edge.”
Speaking with Storyleak, Michael detailed his son’s horrific experience during the five-hour long physical and psychological evaluation.
“The child was stripped, had to give blood samples (which caused him to pass out) and urine samples for of all things drug testing,” Michael said. “Then four hours later a social worker spoke to him for five minutes and cleared him. Then an actual doctor came in and said the state was 100 percent incorrect in their procedure and this would not get him back in school.”
According to Michael, the school has since scheduled a meeting regarding his son’s return for Monday morning.
Ethan’s story is yet another example of innocent children being targeted for completely mundane behavior. In multiple cases, young students have been suspended for simply having items that resemble the shape of a firearm.
A 7-year-old child from Maryland was suspended last year for allegedly chewing a “Pop Tart” breakfast pastry into the shape of a handgun.
A 6-year-old Massachusetts boy was given detention and forced to write an apology letter to fellow students last year after bringing a plastic Lego gun, the size of a quarter, onto his school bus.
Just last month, a fifth-grade student from Ohio was suspended for three days after shaping his fingers like a gun. The child was accused of brandishing a “level 2 lookalike firearm” by the school’s principal.
O.K., what part of INSANE does not apply here? This stupid sh#t is BEYOND ludicrous.
A couple of good whacks with a Louisville Slugger ought to educate that f%&king commie principal.
He should also be castrated IMMEDIATELY, so he can NEVER reproduce.
Close the schools and run the teachers out of town. Schools are long known to be the best place to start to brainwash the population, that way you can own the future. If you are unaware of this well known and long practiced method of taking a society over from the inside, read up on it and then pull the kids out of school.
The two working parent model assisted in cutting down the time parents had to make sure their were learning what they needed to know and now it is outright dumbing down and propaganda in schools. And kids being suspended for simply being kids. What a disgusting disgraceful waste we have allowed our education system to become.
Show them how you feel and make a change or live with the consequences of inaction, of course americans are famous for sitting on their behind while the ship sinks.
one more kid that should be enrolled in Home school
I cant wait until these schools wonder why they have to close or don’t have enough money to be kept open, Law of unintended consequences cant come soon enough
I didn’t realize they were making pencils with trigger guards, that would be the only way to twirl it like a gun. Morons, teachers and supervisors are so scared to mess up they have flushed their responsibility down the toilet and given on the spot investigations over to a standard guideline on what to do, gotta be a way to vote people in that can change this.
the internet is making school buildings and live teachers obsolete, and they sure are helping it along with stupidity like this