Lain

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Student suspended for sketching gun

Ray Parker
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 22, 2007 12:42 PM
Parents angered by the suspension of their child for drawing a picture of a gun on an assignment paper are questioning the Chandler Unified School District's policies dealing with such incidents.

The Payne Junior High eighth-grader, along with another student, was suspended Monday for five days. Parents Paula and Ben Mosteller were able to get the suspension reduced to three after meeting with school officials.

The uproar over the drawing, which the student turned in with a school assignment, cuts to the question of what constitutes a "threat."




Craig Gilbert, Chandler director of secondary education, said there's a range of punishment administrators can hand down for "implied threats," ranging from a parent conference to suspension and expulsion.

"(School administrators) would determine what the situation is and the consequence," Gilbert said.

Gilbert confirmed another student also was suspended in connection with the incident but would not go into detail because of student privacy laws.

Paula Mosteller told the Associated Press she could not believe her son received suspension for a drawing: "I just can't believe that there wasn't another way to resolve this."

Parents can appeal a suspension of 10 days or more to a district hearing officer, said district spokesman Terry Locke, but for anything less, the school principal has the final word.

Payne principal Karen Martin did not return a phone call seeking comment.

The public often does not have access to the full story when it comes to student discipline because of privacy laws.

School officials have put the student's sketch in his file, which is not open to the public. And since school officials did not call the police, there's no public police record.

"Federal privacy laws forbid discussing student discipline," Locke said. "From a district point of view, it's over."

There are 985 students in Grades 6-8 at Payne Junior High, a Chandler Unified district school located in Queen Creek at 7655 S. Higley Road, near San Tan Boulevard.

Earlier this month, Principal Karen Martin sent a letter home to parents about an unrelated incident involving a student having a gun, which police investigated and found to be false.

"I am also writing to ask you to continue discussions with your children about the seriousness of actions and words that others might consider a threat," Martin wrote.
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Picture of gun (fr. link)



Okay...what?

Seriously, it's just a sketch! Though it doesn't say what the assignment was for or how real the gun was (it must've been a pretty good sketch if the officials were going to consider it a threat!), how in the world can one consider it a threat? It's not as if the student drew himself with the gun killing other students or such. Or putting names. Or something...I don't know. Just because he sketched a gun, it constitutes as a threat?

Too bad they don't give out a lot of facts due to their privacy laws.

I've seen people on the bus drawing tags (or otherwise known as grafitti designs) in their sketchbooks. Does that constitute that they're going to a building and start spray painting?

Jacob1983

That is lame. That kid shouldn't be suspended for anything. The only thing he did wrong was a draw an awful picture of a gun. The kid needs to go to an art class and learn how to draw.

Lain

Oh the sketch poses a threat all right. Of paper cuts.

Jacob, you're right though. It is an awful sketch indeed.

pacifierrocks

Unless he threatened someone in the assignment then I don't get it. What exactly did he do wrong? It honestly looks like he drew it right before it was supposed to be turned in because the assignment required some type of illustration or something to go along with the writing.

sunnykerr

If I hadn't been told that's a sketch of a gun, I would have totally assumed it was of a high-rise building with a bit of sidewalk and messed up awning.

On its side, obviously.

fetch

When I was in third grade I was sent to the school's therapist because I drew a knife - they suspected I was suicidal. I did actually hate life at that point, though I was drawing that because I was a Power Rangers fan

Was the kid even asked why he drew that?

Sheebs

Wow. That is insane. Most people have drawn a weapon in their lifetime, are we all a threat?!

And I agree, it doesn't even look like a gun. lol

elisheva

Yeah, seriously, especially boys. My brother used to draw swords all the time in high school. Heck, I just visited the Arms & Armour section of the Met in NY and thought the swords were amazing - does that make me a homicidal freak? (Answer: no. Swords are cool. )

Jacob1983

The teachers shouldn't be worried about if this kid is going to shoot up the school. They should be worried about his artistic skills. This kid can't draw.

Indian Summer

While I see where you guys are coming from... I don't know. We only have a small part of the story- that he drew a (really bad) sketch. We don't know if he displayed any threatening behavior beforehand, and if this was the last straw in a long string of strange behaviors.

Something similar actually happened at my brother's school a few years back. A boy was suspended (and eventually expelled; it's a private school) when his teacher found a drawing he'd posted online (it might've been MySpace, but I think it was DeviantArt, now that I think about it) after doing a routine check to see what sites students had been visiting on the school computers. The drawing was disturbing in nature- it was a gun of some sort with a bullet coming out of it, and the other end of the bullet bursting into flames.

While that alone is "just a sketch," when you take this student's behavior into consideration, and other things the faculty had picked up on, including...

• Two years earlier, another teacher had found a piece of paper with a list of students' names during a binder check; the boy had claimed it was a list of guests he planned to invite to a party, but the teacher had never seen those kids and this boy interact, and suspected it could be a hit list or something similar.
• He often spoke of and glamorized death when with his peers
• He didn't seem to have many friends, and although the teachers had never seen anything, they suspected he was bullied
• One of his parents was incarcerated for assault & battery at the time

There was a whole list of events that had happened in the past that made this kid drawing a gun seem more like a threat than a simple sketch, and those are the only items I remember (when they sent a letter home explaining what had happened, I recall the list of suspicious behavior being about 3/4 of a page long, so definitely more than four lines, lol).

Just going off a "sketch of a gun," this definitely seems crazy. But I'm hesitant to judge the school too harshly when we only have one side of the story, especially considering the article we're all reading obviously has its biases.

Jacob1983

The kid should sell the drawing on Ebay.

migamoo

Summer, I think you bring up some interseting points. Yes, we don't know if there was any past behavior, but from reading the article it doesn't seem there was. If there were, I personally would be interested in knowing what they were.

Indian Summer

From reading the article, it's made pretty clear that if there were other events that led to this decision... they wouldn't have been addressed, though. The privacy laws prohibit the school from disclosing any of that information.

migamoo

This is true, but that's also understandable. It still would be interesting to note if there was any past behavior.

Indian Summer

Oh, yeah, I definitely agree. I'd be disappointed if the school did disclose information, even if it was to defend themselves. I just think it's important that we all take into mind that this very article people are blasting the school board over mentions repeatedly that the privacy laws prevent the school from telling their side of the story.