HomeMy WebLinkAboutNorth Carolina girl, 5, suspended for recess make-believe game in which she used a stick 'gun' - Ottawa Sun - 03/30/2017 - Ottawa Sun - 03/30/2017North Carolina girl, 5, suspended for recess make-believe
game in which she used a stick'gun'
THE WASHINGTON POST
FIRST POSTED: THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 2017 08:22 AM EDT I UPDATED: THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 2017 09:03 AM EDT
Caitlin Miller, 5, is seen in an interview with ABC 11.
Caitlin Miller's teachers took her to the principal's office on Friday and the 5 -year-old did not understand why.
She had been playing with her best friends during recess at her Raeford, North Carolina, school playground, just like any
other day. She pretended that her two friends were a king and queen, and that she was in charge of protecting the
kingdom. "I was the guard," Caitlin told WTVD.
Noticing a stick shaped like a gun on the ground, Caitlin picked it up and pretended to shoot intruders entering the
kingdom.
But by playing with this stick, her school administrators said, Caitlin was violating school policies.
The 5 -year-old was suspended for one day for "turning a stick into a gun and threatening to shoot and kill other students,"
the elementary school's assistant principal wrote in a note to Caitlin's parents. School officials even attached a picture of
the stick she was using, which Caitlin's mother posted to Facebook.
This 5 -year-old was suspended for playing wit...
"One minute she's playing with her friends and the next her teachers are dragging her to the principal's office," her
mother, Brandy Miller, told WTVD. "She's confused. Nobody explained anything to her."
Caitlin didn't understand what a suspension was, or why it was happening to her, her mother wrote on Facebook. Miller
struggled to explain to her daughter that it was wrong to play certain games at recess, because she felt a child her age
should be allowed to play make-believe games. She didn't want to have to discuss school shootings with her daughter, or
tell her that she's not "allowed to play like that at school because people do bad things to kids your age."
Toronto Sun cwlllldkw
@TheTorontoSun
Girl, 5, suspended for using stick 'gun' in recess game.
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8:49 AM - 30 Mar 2017
She told her daughter, "you can't say you're going to shoot and kill people." And Caitlin looked at her, confused, saying "I
never said that?" her mother wrote on Facebook.
In a statement to WTVD, the Hoke County Schools district said it "will not tolerate assaults, threats or harassment from
any student."
"Any student engaging in such behavior will be removed from the classroom or school environment for as long as is
necessary to provide a safe and orderly environment for learning," the school system said.
In a Facebook post, the school system added that its policy "prohibits retaliatory isolation of individual students, and the
system's first priority is to provide every available opportunity for student success."
Caitlin returned to school Tuesday after her one -day suspension, and felt alienated by her friends and teachers as a result
of the punishment, her mother said.
"She feels like all the teachers hate her," Miller wrote on Facebook. "I can't imagine being 5 and feeling that way."
The mother said she felt Caitlin's game at recess was "blown way out of proportion."
"Don't they still make Nerf guns and water guns that kids shoot each other with?" Miller wrote on Facebook. "Don't kids
still play paintball and laser tag? I can see a suspension for an older kid who knows better and who is actually threatening
other kids."
Friends and family members expressed outrage at the suspension on Facebook. Some pointed out that Caitlin's father
serves in the Army, so she has grown up understanding the role that guns play.
While Caitlin's case stirred shock and alarm on social media, her suspension was not necessarily unusual. Schools across
the nation have adopted similar zero -tolerance approaches to school discipline, policies that gained traction with the
federal Gun -Free Schools Act of 1994, which called for specific responses to bringing weapons to school.
A number of similar cases have been reported in recent years of suspensions stemming from bringing fake - or seemingly
innocent - weapons to school.
In May, a kindergarten student was suspended for bringing a toy bubble -blowing gun to a school in the Denver suburbs. In
November, a South Florida middle school student was suspended for six days for using a child butter knife she had
brought to school to cut a peach at lunchtime.
Morgan Norwood V1110w
@MorganABC11
5 yr old Caitlin Miller returns home after her first day back from
suspension over playing with stick that looked like a gun. ltabcl1
3:45 PM - 28 Mar 2017
10 13
Other suspensions simply involved gestures and imaginary weapons. In 2013, a 7 -year-old boy in Maryland was
suspended for two days for chewing a breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun and saying, "Bang, bang." That same year, a
sixth -grader in Calvert County was suspended for forming his hand into a gun on his bus ride to school
After the incident, Miller even considered home -schooling her daughter. She wishes her children were "raised in a better
time period when just being a kid was perfectly acceptable," she wrote on Facebook.
"I just want them to apologize to her and tell her it's okay," she told WTVD, "you can be five and have an imagination."
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