Will you please come into my office, the Athletic Director beckoned to me and my parents. Still baffled why we were here, we sauntered into the office not sure what to expect.
“Is the information written on this sheet completely accurate and true?” Mrs. Werrick questioned.
Umm. lemme see. yea I guess I can’t deny any of that.
“Then I have no choice but to expel you from school. You have broken code 6.221 of the Student Code of Conduct, “Dangerous Weapon on a School Function. We have to proceed with the necessary formalities and then we can get you out of here.”
Wait. wait. I’ve never gotten in trouble before, I’m in the top 10, I have the highest SAT in the school, I’m on the superintendent’s list, and now he’s going to kick me out of school? There must be some kind of mistake.
“It’s called Zero Tolerance. I’m sorry, but I need you to sign here, here, and here. As soon as that’s done you may not return to the campus unless accompanied by a parent or if a public event is happening, such as a football game. Thank you very much Colin, I will escort you out.”
.the.day.before.
“I bet you can’t shoot that trash can way over there,” one of my friends dad says as he point about a hundred yards away over a lake that’s surrounded by trees in the middle of a forest.
We have practice 10 miles off campus once a week for cross country and usually perform various teenage shenanigans until practice starts. This week the other captain of the team, Kevin, brought a BB Gun.
“I bet you can’t hit that mountain dew bottle,” says another runner.
Kevin and I each took a few shots at the plastic 20 oz. container laid perfectly on soft sand so no ricochets would come back and hit anyone. Five minutes later we put away the air rifle and poceeded to the warm up area a half mile away.
We ran our course through the thickets, then cooled down. Saying our goodbyes we packed into our different cars and headed out.
A new freshman runner excitedly ran up to coach,
“Hey Coach! Coach! Did you see Kevin and Colin’s sweet BB Gun?”
BB gun! Air Rifle! Pha! That is just craziness. My older brother shot at my friend and me from his balcony with a BB Gun, hit my friend, and it barely broke the skin on the back of his neck.
A. Why is the Athletic Director the one doing the expelling?
B. “Dangerous Weapon on a school function” ?? That is so vague it could be anything. That’s like… no hands, scissors, javelins, bats, metal cleats, hammers (for the hammer throw), rope, plastic, pens, pencils, etc, etc. Maybe I am stretching it a bit, but I’m sure you could use a book as a weapon if you were so inclined. A flat panel monitor would work nicely too, and it adds drama
Left by David on July 19th, 2003
Zero-tolerance rules in schools are terrible. They’re simply an excuse for administrators to avoid having to consider the facts of the situation and make a reasoned decision. How did this turn out for you, Colin? I hope this decision was overruled.
When I started reading this post I thought it was going to be the ‘gun in the dorm’ story that included something like:
Division of Housing Idiot: “I need to list the manufacturer of your gun. Who made it?”
Jordan’s Friend: “I don’t know, it’s a toy. Probably someone in China.”
“Well, what’s it say on the side?”
“Uh…Colt.”
“OK, I’ll put down ‘Colt.’ “
Left by Dan on July 19th, 2003
lol — I had never heard the DoH story.
Left by David M on July 22nd, 2003
Part II will be coming soon.
David - The AD did the original suspension to start the expulsion process(no one can really “expel” except for the superintendant as far as I know) Also it was actually Deadly Weapon on a School Function. I realized I wrote it wrong later.
Left by Colin on July 23rd, 2003