New York Eagle Scout Suspended From School for 20 Days for Keeping Pocketknife in Car

First post in a year and a half, but too good to pass up.

Fox News, Tuesday , October 13, 2009

A 17-year-old Eagle Scout in upstate New York has been barred from stepping foot on school grounds for 20 days — for keeping a 2-inch pocketknife locked in a survival kit in his car.

Matthew Whalen, a senior at Lansingburgh Senior High School, says he follows the Boy Scout motto and is always prepared, stocking his car with a sleeping bag, water, a ready-to-eat meal — and the knife, which was given to him by his grandfather, a police chief in a nearby town.

But Lansingburgh High has a zero-tolerance policy, and when school officials discovered that Whalen kept his knife locked in his car, he says, they suspended him for five days — and then tacked on an additional 15 after a hearing.

The incident is similar to the case of Zachary Christie, a 6-year-old Cub Scout in Delaware who faces up to 45 days in his district’s reform school for bringing a scout utensil that can be used as a fork, spoon and knife to school. But for Whalen — who has received an award from the Boy Scouts of America for saving a life and completed 10 weeks of basic military training last summer — the stakes are much higher:

He is concerned that the blot on his school record could kill his dream of attending West Point.

In an interview with Foxnews.com, Whalen recalled the incident that led to his suspension.

He said his school's assistant principal, Frank Macri, approached him on Sept. 21 and asked him if he was carrying a knife.

"I was taken down to the office, and they told me that a student told them that I was carrying a knife," Whalen said.

He said he told them "they could search me and everything, and they said, 'There's no need for that.'"

Whalen said he doesn't know who might have said he was carrying a knife, but he was open with school officials.

"And they said, 'Do you own a knife?' I said, 'Yes, I'm a soldier and an Eagle Scout — I own a knife.'

"And they were like, 'Well, is it in your car or anything?' And I told them, 'Yeah, it's in my car right now.'

"And they asked me to show it to them. I didn't realize it was going to be a problem. I knew it wasn't illegal — my police chief grandfather gave the knife to me."

Whalen said he took school administrators to his car because he thought their fears would be allayed when they saw it was just a 2-inch knife.

"They thought I had a dagger in my car or something like that, so I thought yeah, I'd show it to them," Whalen said.

"I showed it to them, and they told me I had a knife on school property and had to be suspended."

But things didn't end there, Whalen said.

"They brought a cop in, who told them 'he's not breaking any laws, so I can't charge him with anything.'"

Whalen said he asked Macri why a 2-inch pocketknife would be considered more dangerous than other everyday items around the school.

"I said to him, 'What about a person who has a bat, on a baseball team? That could be a weapon.' And he said, 'Well, it's not the same thing.'"

The school district's policy lists "Possessing a weapon" under "examples of violent conduct," which "may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including suspension from school."

School district officials did not reply to requests for comment.

Whalen says Macri gave him the longest suspension possible — five school days.

"They gave me the five-day suspension, because that is all a principal can suspend a student for," he said. "And from there, they had a superintendent hearing to see if the superintendent wanted to suspend me for longer.

"But the superintendent wasn't even at the hearing. It was the principal and the athletic director. The vice principal who originally suspended me wasn't even there, and neither was the superintendent. They basically asked me, 'Did you have the knife in your car?' And I said 'Yes, I did.' The meeting was recorded and they told me they were going to play the tape to the superintendent.

"They asked me if I wanted to say anything, and I told them all my accomplishments and what I've done, and the principal even admitted that I had no intent to use the knife, that I had no accessibility to the knife."

But school officials decided to suspend Whalen for an extra 15 days anyway, he said. And unless the decision is changed, he will not be allowed on school grounds until Oct. 21.

Whalen said he does not know why the 15 days were added, but he said a school district employee told him it was because the school wanted to apply its policies consistently.

"I've been told by someone who works for the district that they had to do it, because if someone else had a knife and they saw that I didn't get a suspension, that it would look bad for the school."

School superintendent George Goodwin and Lansingburg Senior High School Principal Angelina Bergin did not return calls for comment Tuesday morning.

Whalen said he has no record of disciplinary problems.

"I think I have a detention from like 10th grade for being late or something like that," he said.

He said the suspension has put his college dreams in jeopardy by keeping him out of class, while making him still responsible for assignments.

Though he is provided with a tutor for 90 minutes a day, he said, "I've been suspended for something like a ninth of my school year, so I'm falling behind drastically in my classes."

In addition to getting back to school as soon as possible, Whalen wants the school to drop the incident from his transcript.

"My dream college would be West Point, and having a pock mark like this on my record could be detrimental. They're looking for the best of the best, and if someone didn't take the time to look through it and examine the case, they would just say, 'hey, this guy had a weapon on school property, and we don't want him at our college.'"

Whalen said that he has received support from the community during the last few weeks.

"I've received tremendous communal support. Almost everyone I've talked to has said they're behind me 100 percent, that it's ridiculous that [the school has] done this me."

Whalen said he is not considering a lawsuit.

"I don't know what I could do, because technically ... I did break the rules, and I'll accept that punishment," he said.

"Perhaps I should have been more aware of the rules. However, I'm more upset about the additional 15 days.... That was entirely optional, and they decided to go through with that."

One of the first posts on this blog was about a similar situation. I've said it before--zero tolerance, zero thinking, and a good student has a black mark on his transcript. Once again, the REAL message the school is sending to its students is 'Don't get caught, and if you do, lie.'

Water Pistol Prizes confiscated

Albany Times-Union, September 13 2007

A Common Council member criticized the Albany Public Library for handing out water pistols as prizes for students who read four books this summer.

Council member James P. Sano, a Democrat, said the library's Pine Hills branch sent the wrong message to children at a time the city has formed a task force on gun violence.

"They must have been out of rubber knives and candy cigarettes that day," Sano said as he waved the toy gun during the council's caucus last week. "They couldn't give out books or bookmarks?"

Tim Burke, the acting director of the library, said it was a mistake that won't happen again.

"They buy these bulk packages of prizes that included a couple of those," he said. "It was just a few out of many, many prizes we handed out."

Sano said he took the water pistol from a 9-year-old boy while working as a lifeguard, and the child told him where he had received it.

"I was surprised and disappointed that this was a prize that was given away," he said. "We shouldn't send mixed messages to kids that we give a replica of a firearm."

The issue is especially sensitive after Shahied Oliver, 15, of Albany was gunned down Aug. 18 at a birthday party in the Skyline Gardens Apartments in Arbor Hill.

Another 15-year-old, Nahjaliek McCall of Green Street, has been charged with the murder and pleaded not guilty last week in Albany County Court.

This year's statewide theme for the library reading program was "Get a Clue at Your Library." Burke suspects the water pistols were meant to go along with the detective theme, but said he wishes they were not given out.

"We certainly should have been more sensitive about that," he said.

The reading program aims to help keep kids off the street and out of trouble, Burke said. This year, 800 children and teenagers participated, reading a total of 3,400 books.

"It was a wonderful, successful summer reading program that is meant to teach kids to do important things instead of hanging around with guns and drugs," he said. "We would like to take that back if we could."

Council members stealing toys from children! Equating water pistols with firearms! Nullifying the rewards of a summer reading program! This is so wrong on so many levels, I don't know where to begin. Associating squirt guns--cheap, fluorescent-colored pieces of plastic enjoyed by millions for generations--with gun violence, does absolutely nothing to help the problem. I really can't argue this except to boil it down to bullet points (thanks Thisbymaster from Fark)

• Giving out summer toys as prizes: GOOD
• Lifeguard that took a water gun out of a kid's hand: DUMBASS
• Common Council: DUMBASS
• Rewarding children that read: GOOD
• Getting children outside to play with water guns: GOOD
• Complaining about water guns because of unrelated gun incidences:DUMBASS
• Teaching children that they have no rights and should just sit inside getting fatter: DUMBASS
• People who freak out just because they see the word "gun": DUMBASS

I'm nearly as terrified to think about a country run by hardcore communists like these as I am thinking about a country run by hardcore fascists like I've written about before. Talk about living in fear.

School policy prevents calling 911

New York Daily News, September 11th 2007

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein yesterday vowed to investigate a Queens high school policy that may have cost a teen girl her health.

The Daily News reported yesterday an official at Jamaica High School barred school deans from calling 911 in an emergency - just weeks before 14-year-old Mariya Fatima suffered a stroke her family says could have been less devastating.

Klein called this a violation of Department of Education policy and instructions he had sent to principals early this year.

"We'll look into it and take appropriate action," he said.

Former Jamaica Assistant Principal Guy Venezia sent a memo to school deans on April 12 banning 911 calls "for any reason."

Mariya began to vomit at school on April 27 and collapsed in the hall, but her family says help did not arrive until 90 minutes later.

"If they called 911 early, it is possible she can be in better shape," said Mariya's mom, Liaquat Begum, a recent immigrant from India. "She was a very good student. Now she is not reading properly."

"They did nothing," Mariya said after limping into her lawyer's office to meet with reporters yesterday.

Since her stroke, Mariya has had trouble walking. She has no use of her right hand, and her family says the 10th-grader is reading at a fifth-grade level.

Mariya's lawyer Gary Carlton blamed the pressure on principals to improve school safety - or at least to give the appearance that they had.

A 911 call leaves a paper trail that can't be covered up, and Jamaica was already on the city's list of most dangerous schools.

"This happened because statistics are more important than anyone's life," Carlton said.

Teachers union President Randi Weingarten made a similar allegation. "This is a tragic result of what happens when everything comes down to data," she said. "If there's only a hammer when people report crime, then people are going to continue to hide their incidents."

Klein said the Jamaica policy was an isolated incident.

"Our principals are reporting faithfully and honestly," he said. "In a system with 1,450 schools, you can always have aberrations, but don't jump to conclusions from that."

Mariya's family would not be the first to sue over a 911 ban.

The News reported in January that the family of 11-year-old Shawn Martinez is suing over the boy's death in 2003 after an asthma attack at Brooklyn's Public School 20. The family claims the school prohibited nurses from calling 911.

Following that report, Klein sent a note to city principals stressing that all staff should call 911 in an emergency. Venezia's memo went out three months later.

Venezia, now a teacher at Hillcrest High School in Queens, declined comment.

Former Jamaica Principal Jay Dickler could not be reached. He was removed from the school this summer because crime there was too high, Klein said. "I met with him on numerous occasions about safety at the school, and that's why he was removed," Klein said.

Outside the school yesterday, students and staff expressed shock that the no-call policy was ever in place.

"It's wrong," senior Gladys Macias said. "They should have just called to get her help as soon as possible. I would have wanted that to happen for me, of course, or for anybody."

What a terrible tragedy--a policy prohibiting schools from reporting crimes to improve their image has left a student irreversibly brain damaged. I can think of no policy further from the welfare of the students than this.

Instead of taking steps to prevent crime, they took steps to prevent the reporting of crime. This is analogous to fixing your wet basement by keeping it flooded year-round. Attempting to fudge numbers and cover up a very real problem solves nothing but has led to the horrible events reported here. The administrators are guilty of deliberate and criminal negligence in this case for all the worst reasons imaginable. Let us pray justice is served.