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WAYCROSS, GA — It’s the type of news you don’t expect to hear coming out of an elementary school. Nine third grade students suspended at Center Elementary in Waycross for an alleged plot to attack their teacher. “This plot was uncovered at the point that something dangerous was brought to the school,” says Lt. Dwayne Caswell with Waycross Police. Police say the students were hatching a plan to harm their teacher Friday morning. They even brought items from home to carry out the plan. “They had a broken steak knife, a crystal paper weight, toy handcuffs, several items and tape and stuff,” says Lt. Caswell. Ware County School officials say a classmate told the principal about one of the students bringing a weapon to school. The discovery was later made that more students were in on the plot. The school says it’s a matter they are not taking lightly.
“Some might say ‘They were young and in the third grade and how serious could it be?’, but anytime our students’ safety or our teachers’ safety is compromised we obviously have to take that very seriously,” says Theresa Martin with Ware County Schools. Police say no criminal charges will be brought forth against the students. The District Attorney is handling the case and students will most likely face juvenile charges of Unruly Child. One of the teacher’s relatives said each child at Center Elementary School in Waycross had a job to do, including one assigned to wipe up the blood.
Unholy smokes!
I hope they have enough sense to look at the big picture. What is the class environment like? Was there something else going on in this class than some imaginative children going amok?
I say let the teacher kick the shit out of the kids. It’ll scare the kids into behaving, and it’ll be an ego boost for the teacher.
The teacher must be Mr. Garrison!
April Fools people.
I like totally believe this story, dude! Each year April Fools becomes less interesting as the real news gets more wack each year.
#4. Nope, this one’s real.
Need to take a close look at that teacher. There must be more to this for so many kids to be involved.
Geez, half a dozen posts, and half of them seem to point a finger at the teacher!?!? I don’t know, maybe, in our slowly collapsing culture, these kids are so narcissistic and spoiled that their natural reaction to someone that goes against what they want is to remove him or her? These kids seem to have a inadequate sense of right and wrong. Whether or not they’d do it isn’t the issue. The idea that they’d even think of it is the REAL issue.
It has to be its proximity to Florida.
It seems like human nature to blame victims. Look at any thread here or on digg, reddit, consumerist, etc.
It must be all these unnatural naked people kids see these days in movies and on TV. I still shudder thinking of the Super Bowl Janet Jackson nipple slip. Clearly millions of kids have been damaged by seeing these anti natural mammary glands.
No, instead of porn – we must insist on a higher number of perfectly common and all natural killings a kid must see every day on TV and in the movies. They can learn self defense this way!
If you read DU regularly, you’ll know that the real stories are much more bizarre than April Fool’s stories.
In this age of zero tolerance and total disregard for the students I could actually see something like this happening, more likely with intermediate/Jr. High aged kids though.
#8
Well put, people are always trying to point their finger at some adult, some authority to blame. Why is it so hard to believe that a child of that age could actually have enough of a mind of their own to think these things up? Kids are like grownups, some are just assholes.
I bet there is someone like an older brother who is involved in the situation. I might be naive but give me a broom stick and in 84 I was Rambo for days.
I think they should come down hard on the kids as well as the parents. It’s only fair since the teachers are held to such strict standards forbidding physical punishment or control of the kids.
I wonder what Mabel Joy would have to say about those poor Waycross, Georgia farm boys…
😀
(with apologies to anyone who isn’t a country music fan…)
In Connecticut they just arrested a 10 year old for threatening to hurt the teacher. Arrested him!! There is no fear of adults, and the precious snowflakes are certainly flexing their knowledge early.
There were a lot of posts saying to look at the teacher, and the classroom environment. I think the more appropriate direction is toward the parents. What kind of parenting raises a child willing to go to this length, for any reason?
Sounds like some pretty creative, bright children. Now if some adult could channel that creativity. Unfortunatly there are no adults now days.
Well, they’re organised. They probably gave a Powerpoint presentation and have linked Outlook project schedules.
ktjensen: In Connecticut they just arrested a 10 year old for threatening to hurt the teacher.
And therein probably lies the problem. Why arrest the kid? Do you really think a child is not going to be afraid of someone much bigger than them? Hell, all the legal protection in the world doesn’t make a big difference if no one is there to see it.
I agree with old waterman: if we want better children, we need grown ups that start to act like adults!
A co-worker told me of his troubles with a son who he could not discipline because of the “child protection” laws. He finally gave up and left town, leaving the 17 yr old kid on his own.
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/
Stories of 11 year olds ganging up on adults and stomping them or near crippling them with bricks.
I think it’s the courts and laws. There’s times when a kid needs a good smack up alongside the head, and none of this “Oooo, you poor baby! That mean old grown up had no business hitting you!”.
sounds to ME like the normal products of the public school system
It seems most of the posters here don’t watch much of their children’s TV programs. Nick, Disney, and Cartoon Network all have shows, cartoon and live action, with kids reasoning and planning courses of action. Very often they are authority figures and include teachers. While the morals are usually “good always triumphs over evil”, that evil is always in the kids view point.
Sorry to say, but this looks more like a copy cat crime than anything else.
But that doesn’t make them bad kids or have bad parenting. Maybe there is a problem with the teacher.
I can’t believe all of the assholes who even considered that this is the teachers fault. I don’t canre how bad the teacher is, this is a simple matter of right and wrong. These kids and their parents should be beaten sensless.
Our country is fucked.
I guess blaming the teacher excuses the kids. Do you feel the same about your boss at work? At what age does it stopped being acceptable to gang up on a teacher/supervisor? Grade school, high school, college, work, I’ve had some I didn’t like but never plotted to injure or kill them.
What these kids really need is some good, old fashioned discipline! Arrest them and go so far as to lay charges, may just be what is needed to scare them, let them spend a night or 2 in jail. Don’t tell me they didn’t know what they were doing and they’re too young to know right from wrong, that’s pure and simple garbage!
I think it’s important to remember these are little people who brought plastic handcuffs to their Sesame Street coup d’etat. This may be a weird situation, but it will only get weirder watching the experts try to fix it.
The range of options considered here will cover the social engineering and reactionary response circle jerk spectrum from a big old hug to water boarding the next kindergarten class that steps out of line. Just thinking about the adults trying to get past their individual notions of the right way to handle this gives me cold chills. Because you know, they are always, “in it for the kids”. So much so, that the appropriate way to deal with the misbehaving children will probably have to be decided by a judge, further contributing to the children’s confusion about how to conduct themselves and offering up some new ideas to the little Cartmans who field marshaled this Bay of Piglets to game the system. Sorry kids, thought you were in deep do-do now? What till the task force helps you solve your problems.
I have been a teacher for 21 years. Over the years I have seen our society change to where the children are now in charge not the adults. These students should be arrested and sent to a boot camp with their parents and taught how to be productive, constructive, and responsible individuals where accountability is a MUST. As an educator I would not have any of these students back in my class or even in the building where I worked. All educators should be fearful of these students coming back into the school system. Being this was a premeditated act, these students and their parents should be held to the highest punishments allowed for any adult who would have committed this same act. Our school system will continue to spiral downward if stricter policies and laws are not implemented to keep our teachers and other educators safe. I hope that this teacher sues every student and parent that was involved in this situation. Parents need to be reminded that it is their job to monitor and police their children so that they grow up with good morals and values.