JONESBORO, Ark. - An 8-year-old boy was suspended from school for3 days after pointing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher andsaying, "Pow, pow, pow." The incident last week apparently violatedthe Jonesboro School District's zero-tolerance policy againstweapons.
Kelli Kissinger, mother of first-grader Christopher, said shebelieved the punishment was too severe.
"I think a chicken strip is something insignificant," Kissingersaid.
"It's just a piece of chicken. How could you play like it's agun?"
South Elementary principal Dan Sullivan said he was prevented bylaw from discussing Christopher's suspension. Sullivan said theschool has zero-tolerance rules because the public wants them.
In March 1998, four students and a teacher were killed and 10others wounded when two youths opened fire on a schoolyard atJonesboro's Westside Middle School.
"People saw real threats to the safety and security of theirstudents," Sullivan said.
A school discipline form provided by the boy's mother and signedby Sullivan says the child was suspended because he "took a chickenstrip off his plate, pointed it at (a teacher) and said 'Pow, pow,pow,' like he was shooting her."
Sullivan said punishment for a threat "depends on the tone, thedemeanor and, in some manner, you judge the intent. It's not theobject in the hand, it's the thought in the mind. Is a plastic forkworse than a metal fork? Is a pencil a weapon?"
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