Stick figure sketch of students holding water guns gets 7-year-old child suspended from school

By BRIAN IANIERI
Press of Atlantic City
Oct. 22, 2007

DENNIS TOWNSHIP - A single mother said the school district overreacted by suspending her 7-year-old son for drawing a smiling stick figure shooting another smiling stick figure with a gun.

Shirley McDevitt said her son, Kyle Walker, was suspended Thursday for one day after school officials found out about the drawing, sketched on a piece of paper.

Kyle attends second grade at the Dennis Township Primary School in Cape May County.

McDevitt, of Belleplain, said she was told he was suspended because of the school's zero-tolerance policy for guns.

"Are they abusing the zero-tolerance law? I'm sure it's a judgment call, but when does the law start?" McDevitt said Friday. "What I'm told is it's the time we live in. Is it the time we live in when a little boy can't draw a picture?"

Dennis Township Superintendent George Papp declined to comment Friday.

McDevitt produced a photocopy of the picture that landed the older of her two children in trouble.

There were two stick figures, one pointing a crude-looking gun at another. Above the shooter appeared to be the word "me" and another name was scribbled above the other figure.

McDevitt said Kyle gave the picture, sketched on a "Home Reading Record," to another child on the school bus.

The other child's parents later approached the school, disturbed about the picture, she said. McDevitt was informed Wednesday and was told her son was suspended for a day.

Kyle returned to school Friday.

Although the boy stayed home for a day, his mother didn't punish him for his suspension. For one, she said, her son told her the drawing was of a water gun, not a firearm.

"I said, 'You're not in trouble. But you can't do it in school anymore,'" she said.

Kyle, whose hobbies include skateboarding and drawing, drew several other pictures, including a skateboarder, King Tut, a ghost, a tree and a Cyclops - all in red and black ink.

McDevitt said she has asked the Dennis Township School District to remove the incident from Kyle's record for fear the drawing will have repercussions throughout his time in school.

"My child is 7 years old. What 7-year-old do you know that's not fascinated by guns and bombs and everything?" she said. "Especially a boy."

Kyle and his younger brother had just finished writing their Christmas lists to Santa on Tuesday while sitting around the kitchen table before bedtime.

On his 10-sentence list, his mother said, were a new skateboard, a flat-screen television, a Nintendo Wii and a box of candy canes.

Debra Jacobs, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, was informed of the mother's account of what happened with her son.

If the description was accurate, Jacobs said the suspension seemed a harsh measure by the school.

"(It) isn't productive from a discipline perspective, it isn't productive from a school safety perspective and it is bad policy," she said. "What are they accomplishing by keeping that child home?"

Although it is not common, cases of young children suspended for depictions of weapons have occurred in other schools across the country and in New Jersey, she said.

In March 2000, four kindergarten boys at an elementary school in northern New Jersey were suspended for three days after playing cops and robbers, using their fingers as guns, according to previous news reports.

In Arizona in August, a 13-year-old boy was suspended for turning in homework with a drawing of a gun on it, the East Valley Tribune in Arizona reported.













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