Second Grader Suspended from School for Trying to Save the World with an Imaginary Grenade
An elementary school in Colorado has suspended a second grader for violating one of its "absolutes" prohibiting games involving pretend weapons.
But 7-year-od Alex Evans insists the imaginary grenade he threw at an imaginary box was necessary to rid the world of evil.
"I pretended the box, there's something shaking in it, and I go ‘pshhh,'" Alex told FOX31 Denver. "I was trying to save people and I just can't believe I got dispended."
There was nothing in Alex's hand during the course of the game, which he calls "rescue the world."
Superintendent Stan Scheer told the Reporter-Herald that the Thompson School District doesn't have a policy against imaginary weapons, but that every school is allowed to "enhance" the student code of conduct as it sees fit.
Mary Blair Elementary has a strict set of rules it calls "absolutes
," which expressly prohibit any weapons, real or pretend.
"Honestly I don't think the rule is very realistic for kids this age," Mandie Watkins, Alex's mom, told FOX31. "I think that when a child is trying to save the world, I don't think he should be punished for it."
Though he wouldn't discuss specifics, Scheer said the mother's point of view was "a bit one-sided," and that "there's a whole student side that we just don't talk about."
But Watkins insists that the rules need to be more "realistic," and she intends to speak with school officials in the hopes of getting them to lift Alex's suspension.
