7th Grader suspended for Airsoft in his own yard

If the parents of these guilty boys were to push the issue that the school can't punish the kids in any way since the guilty kids were not in school, were not doing a school activity or on school property during school hours things might get interesting.
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Don't see that happening, There are rules for students of the Public School System which are written to protect students from the time they leave their home en route to school and until they get home.

Regardless of whether or not the shooters had left their home in route or not, they committed an infraction against someone who WAS. If they were not students (shooters) it would fall under criminal or civil actions.

The police, looking at the jurisdiction of the offense committed by Public school students against other students, after conferring with the school, determined it belonged to the school and that it fell under their rules and let them handle it.
 
Herluf said:
It's going to go back to the issue of the bus stop as being functionally school property.
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That may be the issue, but I don't accept that a school bus stop, whether on a public street corner or in a resident's driveway, is in any way school property -- "functionally" or any other way. In my neighborhood the bus stops at the entrance to each cul-de-sac along the through street. Some of the kids walk to the stop, some who live father down are driven by a parent and wait in the family car. I don't think anyone in town would try to argue that a public street is "functionally" school property. It isn't.
 
And again, it doesn't have to be. It's a school function. Morse v Frederick happened across the street from the school.

Frederick’s argument that this is not a school speech case is rejected. The event in question occurred during normal school hours
and was sanctioned by Morse as an approved social event at which
the district’s student-conduct rules expressly applied. Teachers and
administrators were among the students and were charged with supervising them. Frederick stood among other students across the
street from the school and directed his banner toward the school,
making it plainly visible to most students. Under these circumstances, Frederick cannot claim he was not at school. Pp. 5–6.
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And as I said earlier, not all of the details are the same, but given the mood of the country and the court, I don't see them finding for the kids. The Pro-2A Conservatives are more likely to rule for an ordered school system over the quasi-guns in the hands of children. The Liberals on the court are likely to rule against even pop-tart guns, and in favor of the village over the kids.

Being disenfranchised is costing kids today more and more rights. While I'm not in favor of enfranchising our kids, it's long past time we realize that while they are disenfranchised, it behooves us to bend over backwards to respect and defend their rights. They should not have less First Amendment protections in schools, they should have more.
 
I have heard/read various versions, with various details, but it sounds to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that someone needs their brass kicked over this, whether it be the nosy neighbor, the principal who overstepped his bounds, or a myriad of other folks who showed pure ignorance in the situation.
 
A related incident in MS...

This event & the complex issues around it reminds me of a www.youtube.com clip I watched.
A irate father of a toddler age girl stormed into a day-care/pre school center & beat up the young boy who was reportedly bullying his daughter.
It turned out that the father beat the wrong student! :rolleyes:
The local police chief arrested the dad & told the media; "Even if he beat up the child who was bullying his daughter, he would still face criminal charges. That type of behavior is unacceptable & his actions were wrong."
The police chief was 100% right.
Schools & child care providers have many safety factors/risk mgmt issues in today's world.
 
That's not really on point however.

This boils down to whether or not the school had "jurisdiction". The local police certainly would have in both cases, and the father was arrested. The answer in this case is certainly less clear. We're missing a fairly relevant factor. We don't know how long before the bus arrived and/or was scheduled to arrive this happened.

We know it was long enough before hand, the children thought they'd be able to return the airsoft to their homes before getting on the bus. A child's sense of time is not always the best. At the extremes, if the bus was waiting at the stop, they were obviously in a school activity. On a Saturday evening at supper time, they're obviously not. The details here are obviously in between somehere, as the bus driver was able to report this up the chain, either from the witness accounts of the kids at the stop, or because he was there in time to see it happen. We don't know which.
 
JimDandy said:
And again, it doesn't have to be. It's a school function. Morse v Frederick happened across the street from the school.
Frederick’s argument that this is not a school speech case is rejected. The event in question occurred during normal school hours and was sanctioned by Morse as an approved social event at which the district’s student-conduct rules expressly applied. Teachers and administrators were among the students and were charged with supervising them. Frederick stood among other students across the street from the school and directed his banner toward the school, making it plainly visible to most students. Under these circumstances, Frederick cannot claim he was not at school. Pp. 5–6.
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Jim, I see what to me is a key difference between this case and Morse: "Teachers and administrators were among the students and were charged with supervising them." There are no teachers or administrators at a school bus stop. Even if you consider the bus driver to be an extension of school supervision, he or she isn't there until the bus arrives, so he or she does not and cannot in any way supervise what the kids are doing prior to the bus's arrival at the stop.
 
I think there's a long history (though I don't know about legal precedent) for schools exercising disciplinary action over what happens while students are waiting for the bus.

I narrowly escaped detention for fighting while waiting at my middle school bus stop in the winter of my 7th grade. I think they took pity on me because I nearly got foot frostbite after fighting in the snowbank.

Not that this is precedent legally, and some folks (here and elsewhere) would of course disagree. However, it's not as though a school exercising authority over kids waiting at a bus stop is a new or unpracticed concept.
 
Herluf said:
Not that this is precedent legally, and some folks (here and elsewhere) would of course disagree. However, it's not as though a school exercising authority over kids waiting at a bus stop is a new or unpracticed concept.
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Well, it's certainly a new concept to me. But ... I'm a senior citizen and I never had kids of my own. When I went to grammar and high school, it was a couple or more decades before the death of common sense.
 
I got into trouble walking home from school twice back in the early 60s. Once a friend of mine and I decided to get a few grapes off a man's vine. He called the principal with a description and the next day the "board" of education was waiting plus our dads got a call from the principal and they made us go apologize and offer to "work it off." He let us go but my parents behaved differently than those two kids parents did on Piers Morgan's show.

If my dad had found out I was shooting kids with anything like a bb gun or anything that shot something like plastic pellets, I'd be in deep trouble. I went to school with two kids who had an eye put out in bb gun fights.

The kids punishment might be a bit harsh but one of the kids has been in trouble six times for fighting, bullying, and such. The other has a history too. A kid just can't going around shooting at other kids periods. Heck, I bet I'd be in trouble with the law if I shot my neighbor with one of those guns.
 
Quoting from post #27 above...."Sounds to me like some kids and their parents are leaning a hard life lesson on what happens when you are stupid."

Well, it seems to me we're all going to learn a hard life lesson if we keep wimping out and letting idiots rule the nation. The very idea of "disciplining" a boy for playing air-soft on private property, allowing the school system to cross that line of authority...is frightening.
 
New SOPs & standards....

I saw a media item a few days ago that said a local school district was going to revise & review the SOPs/rules about where the school functions or has control.
 
I haven't had kids in school for many years so I'm out of the loop.

Throughout this thread there are many posts talking about the authority a school has at school functions. And especially at bus stops.

A couple questions on the bus stop thing:

Since schools are said to be responsible for the kids at the bus stops(and apparently in the vicinity of the bus stop), can a parent sue the school system if something happens while child is at the bus stop? I know one can sue anybody for just about anything...so before that answer is given, I'm talking about a law suit with some teeth.

Is there a stated time frame the school is responsible for the children?

Lastly, I live in the country. The children are picked up at the end of their driveways at their homes. Does that mean that the end of every driveway is a designated school bus stop and the school is responsible for that child as long as he/she is at the stop(end of driveway) or in the general vicinity of the stop?
 
shortwave said:
Lastly, I live in the country. The children are picked up at the end of their driveways at their homes. Does that mean that the end of every driveway is a designated school bus stop and the school is responsible for that child as long as he/she is at the stop(end of driveway) or in the general vicinity of the stop?
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I was wondering the exact same thing. Does this mean that the end of every driveway where the bus stops is a "gun free school zone"? In Tennessee, property used by a school is counted as a school. A parent waiting with their child on their own property while carrying a loaded gun could be committing a felony!
 
Here in Ohio, our "gun free school zone" does allow for picking a child up at the school with a loaded concealed gun in the car provided you have a CCP. Just not allowed to exit your car carrying on school property or enter the school.
 
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shortwave said:
Since schools are said to be responsible for the kids at the bus stops(and apparently in the vicinity of the bus stop), can a parent sue the school system if something happens while child is at the bus stop? I know one can sue anybody for just about anything...so before that answer is given, I'm talking about a law suit with some teeth.
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But ... "Since schools are said to be responsible for the kids at the bus stops(and apparently in the vicinity of the bus stop), ..." presumes as a starting point that schools ARE responsible for the kids at bus stops: Where is that codified in statute, or established by court precedents? And, remember, we have fifty different states, so there may be fifty different answers.

Personally, I attended public grammar and high schools in the 1950s. My parents died a long time ago so I can't actually ask them, but I feel 99.98 percent confident in saying that -- back then -- nobody in his or her right mind ever considered that the school's responsibility extended to the bus stop. We belonged to our parents until we stepped onto the bus. From then until we stepped OFF the bus in the afternoon we belonged to the school. Not at the bus stops.

If (note I wrote "IF") schools now have jurisdiction over the kids at bus stops, I'd like to know when it happened, and if it's universal or only in some school districts or some states.
 
posted by Aguila Blanca
If (note I wrote "IF") schools now have jurisdiction over the kids at bus stops, I'd like to know when it happened, and if it's universal or only in some school districts or some states.
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This is what I'm trying to figure out as well.

Can the school legally punish a child for something he/she did at or near a bus stop or would the offense have to be dealt with by LE.

If the courts gave that right to the schools stating that the bus stop was an extention of school property and that the school was responsible for the child at the stop and had punishment rights then it would seem that if a child got hurt at the bus stop the school could be named in part of a law suit since they were deemed b the court as being responsible for the child on school property.

And again, out here in the country in which kids are picked up at every house at the end of their driveway, is the end of every driveway considered a bus stop?

Then, what would be the 'time' factor in which the school would have control over these bus stop areas? For example, I doubt it would be on the weekends. Another would be, say the kids are let off the bus at 4 pm and everyone hangs out at the bus stop cause they heard Johnny was coming to the bus stop at 5pm to fight Timmy, is this a school or LE situation?

Most likely the answers to these questions, as Aquila Blanca eluded to, vary from state to state but if I had kids in school I would be interested in knowing some of these answers.
 
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