Complete Lunacy over a Key Chain – Teachers & School Officials Now Have Even Less Judgment than the Kids
A public school in Coventry, Rhode Island, suspended a 12 year old student from school for three days after he brought in a small, gun-shaped keychain that he’d won at an amusement park. His problemes started after a gun keychain — just bigger than the size of a quarter — dropped out of his backpack during class. [1] A classmate picked it up and started showing it to other students. A teacher confiscated it and before Joseph knew it, he was suspended. [2] Keith Bonanno, father of 12-year-old Joseph Lyssikatos, thinks his son’s punishment was over-the-top. [3] “It was clearly a toy you would get in a bubble at a gumball machine,” Bonanno told local radio station WPRO on Friday, the day after Joseph was suspended. “This is bordering on insanity over here.” [4] Bonnano said he and his wife tried to reason with officials at Alan Shawn Feinstein Middle School but were told they were “lucky” that Joseph hadn’t been expelled. His mother, Bonnie Bonanno, was outraged at the punishment, which included the seventh-grader being banned from a school trip at the end of the month.
The reason for the suspension, according to Coventry Patch, is that the middle school has a zero-tolerance policy for guns or gun replicas. [5] NBC local affiliate WJAR-TV reported that Joseph’s suspension means he will miss the New England Common Assessment Program, an annual standardized test. However, Joseph and his parents said he was told of the suspension by the school’s behavioral specialist, and the principal and superintendent won’t return their calls. [6] Neither school officials nor the district superintendent returned The Huffington Post’s requests for comment. [7]
