Honor student suspended for bringing multitool to school
Tom says: "Christopher Berger, an honor student at Grayslake Central High School in the Chicago 'burbs, left his multitool (which has a 2 inch blade, among other things) in his jacket, and left the jacket in the school cafeteria. Not only did he get a suspension, but the cops gave him a ticket for "reckless conduct."
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Kids pretty much don't have rights in high school. That's been pretty clear for a while.
Note, though, the kid isn't contesting the suspension (which he agreed with), but rather the citation from the city for reckless conduct.
2 inch blade? I thought that was even airplane safe.
One of the conditions of parole for this kid should be that he isn't allowed within twenty yards of any liquid or gel. Unless it is in containers no larger than three ounces, and stored in a one quart Ziploc® Bag. He's clearly a menace.
The fact that he was an honor student says what? That's he's too bright to understand what NO knives means? Maybe he just wanted some time off.
Grew up next door to Grayslake. It's always been pretty small-minded and paranoid, though clean and fairly neat. We were always glad we weren't from there. The cops, of course, are starved for booty since drugs busts are hard to come by.
If you have one, share a good story about stupid things your highschool did or is doing and how the student body reacted to it.
My school had internet filtering and watched our computer screens big brother style. I organized an internet mafia that snooped teachers/admins for the filter password, spent my lunchtimes writing huge fonted taunts to our ever watching admin, and set up proxies with my friends to bypass the content filtering.
It was definitely one of my favorite times growing up.
there have been blade length regulations here and there for a very long time, and i've occasionally wondered if the function dangerous(blade_length) has any sensible basis. the carotid can be cut with a 1cm exacto blade, and a claymore would be hard to conceal, (are the kiddies allowed butter knives or glass objects in the cafeteria?) let's establish the reasonable risk foundation (or RRF)
He should join right now: http://www.kniferights.org/
It is sad that knives have been demonized so much. I carry my old Leatherman Wave absolutely everyplace. It is not a weapon, it is a tool. Ask any cavemen (well, except those in the television commercials) and they will tell you that the two most important tools for survival are fire and a knife.
As soon as my son is old enough, he will get is first real Leatherman. I even took a cheap multi-tool and, using my Dremel, blunted the knife blades beyond dull (my son is six). But he still has working pliers, saw, and screwdrivers.
There is a version of the wave without a blade.
I say string these young terrorists up!!!
It's the only way they'll learn.
I'm currently marketing a new product for schools to deal with these little bastards.
www.waterboardJR.com
MikeG
Only in amedica
In Soviet Russia, the honor students suspend you!
#5: Alternatively, he may have been so preoccupied with honors classes, athletics, extracurricular activities, community service, and/or an afterschool job, that he may have overlooked what's really important, which is the absolute and unquestionable right of school administrators to hysterically overreact to such blatant disregard of school policies, such as bringing in a knife with a smaller blade than that regularly issued to eleven-year-old Boy Scouts. Because, you know, those teens are always on the verge of going all Sharks-and-Jets in the cafeteria.
A friend of mine went through highschool making chain mail as a hobby. He often sat in the back of class and worked on mail during lectures, until a math teacher got fed up and confiscated his needle-nose pliers and had him sent to the principal because he brought in a "dangerous weapon".
Knowing this kid to be pretty smart, the principal asked why he'd bring a weapon into school. My friend explained about his hobby, took out his math textbook and a compass, and said he had a question. He then stabbed the compass through the textbook and into the desk and asked why on earth he would want to use pliers if he was going to hurt someone?
He got his pliers back.
Damn. I grew up in Grayslake and this sounds pretty typical of the school administration as I remember it. Huge overreaction to absolutely nothing, yet the kids who pull shit on a daily basis don't get touched. And the police just can't wait to get involved in things at the high school, breaks up the routine of making speeding ticket quotas all day. Nothing like a small town. A petty, ridiculous small town.
perfect example of just because you can get good grades it dosen't mean you're smart
This make me think, just for a second, about joining the NRA. That's fucked up.
This is absolutely rediculous. I'm an AP student, a senior right now, and I've been bringing a Leatherman to school for two years now. I'm in an engineering course and I've found it endlessly useful to have it there instead of having to walk across the room and get a knife from the toolkit. The teacher has even complimented me on my tool!
This is rediculous. But I guess it goes along with the government's paranoia about pies on airplanes and Cat Stevens.
since he is not organizing a protest, who cares?
I carried both a leatherman tool (non-locking, standard size) and a Swiss army knife pretty much everywhere I went in high school. It was never an issue, I didn't take something out unless I needed to use it, and they came in quite handy many times. What seems suspicious is that the last time something ridiculous (note spelling, #18) like this came up, it was also an honor student, 'disciplined' for a kitchen knife that fell out of a box, in her car, in the parking lot. True, two examples do not a conspiracy make, but my healthy respect for the limits of authority make me feel like they were being 'knocked down to size' for achieving.
This is a good life lesson for that kid. When you're more intelligent than average, you have to eventually come to grips with the fact that the world is run by those who are less intelligent than average.
"The teacher has even complimented me on my tool!"
And now the cops are on their way to your school for an entirely different reason...
@RIBLETS You sir, are my hero.
I and most of my AP-to-the-max friends have been carrying swiss army or leatherman knives since sophomore year of high school, and they have proven indispensable.
The "honors student" fact is important because its explaining why he's not protesting. Who would want to throw away their bright future fighting the ridiculous rules of small minded people? If he were a regular student he would have the moral obligation to devote himself to fighting it or even more unjust institutions.
@19 "Prometheus"
"This is absolutely rediculous. I'm an AP student, a senior right now. . . "
Wait, you're an HONORS student and you can't spell "ridiculous"?
http://www.rediculous.co.uk/religious.htm
It's easy to say this case is ridiculous when you enjoy a relatively safe upbringing. We didn't even have plastic knives in our school cafeteria when I was in high school, and I went to the "good" school (and we did have a stabbing incident). The "bad" school had metal detectors at the entrances and everyone had mandatory clear backpacks.
@24
time was, the extraordinary were SUPPOSED to be heros
Back in 8th grade, the police did a random early-morning weapons sweep; They huddled every student in the school into the gym, and ran us through metal detectors one-by-one and sent us to the cafeteria.
At the end of the day, there were three violations; one girl had a metal nailfile with a point on the end, another girl had nail clippers with a fold-out sharp file, and I had a 1.5" swiss army knife (keychain variety).
As the most serious offender, they called held me in the principal's office, called my mother over, and told her "We don't think this is a big deal, but if we didn't call you here, we could get sued. Tell your son not to bring his knife to school anymore." Then he sent me home early as "punishment".
Up until that point, I was sure I was going to get expelled and grounded, but my mom laughed about it later and the principal apologized for the fuss.
Should I be happy that everybody involved was so rational? Or angry that they were forced to follow rules that they knew were irrational?
Perhaps if it wasn't for the tweezers on the multitool than the kid may have been let off with a warning.
Those tweezers attachments can be deadly.
And don't get me started on lanyard attachments...
what is the policy on; glass bottles, baseball bats, hockey sticks, cricket bats,Bic pens, newspapers (A la Millwall Bricks), skipping ropes, bicycle locks and chains, belts, handbags, boots, thermoses of hot liquids, pointed sticks and bananas?
Once again,common sense completely abrogated by responsible authority, aided and abetted by parental inertia.
I blame the internet.
Interestingly, this very thing happened to me while I was in high school (as I recall, about 2000) a couple towns over from Grayslake. I was suspended for 1 day under the guise of a "zero tolerance" weapons policy for having a Leatherman tool on my belt (I was a theater techie, thank you very much).
Incidentally, I was also an honor student.
freakin adminstration.
Zero tolerance has been in place for awhile now. I would have probably died under these rules. Evidently messing up is now longer allowed by children. But as Paul Simon said, "when I look back at all the crap I learned in high school, its a wonder I can think at all."
if everyone is a criminal (accomplished by criminalizing everything)so called "administrators" have an even easier time of it. Rather like how some policmen would prefer if everyone remained in their cells - I mean "homes",at all times.
Forget metal detectors in schools, it's clearly time for mental detectors - stop those with no brain activity from entering!
How on earth did I make it through High School carrying a 3 1/2 inch folding Kershaw? My teachers knew of its existence, but never bothered me with this kind of wack. A 2 inch Leatherman blade is a pretty poor weapon. I guess the world has gone insane in the last 20 years.
I remember bringing a two foot long bayonet. The idea that it could be stuck into anyone was never seriously entertained by teachers, principals, other students or the janitor. People didn't DO that kind of thing. Got five bucks for it if remember, a three dollar mark-up on the surplus store price. Replica guns were obviously just that - who could possibly bring a real gun to a school for pete's sake? Pedaling around with a Schmeiser machine pistol slung over my back was obviously some kid playing. Good looking piece too, very heavy.
Alas.
Seriously people, my school district instituted a no-knives policy around 1977 after a stabbing and when I attended high school in the 1980s it was well-known and people kept them in their cars.
People can say what they will, but I know that 30 years ago private knives of any kind were forbidden to be brought into school.
I remember pretty much all kinds of weapons rules from the late 1970s: no nunchuks, no throwing stars or any bladed weapons, no hunting rifles. The strangest elementary school rule for us was no underground newspapers, because in the disco era, 6 years after the hippies were gone, this made kids giggle.
But seriously, your parents probably had a no-knives rule in school. This ain't new and it ain't in response to Columbine.
#22 AIRSHIP: You are almost right when you say,
"When you're more intelligent than average, you have to eventually come to grips with the fact that the world is run by those who are less intelligent than average."
I believe the world is run by incredibly smart people with an authoritarian/sociopathic bent.
Now, Bush is not smart nor is he really in charge of anything, but he is authoritarian and he is sociopathic. He is laughable but useful to his puppet-masters.
The actual enforcement of irrational fear-and-control-based public policy is effected by cowed bureaucrats and knuckle-dragging goons in an odd symbiosis.
The smart people stay behind the scenes and truly control things. Because they're smart.
of course, now we have to kill you.
Gee I graduated high school in '99 and I used to keep a shotgun in the trunk of my car at school during deer season, and definitely remember having .22 bullets scattered in the bottom of my back pack. I guess I knew that the gun was technically against the rules, but at that time it didn't seem like a big deal. Today I think I would go to prison for such an act.
I had a friend who was bringing a bokken and multiple shinai to school regularly even in the post-Columbine panic. (kendo classes after school)
She also periodically had some kind of broadsword in her locker (highland dancing classes and competitions)
And brought in a display katana for a school presentation once...
At the time the school administration was quite blasé about it because she told them about the swords, wasn't considered a particular risk for using them on other students, and other students weren't very likely to try and snatch one from her to use on each other. (I don't know anyone who's brave enough to steal from a known sword wielding maniac, especially when she brings in enough swords to make you suspect that no matter how many you nicked, she could just go home and fetch something MORE lethal to hunt down your idiot self with...)
#40: you hunted deer with a shotgun?
#42: you know it's called "Buckshot" for a reason, right?
Buckshot's called buckshot for a reason :)
huh, never thought about it.
@40: Umm, they also have slug loads for shotguns, that big lead ball?
rifled slugs don't care about twigs and leaves