Kids Suspended from School for playing with airsofts......in their own front yard

[kandiman71874]

The bus stop is considered school district property just so you guys know. Read the first sentence in the article and you might understand the decision.

[n8ball2013]

It wasnt at a bus stop itnwas in the kids yard 75 yards from the bus stop

[Dwn4BassAlan]

I agree that some schools take it a little too far

But you guys must understand that there is no limit when it comes to student safety.

If any of the staff think what a student is doing is disruptive to school

or even worse, makes the school un-safe in anyway

A stern reaction will follow as being nice and easy does not work

Trust me when I tell you many parents are worse than the kids

They send their children to school on 4 hours sleep and no breakfast

and with maybe half of the required school supplies

There are many circumstances that could warrant action from the school:

Is the kids front yard also a bus stop where parent and kids are?

Was this during school hours?

Were any warnings given about the potential disruption the airsofts were causing?

If so were the warnings ignored?

Education is priority, especially in the USA

If the school is disrupted or made un-safe at all

the cause will not be ignored

There is too much at risk (the many other students)

I agree schools need to take action, but the problem I see is both WHAT they handle HOW they handle it. Schools love to pick and choose what they mandate over, to keep them the most powerful with the least vulnerability. Either take full responsibility for everything, or let the authorities handle it. They are over stepping their boundaries on this one, IMO. I think the cops alone should have been responsible for handling the situation. Not the school, since it was NOT during school hours.

I see different things about the bus stop, this is where I'm divided, since he says he was not near the bus stop, but the principal says he was 10 feet from it. EVEN SO, the local authorities should have handled it, not the school district. The authorities could evaluate his "true danger" capacity and report to the school. There was 3 kids that got suspended, even one of the 911 reporters kids.......and they gave them all "possession of a firearm" on their permanent records. Do you know what that's going to do to their college chances? Let alone being suspended for a year.

The school can't be the judge, jury, and executioner on all of these out of school things. I know they vote on a school board but still, it's all within that one school district. Especially for something this controversial and given the severity of the punishment, they should definitely have other sources involved, like the city council and the police even. I just think the school handled this situation very poorly, I could have at least found reason in a week or 2 max, but a year and a "possession of a firearm" for 3 kids playing on private property before school hours is a little ridiculous in my perspective.

P.S: A bus stop in not considered school property unless it is located on the schools campus, otherwise it is the city's property. So even if they had been playing near the bus stop or not, the city's local PD should have handled this whole situation since what they were doing does technically fall under the "illegal" category, given that it is an imitation weapon, but I don't see all the guns so I can't say. Even if they were, it's only an infraction the first time.

12556.

(a) No person may openly display or expose any imitation firearm, as defined in Section 12550, in a public place.

(b} Violation of this section, except as provided in subdivision (c], is an infraction punishable by a fine of one hundred dollars ($100) for the first offense, and three hundred dollars ($300) for a second offense.

© A third or subsequent violation of this section is punishable as a misdemeanor

It's not illegal to use a toy gun to play with your friends, though it can't be in public unless:

(13) A device where the entire exterior surface of the device is white, bright red, bright orange, bright yellow, bright green, bright blue, bright pink, or bright purple, either singly or as the predominant color in combination with other colors in any pattern, or where the entire device is constructed of transparent or translucent materials which permits unmistakable observation of the device’s complete contents. Merely having an orange tip as provided in federal law and regulations does not satisfy this requirement. The entire surface must be colored or transparent or translucent.

So it really could depend on their guns, if a lawyer took this, that's probably something he would try to push.

Just realized this was in VA, I can't find all the same information but it's probably very similar or the same. But I did see that the municipal code says that, "Private property is exempt." So this would all come down to whether the kids were off the lawn or not probably. But regardless, the school should not have handled it, the police should have.