Teacher Suspended For Showing Kids Pliers

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Metspitzer 13 years ago

A veteran Chicago teacher is suing the school district after he was suspended and charged with possessing tools that school officials said violated their weapons policy.

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Doug Bartlett, a second grade teacher at Washington Irving Elementary School, was suspended for four days after administrators determined the tools he used for visual aids endangered students.

In 2011 Bartlett was teaching a mandated course on ?tools.? He showed students several tools that he used in his classroom including wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, a box cutter, and a small pocketknife. He explained how the tools were used and kept the items secured in a tool box.

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?The visual aids were used in an effort to facilitate student understanding and remembrance of the curriculum,? the lawsuit states. ?As he displayed the box cutter and pocketknife, Plaintiff specifically described the proper use of these tools. Neither of these items was made available to the students.?

Several days later, the 17-year veteran teacher received a notice that he was under investigation for possessing, carrying, storing and using a weapon ? and for negligently supervising children. He was then suspended four days without pay.

John Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, filed a federal lawsuit on Bartlett?s behalf claiming his civil rights were violated.

?This school district?s gross overreaction to a simple teaching demonstration on basic tools such as wrenches and pliers underscores exactly what is wrong with our nation?s schools,? Whitehead said. ?Education truly suffers when school administrators exhibit such poor judgment and common sense.?

A spokesman for the City of Chicago School District 299 did not return calls seeking comment.

Whitehead said Bartlett is the victim of a zero tolerance policy ?run amok.?

The lawsuit claims the teacher had no idea that he could be subjected to disciplinary action for possessing common household tools in a classroom discussion that was mandated by the district.

Bartlett wants his record expunged as well as a financial settlement.

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Oren 13 years ago

Ban Chicago, annex it to Canada.

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Gordon Shumway 13 years ago

That's a damn good idea! I bet my Illinois taxes would go down then.

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Attila Iskander 13 years ago

Chicago should be annexed to Haiti It would be a better fit.

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trader4 13 years ago

That about sums it up doesn't it? One can only imagine all the other harm that those administrators running the school are doing to those children every day with all the other dumb things they must be imposing.

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Dean Hoffman 13 years ago

So at least a couple of the kids were probably better "armed" than the teacher.

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Tegger 13 years ago

Metspitzer wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

From where did utility knives get the silly name "box cutter"? And how come I only ever see this phrase in the media? Is it because the only time reporters have ever seen a utility knife is in the grocery store?

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Ralph Mowery 13 years ago

I don't know what they use to open the boxes with now in the stores. About

45 years ago when I was a stock boy in a grocery store we had box cutters. There were several designs, but they were made to have a single edge razor blade in them. They were often made of a relative flat piece of steel that held the blade and there was another flat tube that held that part. You pulled the blade holder up into the sheath part when not in use and a tap on the leg would extend the blade part when needed. Most often it was held in then hand so that you put your thumb over the top of the box an used it as a guide.

Could make a dandy weapon for making shallow cuts about an inch or so deep. It was about 4 or 5 inches long with the blade extended.

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Tegger 13 years ago

"Ralph Mowery" wrote in news:FJWdnWmA3LutiurMnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

But did you call them "box cutters" or "utility knives"?

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missingchild 13 years ago

The real crime is that the kids aren't learning to use the tools, only watching someone else demonstrate them.

Starting in third grade we had shop class.

Just checked my former school system's curriculum. They still have art, but no shop.

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Ralph Mowery 13 years ago

Yes, we called them box cutters. Staples has them for sell now, listed as box cutter.

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Item: 506873 Model: 17548-CC/610137

This one is shown as the blade extended. It will push back up in the outer part to make it safe to carry. It is mainly for cutting cardboard boxes.

The utility knives are much heavier and use a differant type of blade. Made to cut much thicker material.

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Tegger 13 years ago

"Ralph Mowery" wrote in news:BISdnVJKQdvIvurMnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

I see that on the same page they are also described as "Portable pocket-size utility knife".

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Home Guy 13 years ago

Sorry - nope. We wouldn't take Chicago even if it was free.

And all this garbage about a few hand tools in the classroom being a danger to the kids - somewhere if you peel enough layers away, you'll find that insurance (liability insurance) is the root of this particular incident. It's getting to be that insurance is gumming up every aspect of your american lives.

Which in this case is funny, since I bet at least one kid in the school probably had a gun (this is Chicago we're talking about - isin't it?)

How did the teacher get past the metal detector with those tools anyways???

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Ed Pawlowski 13 years ago

We called the box cutters because that is what they were designed to do. The ones we used gave minimal exposure of the blade so you could cut the box and not the contents. They were not utility knives and could not perform the same tasks. This was 50 years ago for me. They may be different now.

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Dean Hoffman 13 years ago

The RCMP arrested a couple bad guys who planned to derail a train.

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An Al Qaeda sponsored attack. How can that be? Is it because Canadians build Ford vehicles? Maybe it's because of Moosehead beer.

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Gordon Shumway 13 years ago

Still, not bad. But, I have a better idea. Why don't we give D.C. to Canada?

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Kurt Ullman 13 years ago

From my experience, they were charged with administrating which is a whole different ball of wax from educating (that has its own set of problems).

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Home Guy 13 years ago

It's already been posted here that blacks don't like the cold. Blacks in Chicago, Detroit, or DC.

If any country would want to annex those cities, it would be Haiti.

Because it's a frame-up job.

When ever the Canadian gov't wants to pass a crime or anti-terrorism bill, they first tell the RCMP or CSIS to frame some muslims for conspiracy to commit terrorism. That helps the bill to pass more smoothly.

It's a trick or game that they learned from the US and George Monkey Bush.

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Robert Macy 13 years ago

snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

When I was introduced to this knife, it was called a 'matting knife' and we were even shown how to properly use it. As in, don't try to make the cut with a single stroke, cut over and over until through the material.

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krw 13 years ago

The first "box cutters" I saw had the blade set parallel, and about

1/2" down from a flat plate. The blade protruded about 1/4" from the handle. The idea was to only cut the box (thus only 1/4" of blade protruding) about 1/2" down from the top. Basically, it decapitated the box. What's now known as "box cutters", I've always known as "utility knives", including the one shown above.

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Teacher Suspended For Showing Kids Pliers

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