newjerseynewsroom.com

BY PAM LOBLEY

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

NOW THAT'S FUNNY

A fifth-grader at Grace M. Breckwedel Middle School, in Jamesburg, N.J., was suspended for bringing a lighter to school on Wednesday. He found the lighter on the way to school and put it in his pocket.

I guess he was all fired up, and now he's sparked a controversy.

Just after school began, the boy took the lighter out of his pocket, another kid noticed it and told the teacher. The teacher took the lighter away and alerted the administration.

The child was suspended because the school has a zero policy toward weapons, and they decided the lighter was a weapon. The boy's father, Patrick Halpin, protested this notion, saying that teachers at the school have lighters.

The school replied that "a weapon is anything that has the potential to cause harm."

Really? Does that include a sharpened pencil? How about a shoelace? Technically, you could take it out of your shoe and try to strangle someone with it.

This comes on the heels of the news that in Waretown, N.J., cupcakes or other treats are no longer allowed in the classroom for birthday celebrations. I guess a brownie is a weapon, too.

For the record, the boy never flicked the lighter. But the school did have an incident last year in which a student did start a small fire in a bathroom with a lighter, and caused minor damage. This must have put the school on high alert.

The most hilarious part of this story to me, is that the administration, after having confiscated the lighter, CALLED THE POLICE. The father, irate at having a lighter referred to as a weapon, also called the police to report that school had weapons in it, because the teachers had lighters in the building. So now the police are showing up in force, responding to a call about weapons in a school, because a kid found a lighter and stuck it in his pocket. Did they bring the dogs and sniff his locker?

I understand the rationale of "better safe than sorry", and I certainly agree that the lighter needed to be removed from the child's possession immediately. And it was. The kid willingly handed the lighter over to the teacher, and it could have ended with a stern reprimand from the principal and a phone call to the parents. Instead, bad judgment prevailed.

We have all reached a level of paranoia that is its own kind of weapon — the weapon of common sense. We don't think for ourselves anymore! We set up these "zero tolerance" rules and hide behind them instead of using common sense to assess a situation.

Childhood obesity is not caused by a piece of birthday cake, it is caused by families who don't teach and enforce healthy habits. The boy with the lighter could have been dealt with by the teacher and the principal, without involving suspension or the police. And the school board, by calling a lighter a weapon, has now set itself a standard for weaponry that could involve paper clips, barrettes and Purell.

God help the kid that brings a drawing compass to shop class.

Pam Lobley writes the "Now That's Funny" column. Sign up for her mailing list at www.pamlobley.com.