Even Kids Get It

8 Year Old Draws Guns As Halloween Costumes, School Overreacts! Why Can't Kids Be Kids?

Arizona Boy Threatened With Expulsion Over Drawings

November 4, 2013 by UPI - United Press International, Inc. 

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (UPI) — An Arizona boy was threatened with expulsion from his elementary school for drawing pictures of Halloween costumes that included weapons, his family said.

The headmaster at Scottsdale Country Day School threatened to kick the 8-year-old boy out for drawing pictures of his possible Halloween costumes — a soldier, a ninja and a Star Wars character — because each character was holding a gun or a knife, KPHO-TV, Phoenix, reported Friday.

“In this situation, it’s actually the principal of the school who bullied the parents — so much that we couldn’t even be safe in that environment,” said the boy’s father, whose name was not reported to protect the identities of his children.

“I think we really send our children the wrong message when we show that, as adults, we’re so afraid of our shadow that an innocent picture — that any 8-year-old might’ve drawn — is cause for this kind of concern,” the father said.

However, according to the school’s online student and parent handbook, “drawings that depict weapons” are grounds for expulsion.

The school headmaster told the father that the safety of other students could not be guaranteed while his son is around.

“I don’t understand how somebody can say that about an 8-year-old that has no history of violence, no history of making threats — nothing at all,” the father said.

The school declined to comment on the situation.