Education

Suspension for boy who held pencil like gun

Robby Soave Reporter
Font Size:

A Suffolk, Virginia elementary school suspended a boy for holding his pencil like a gun and pretending he was a Marine, just like his father.

Christopher Marshall, a seven-year-old student at Driver Elementary, was playing a game with another student when his teacher noticed him pretending to shoot his pencil like a gun. Both students were given a two-day suspension.

“A pencil is a weapon when it is pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made,” said Bethanne Bradshaw, a spokesperson for Suffolk Public Schools, in a statement to a local news channel.

The boy’s father maintains that he did nothing wrong.

“When I asked him about it, he said, ‘Well I was being a Marine and the other guy was being a bad guy,'” said Paul Marshall, the boy’s father. “It’s as simple as that.”

The suspension irked Marshall and his wife, who said the school failed to use common sense, since his child is generally well behaved and receives good grades.

Marshall’s suspension came at the end of a week where several students made headlines for receiving harsh punishments under their schools’ zero tolerance policies.

Follow Robby on Twitter

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Robby Soave