Dangerous cookie carrier suspended for a month and a half.
Updated 23 April 2004: Additional info on the cookie threatening incident.
Updated 28 April 2004: Cookie bandit’s suspension set at one month. (At bottom of post)
N.J. Boy Suspended Over Peanut Allergy
Jules Gabriel was suspended on April 2 and will remain suspended until at least May 13. His crime was possession of a deadly weapon - a snack pack of Nutter Butters. You see his teacher is allergic to peanuts and Jules told a classmate that he had “something dangerous”. Putting two and two together it’s easy to see how the twelve year-old peanut butter cookie holding student was a clear and present danger to his teacher.
School district officials declined to comment Thursday.
Of course they did. Just what could they possibly say? “Yes, we indefinitely suspended a 6th grader because he had cookies in his lunch box.”
Ingestion of even a morsel of peanut can cause people who are allergic to suffer severe reactions, from throat irritation to death.
That depends on how severely allergic the person is. It also requires ingestion. Let’s assume that an adult person with a severe peanut allergy has the sense and experience to recognize the world’s most famous peanut butter sandwich cookie as a possible source of peanuts. That’s not too difficult seeing as it looks like a peanut, smells like peanuts and has peanut butter between it’s peanut-like wafers. If Jules really wanted to harm his teacher with these cookies he would have to physically subdue the teacher and force feed him some Nutter Butters.
Completely and utterly ridiculous.
(Tip credit to Daniel Haus)
UPDATE
N.J. boy suspended over cookie threat
School superintendent Peter Horoschak said several classmates who were interviewed said the boy � with the teacher out of the room � waved the cookie over his head and said he would use it against the teacher as protection from receiving detention or any other penalties.
“We’re very concerned about the teacher’s welfare, and how the teacher was threatened by this,” Horoschak said.
So far, Horoschak said, the boy has shown no remorse and refused to recognize the seriousness of his actions. Horoschak and the school principal planned to meet with the boy and his parents Friday.
The story begins to come out. With the teacher out of the room the kid waved a cookie in the air and engaged in some childish bravado. One of the other students told the teacher about it when she came back into the classroom. Administrative chaos ensued.
It’s good to see that at least the month and a half minimum “until we get around to having a meeting on it” suspension might be getting corrected.
UPDATE
Supt. Peter Horoschak said school officials met with the boy’s parents and agreed to readmit the youngster May 3.
So his punishment includes a month suspension and being forced into a different school. All this for an ambiguous statement not made to the teacher and not acted upon in any way. That’s utterly ridiculous in my book.
This entire situation might not be as far-out as it sounds. There’s a lack of information going around. Unfortunately, the school administration (and the parents) probably share in the lack of information. What would be really nice to know is:
If the child knew that the teacher was allergic to peanut butter, was he casually making a comment about the cookies being dangerous, or was he making an actual threat to the teacher?
While it seems silly to threaten with cookies and that as an adult, we know that he could not do any real damage with the cookies, he may not have known that. If he had real criminal intent with what he thought was a deadly weapon (a poison), then he needed correction.
When I went to school, if a situation like this arose, the students would have been hauled down to the principal’s office and the actuality of the situation would have been determined. If there was a problem, i.e: criminal intent, corrective action (detention, in school suspension, the paddle, parental involvement) would have been taken. The situation would have been resolved in short order. That still seems like the best course of action to me.
I am aware that for adults in a court of law that intent without a crime does not necessarily imply guilt, but for a twelve year old, intent does mean that corrective action is required.
Then again, if it was just a passing comment, the teacher should have gotten to the bottom of the situation and none of this would have been in the news.
Nutter Butters are dangerous alright. Dangerously addictive. I have a friend at work who can go through a whole package of nutter butters in one sitting all by himself without knowing it. I don’t blame him. I can too. They are just so … so DANGEROUSly addictive.
This whole story is ridiculous! First, the kid had a package of peanut-butter cookies…BFD. Second, he was stupid enough to say something about it so some little narc could go running off to report him…shades of the Nazi youth brigade. This is what school has come to, that kids go running off to “inform” on their peers? And last but not least, if the teacher is that damn allergic, she shouldn’t be teaching school, she needs to be at home in a bubble. Sure, the kid was stupid, but seems to me that stupidity or lack of discretion is a hallmark of being 12, not a sign of incipient terrorism. The school administrators should be ashamed of themselves.
The school now says that they boy waved the cookie in the air and said he would use it against the teacher if she gave him a hard time. The school says they questioned 14 kids about it, that the kid is not remorseful, and that the school will meet with the parents and boy today.
At least they didn’t have him arrested as a terrorist using a “weapon of mass destruction” that one school district in NJ used against a kid (the now-famous “duck sauce bomber” case of several years ago).
There was never a direct threat. I seriously doubt that there was even any indirect one. With the teacher out of the room the kid held up his cookie and engaged in what was either silliness or plain bravado. “She can’t give me detention. I have a Nutter Butter!”
The teacher overreacted and brought it to a vice principal who overreacted and brought it to the principal who overreacted and tossed it in the lap of the school board who couldn’t care less. Now that the story is in the papers the superintendent is doing damage control and suddenly can meet with the parents this Friday instead of waiting for the school board in the middle of May.
I call shenanigans.
It’s surprising how a little adverse publicity can light a fire under some people’s behinds. This story is on the news and on the web.
Cookie Boy is being returned to another public school, and he will be able to advance to the 7th grade.
Actually, some peanut allergies are so severe that just smelling the peanuts is enough to induce a reaction. I used to teach in a private school in which no peanut products were allowed on the premises, PERIOD, because there were several students who would have needed an ambulance to the emergency room from accidentally touching or smelling a classmate’s peanut butter candy bar or sandwich. Prominent signs were posted on classroom doors declaring the spaces peanut-free zones. I’m sure that you could dig up plenty of information on this type of allergy, if you’re interested.
What I wonder is why, if the teacher’s allergy was this severe, the child was permitted to bring peanut products into the classroom to begin with. I would think the “no peanuts” policy that worked for my school would have been helpful in preventing this situation.
Ultimately, this child apparently made a very stupid comment that was taken to be a threat. Whether it was actually a threat to the teacher’s health is, in a way, beside the point. Why should any child be permitted to threaten the health and safety of another person? I don’t know about the consequences for the threats, but I do know that some action needed to be taken.
Lisa: I wonder why, if the teacher’s allergy was this severe, she continued to work at a school, around kids whose second or third favorite things in the world are made with peanuts?
This whole thing strikes me as a silly kid mouthing off. After all what could he actually do? His teacher reprimands him so he jumps out of his chair, runs to the front of the classroom, tackles his teacher to the ground and either shoves a Nutter Butter down her throat and screams, “Swallow it!” or he waves the deadly Nutter Butter under her nose.
Teachers and administrators are becoming heady with their own power, rather their abuse of power. If the teacher is so allergic to peanuts that even a whiff of a Nutter Butter could kill her then she ought not to be teaching, period.
My favorite part of the article is the administrator’s quote that the boy “showed no remorse.” That’s the sort of word you use when describing a terrorist being confronted with his actions, not a kid and his cookies. Of course he has no remorse, he doesn’t think he has anything to be remorseful about.
On the other hand, I can imagine that scene, in which the kid is seated in a confrence room and an administrator is trying to impress upon him the seriousness of his actions. I know someone who was accused of threatening several students (but turned out to be innocent), and they had him one-on-one with varying school officials for three hours, all the while being told that he was a terrible person, would be sent to jail, and so on. Keep in mind that not only was he just in 7th grade, but had no idea what was going on because it wasn’t even him who had made the threats. Fortunately this is not Katy, and he was released with the school’s “sincerest apologies,” but even that is bad enough.
First, it should be noted that peanut allergies are nothing to fool around with. There are people that have severe reactions to them. Ingestion is not a requirement for a reaction to peanuts.
http://www.allergyasthma.on.ca/peanut1.htm
Secondly, for those who say that she should not be teaching, the fact of the matter is that she is not teaching a cooking course. She is not in the cafeteria. She is in a classroom where she should be insulated from peanut butter. Additionaly, she is allowed to teach because of the other end of the “zero tolerance” spectrum - the Americans with Disabilities Act. There is nothing that could prevent the school from hiring her, and keeping her employed.
Lastly, if the child knew of the allergy, and yet threatened the teacher with exposure to peanuts while knowing they may cause a reaction in her, then he is wrong and has plenty to be remorseful for.
If the teacher or another student had threatened the kid with putting a plastic bag over his head and not allowing him to breath, we would all rightfully be screaming that the school should protect the kid.
The child threatens the teacher with something that may cause her not to be able to breath, and we say “poor widdle boy.”
From the comments, it seems there are two distinct camps on this issue. Odd…
If her allergy is so severe that even casual contact could cause a reaction then she needs to be in a different vocation. This is a class of young kids. They are going to have peanut butter and she will eventually be exposed to it in one form or another.
That is besides the point, however. The point is that this entire incident was mishandled at every step. The end result is a 6th-grader getting suspended for a month and expelled from his school for what can only be described as an ambiguous statement.
Do I think he should have been punished in some form? Yes.
Do I think he deserved to be kicked out for so long? No.
Detention, and a phone call to his parents would have likely been sufficient. His parents could have taught him to be more sensitive about such a serious subject. Ruining his education for that year won’t help anybody.
It is nor my nor my childs resposibility to make sure others don’t break out in hives from something that WE happen to LIKE and DON’T have an allergy for.Sure,we will not hand it to the person or make the person eat/touch it.BUT whats in MY lunchbox (food wise that is) is MY business and not that of ANYONE ELSE.
I am SO SICK of this school-allergy SHIT!
I was at a conference a few months ago with a colleague who is a couple decades older than me and had a similar attitude as LW. We happened to meet a woman who is directly involved in these sorts of issues for a major food manufacturer:
Colleague: “What do you do?”
“I manage food allergy compliance for [REALLY BIG COMPANY].”
Colleague: “You know, when I went to school, we never worried about peanut allergies. Why can’t we just deal with these allergies the way we did 40 years ago?”
“40 years ago, most of these severely allergic kids died before they got to second grade. Many didn’t survive until preschool age.”
Now, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this woman’s statement, but there is certainly food for thought here. No pun intended.
You may have a point there but I still don’t think its anyone elses resposibillity but the persons who HAS the allergy to make sure he/she doesn’t come in contact with it.Just like it is not McDonalds resposibillity to keep you thin but your own,just to hit the spot here,but that goes off the subject.
Its for mt BTW only 15 years ago that I went to school and there was no such thing NOR any DEAD kids from it.Of course that was in Germany not in the US.I’ve noticed anyways that for SOME reason the US has WAY more weird deseases then any other country (I wonder if its really docs and pharmacies wanting to make money here?) and also its a country where ANYONE BUT YOU YOURSELF is resposible for what YOU do!
As a parent, it IS your responsibility to let your child know that it isn’t proper to threaten his teacher, even jokingly. It IS your responsiblity to teach your kid to respect his elders. It has nothing to do with keeping items away from an allergic person.
But again, maybe an after-school detention would have been much more appropriate.
If there is something that I don’t like then its phrases like “jokingly threatened”…if its a JOKE then its not a THREAT.And a teacher that cannot see the difference doesn’t belong in front of children.What a BULLSHIT!
Right,I forgot,you always have to feel sorry for others with ailments,right,and THAT is respect right?There is a crowd outthere that wants to force healthy people to live THEIR way.I’ll be damned to let that happen.As it looks like people with allergies are a hazzard to the healthy crowd.Whats next?We are going to lock ALL kids inside because ONE is allergic to bee-stings?Should I because I have seasonal allergies lock my kids who don’t have it inside?
Boy am I glad we homeschool and I don’t have to deal with such rediculous BULLSHIT!
People are are SO allergish beling in a bubble,not in schools or in public!
Saying anything to the effect of “The teacher can’t punish me” even WITHOUT any cookie comment is disrespectful. If you encourage your kids to be disrespectful to their teachers, you are a bad parent. End of story. The fact that the kid was joking about hospitalizing his teacher makes matters worse. If your kid does this, and you think that they are doing something good, you should not be a parent. Appearantly, the kid had done something that might warrent a detention anyways, and acting up like this would just be another reason to go through with that detention.
I say again, the punishment given was WAY out of line, but you are blind if you think that kid was acting like a model student.
THis is such a BULLSHIT.People like you,without common sense are the reason the public is such a rediculous shit-mess.
Since you accuse me of beeing a bad parent,let met accuse you of this:
OR you have NO KIDS and clue what the hell you are talking about OR you are one of those that beats the crap out of little kids under the motto:kids should be seen,not heard.
Thats all I have to say to this CRAP.
Amen.
I just happened to go to an American school, and know that standing in front of the class and making an ass of yourself is NOT acceptable behavior. No, I do not have any kids. I am only 21. However, I am not that far removed from my childhood myself, and if I had gotten out of my seat during classtime, and insisted that the teacher can’t punish me for whatever reason… I’d get punished. My parents would not have looked upon that warmly either.
I am sorry that you encourage kids to act up during the time they should be LEARNING, but that is not how schools are supposed to work. You do NOT get up in the middle of class and act like a fool. Tell me, why do you think that sort of behavior should be encouraged? How am I promoting the sad state of schools by insisting that the kids should generally stay in their seats while class is in session?
I have never accused you of being a bad parent. I said, quote, “If your kid [threatens to hospitalize their teacher], and you think that they are doing something good, you should not be a parent.”
Since you took that as an accusation, I assume you DO think that students should disrespect their teachers, get out of their seats and make an ass of themselves in the middle of class, et cetera?
Why are you getting so angry that I suggested that this kid get detention for acting up in class, anyways? Perhaps you need to switch to decaf.
I’m very happy that people are using this site to discuss the issues at hand. However, please refrain from making personal attacks. Now let me remove my moderator hat and dive in here.
Part of the problem is that we do not know exactly what happened. From what has been reported, either does the school administration. What we do know is that the boy was very fond of the teacher, the teacher was not in the room when the incident happened and that the incident involved the kid waving his cookie and saying something along the lines that he could use the cookie to avoid being disciplined.
Did he disrupt the class? I doubt it. He had cookies and the teacher was out of the room. Sounds suspiciously like snack time to me. It’s possible though - maybe she left them alone to complete an assignment and he somehow got a hold of his cookies. The point is we don’t even know if he was speaking out of turn.
Was it a threat? Again, I don’t think so. He liked this teacher. I just can’t put a line around a little kid genuinely wanting to hurt an adult that they like. I think that a kid who was that sociopathic would have had previous behavioral incidents. But once again, we don’t know for sure because the incident has not been adequately revealed.
I think that the most likely scenario was a bunch of kids eating their snacks. This kid puts two and two together and realizes he has a peanut butter cooked. He says something like “Hah! I’ve got peanut butter cookies! Mrs.Soandso won’t be able to give me detention as long as I have my cookie!” When the teacher came back one of the other kids ratted him out. She freaked out and a news article was born. Is this what happened? It’s certainly plausible but we just don’t know.
It seems to me that the arguments here are being made on absolutes based on each reader’s interpretation of the event instead of just the known facts. With each person having a different scenario in their heads there is no way that agreement can be reached. Based on the actual facts given I cannot see how this should have gone past a slap on the wrist and maybe confiscation of the cookies.
Of course the fate of the deadly cookies was also not revealed. I have a sneaking suspicion that the threatening weapons were consumed in normal fashion by the kid, thereby putting the lie to the threat from the start. But (broken record time) we don’t know.
Apparently the teacher and administrators all have that peculiar allergic reaction that destroys the ability to recognize a joke. I think anyone with allergies has probably heard similar remarks before. I have fairly severe reactions to chocolate, certain perfumes, and walnuts, and I know I’ve heard “Bryan repellent” cracks about all three.
I have no idea how bad the woman’s peanut allergies might be, but I have to agree with Jim’s sentiment. A person with life-threatening reaction to the presence of peanuts working in a school full of kids is not a wise career choice.
Thank you so much Brian,that was EXACTLY my point!!!People apear mostly to be allergic to any kind of joke nower days.
Thanks again!
Alright, I will temper the statements I had made before, and aknowledge that I do not know exactly what happened.
MY interpretation of the story was that he had been threatened with a detention, and after the teacher stepped out of the room for whatever reason, he got in front of the class, or stood up or whatever, and made his “nutter butter” statement. Were they having snack time? I doubt it, since this was in 6th grade. I stopped having “snack time” in kindergarden, personally. Either way, IF he actually was being a class clown, and announcing this sort of thing to the entire class when they are supposed to be doing an assignment (like I interpreted it), he does deserve a detention. (BUT, not the month or two suspension that he did get.)
Then again, as Jim pointed out, we do not know exactly what happened. He may have made a comment to a friend or two next to him, for example, with no intention to disrupt the class or anything. Depending on his tone of voice, et cetera, then I can see how this should have just gone away with no mention of anything.
I simply had the impression that he was making fun of his teacher’s allergy in front of the whole class (and it has nothing to do with the allergy LW… I would support a detention if he was making fun of the teacher’s hair style.) Again, I apologize for perhaps misinterpreting the story, but for what it’s worth, there is the explanation for why I said what I said.
A couple of comments asserted that a teacher so severely allergic to such a common food as to be/feel threatened by a kid waving it about ought not to be teaching.
Wrong point. A teacher so woefully lacking in classroom management skills as to feel “threatened” by a sixth-grader waving a Nutter Butter (no matter HOW allergic to that teacher might be to peanuts) and unable to handle such a “threat” with dispatch _in the classroom_ ought not to have their contract renewed.
An allergy ought not to be a disqualifier. Incompetence, however, *ought* to be.
Some silly kid mouthing off? Yeah, probably. But the thing is: If Professor Teach is one of the super allergic, the silly kid could have a silly death upon his silly hands. Kids do a lot of things to impress their friends - without understanding the consequences.
Still, one would think the school board could think (or maybe not) of a better way to address the situation.
I think the larger issue here is not whether the boy should be considered dangerous or not, but whether he had been taught the basic idea of respect.
I would be embarrased if my child was called out for behaving in such a mean spirited way within the classroom. I am aware that kids will play and carry on if there is a willing audience. We played wargames and pretended to shoot passing vehicles. That didnt make us potential snipers. However in the classroom we behaved properly and showed respect to our elders. I would hope that this is a subject that was brought up in the meeting with his parents. The issue was blown out of proportion and the threatening behavior was less evident than the blatant lack of respect for propriety.
As a teacher, I feel that part of my job is to teach students that they need to tailor their behavior to meet the demands of the situation. In school, that means no inappropriate language and no jokes involving threats to others or oneself.
If this child had made the joke about a classmate, rather than the teacher, some people might have taken it more seriously. As adults, teachers are presumed able to defend themselves against “jokes” from children. Some people naturally have more tolerance for this sort of behavior than others. The more years I teach, the better I get at determining when behavior deserves a trip to the principal’s office, or a phone call home, or just a few minutes’ time out. I would be inclined, though, to react seriously when a child even jokingly threatens another person’s health or physical safety. No child should ever walk out of the classroom thinking he can joke about causing a life-threatening condition in another person. I’m not saying that the punishment of this child was appropriate, but seriously, this is not behavior we want to encourage.
The kid is obviously psychopathic and should be locked up. And I’m NOT being facitious. Clearly he parents take delight in raising this monster.
For crying out loud, people. He wasn’t FOUR. He was TWELVE. Have a look at some 12-year-olds. They are nearly PEOPLE. They know far, far better than to behave stupidly. You cannot say that this kid didn’t know what he was doing, and wasn’t responsible for his actions. A kid in a classroom with a peanut-allergic teacher is WELL aware of the consequences of her contact with peanut butter (and NO, it most certainly does NOT require ingestion - my son has had an anaphylactic reaction from simply touching a Butterfinger wrapper in the checkout aisle (he was not yet two, so don’t even start with the “he should have been more careful” bit)).
And do you seriously think this was his first infraction? He’d been threatened with detention already. You think he wasn’t the class horror? This was probably just the final straw.
Ten years from now, all you ignoramusi who are calling this situation ridiculous will realize what fools you’ve been. Peanut allergy is on a dramatic increase (and not just in America, you German idiot) and there won’t be a school left in the land that allows peanuts. In fact, virtually every school in England is ALREADY peanut-free. For these kids, peanuts are as dangerous as loaded guns, and we don’t want those in school, do we?
What? “But I LIKE my gun. I want to bring my gun to school! It’s my second-favorite toy!” Listen to yourselves, people.
These food-allergic people are only suffering because it’s new to so many people, and too many of you out there are resisting change because you’re weak and pathetic. Get over it. Get a life. Get something REAL to stress about. You do NOT have an inalienable right to peanut butter, unless they’ve ratified a new amendment I don’t know about.
It all comes down to this: Is your “right” to a free lunchbox worth carrying around for the rest of your life the fact that you killed someone?
Yeah, I’m venting. What kind of monster sends peanuts to school JUST BECAUSE there’s a peanut ban? I’ve had a six-year-old come to me on the school playground and say, “My mom sent peanuts in my lunchbox, but I wasn’t allowed to eat them. I don’t like peanuts. Mom said I didn’t have to eat them, but she said I had to bring them to school.” Seriously. Verbatim. I kid you not.
I’m sick to death of dealing with brainless idiots who think they’re getting one over on me when they send my kid to the hospital struggling to breath, passing out, and having massive abdominal cramping. He’s FOUR. You’re an ADULT. ACT LIKE IT.
(And thank you to everyone who reacted reasonably to this topic. There aren’t words to express the depth of my gratitude. Know that it’s there.)
It sounds scary to say the least, when most of the comments posted are blasting the teacher and attempting in one way or another to minimize (even exonerate) the child. Let’s not forget something here: this is a 12 yr.old in the year 2005. What I mean by this is that at that age, this “kid” probably has been exposed to so much violence and questionable material of all kinds that I am not so sure that he was all that innocent on his threats to the teacher to begin with. ANd teachers have to draw a line once and for all. This teacher has the right to feel safe at school. This kid is threatening her with what he obviously knows can hurt her. It does not matter if it is a cookie. What if he was infected with HIV and threatened to spit on her?
Would that make any difference to anyone?
You people have to wake up and smell the coffee here! Whether you like it or not, 12 yr.olds are no longer the innocent little children they used to be even 10 yrs.ago!. You want to blame someone? Blame TV, blame hollywood, blame explicit magazines that glamorize sex and violence!
It’s funny how NOBODY had a peanut allergy until about ten years ago, now every other person will keel over dead if they even see a Mr. Peanut commercial. It’s just a way for these people to get attention, and also a way for them to sue if they ever get sick - how can you prove that there WASN’T a peanut flake in that ice cream? These people should be dropped off on a desert island with nothing but a crateload of peanuts for food, we’d see how fast they would get over their “allergy” then.