Sometimes, when I read stories of children getting in trouble at school, I wonder "what were their parents thinking?" Here's an example of how hard this is.
This week is standardized testing. To keep hte kids sharp for testing, the rest of the week is low key. Today, the twins will make masks. Amanda, the artsy-crafty type is excited. Really excited.
We went and bought 96 sheets of construction paper. I assume there's a reason they sell 96 sheets instead of 100, such as 96 is divisible by the number of colors and 100 isn't. Amanda carefully counted out the sheets and gave her sister exactly half.
I asked if they really needed 48 sheets each for a mask. Well, one might want to cut shapes of different colors. In addition, the teacher asked them to bring extra for the kids who forgot.
Then Amanda found yarn for hair and packed that up. We discussed how much yarn would be enough.
A few minutes later, Amanda asked if she could bring scissors. Now scissors are a hot button in this house. We own umpteen pairs and no one can ever find any. Seriously, I am sure I have bought at least ten in the last couple of years. Sometimes I buy four and issue everyone their own pair. Still the scissors disappear. I have one pair right now which I keep watch on.
Why do you need scissors? I asked. For the mask. Of course. Don't they have scissors at school? Probably. I don't know. I just want to be sure.
Well, this did seem reasonable. The masks were being made in social studies, not art, and i could see there being one pair of scissors at each table. I could also see Amanda getting absorbed in her craft and not wanting to share. I could also see Amanda losing her temper and . . . Never mind. Too horrible to contemplate. Take the scissors.
A few minutes later, I recalled zero tolerance. Darn. Do they have that policy? Do scissors count? Is there an artwork exception? I asked Amanda. She stared at me blankly. The idea that taking scissors to make the mask would violate any policy anywhere did not compute.
Finally, I worried her enough that she declined the scissors. We located some kindergarten safety scissors and she's taking those. If those violate zero tolerance, well, we'll be on the news tonight.
Posted by Justene Adamec at April 30, 2004 06:51 AM | TrackBack