17 year-old disciplined for shotgun shells at school

[Suz]

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1029shoot1029.html

Did anyone have a chance to catch this story?
As it happens----Tony and Kim are friends of mine. I've known Kim since she was born and I've know her father 27 years. We have enjoyed many camping/fishing trips together over the years.

17-year-old disciplined for shotgun shells at school
District overreacted in punishing athlete for ammo in SUV, family says

Erin Zlomek
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 29, 2007 12:00 AM
Surprise high-school senior Kim Peters carries an Olympic identification badge and an Arizona skeet-shooting members' card, but neither got her out of a four-day suspension for bringing shotgun shells onto school grounds.

The 17-year-old started competitive clay shooting her freshman year at the urging of her mom and stepfather.

She has since won several trophies in the male-dominated sport and in August was one of 18 athletes across the nation to attend this year's Junior Olympic shooting camp in Colorado Springs, Colo.

But the hobby got Peters into trouble last week. Willow Canyon High School administrators disciplined Peters after a security guard noticed two unopened boxes of the shells sitting in the back seat of the student's white sport utility vehicle. There was no gun.

Peters said her 12-hours-a-week practice schedule got so hectic that she forgot to unload the ammunition from her vehicle as she was running late for school Tuesday morning.

To beat the bell, she said she took a shortcut and parked in a visitors-only lot closest to the school. The guard spotted the shells while ticketing her for parking in the non-student area.

Now, Peters fears the resulting punishment will cloud her permanent record as she applies to colleges. Her family is fighting the Dysart Unified School District to get the offense, possession of a "dangerous instrument," expunged.

Administrators stand by their decision and rejected the family's first appeal last week.

"We can never comment on a specific situation with a student (due to privacy laws), but what I can say is that whenever we are dealing with any infraction . . . our duties involve keeping students in a safe and secure environment," Dysart Superintendent Gail Pletnick said.

Peters called her own actions "careless" but said she doesn't feel the punishment fits the crime.

"They searched me and they searched my car," she said.

Searchers discovered that Peters had cigarettes in the car, an offense also punishable by suspension. Though Peters technically violated three school rules, she was punished only for the shells, according to a Dysart disciplinary-incident form sent home with Peters.

Arguing that Peters proved she regularly uses the shells for sport, her father, Tony, asked administrators to swap the ammunition offense for the cigarette offense. Tony said he felt anyone requesting his daughter's behavior records might be more sympathetic to a "tobacco" violation vs. a "dangerous instrument" violation. He said he feels the latter unfairly implies that his daughter brought a gun or bomb into the school building. When officials refused to make the swap, Tony accused the district of overreacting and trying to make an inappropriate example out of his daughter.

The Peterses also cite a 2007 federal education statute that explicitly excludes shotguns and shotgun shells from being categorized as a destructive device because they are primarily used for sport. Despite the statute, districts are free to take disciplinary actions where they see fit, according to the Arizona Department of Education.

Pletnick said that school shootings at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech have forced school districts everywhere to re-evaluate and tighten their safety standards.

Peters said she is still trying to drum up support for her position and has started by contacting some of her target-shooting mentors.

Zach Snow, a promotions coordinator with the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said other athletes have reported similar complaints in the past, prompting professional shooters and the National Rifle Association to come to their defense.

He said the most notable case was when a group of students was sent home for wearing foundation T-shirts, which pictured a silhouette of a shooter holding a rifle. But Snow said to his knowledge, Peters' situation is the first of its kind.

She is scheduled to return to school Tuesday.

[Davis2001R6]

Yeah that does seem a bit over the top.

[IGO]

When I was in high school in rural south Georgia, kids came to school with 30/6 and 30/30's and shotguns in gun racks in the back windows of their pick up trucks. If they had waivers from mom and dad, they could smoke in the parking lot and other disignated areas. But that was the 70's.

[Suz]

She is an incredible marksman, with a sharp eye that I suppose could scare a school district. Being a teacher I understand the zero tolerance policy but come on! She is a full time high school student with a job at a stable riding, caring for, breaking horses and then selling them. There are no prior issues, no threats...nothing. She's a smart, hard working girl---juggling many teenage things while excelling to Jr. Olympic status. We are most crazy that these charges are likely to deter a shooting scholarship or even admission to a university......the charge is actually for explosive devices IE--pipe bombs, gernades and so on.

She will be interviewed by Fox news today---not sure when the story will hit the air but have heard the NRA is possibly coming to assist in her defense.

[threedogz]

Whats with the cigarettes in the car?

Schools have a zero tolerance and in order for zero tolerance to be enforced is to punish everyone no matter what the circumstances are. For kids like her, they end up in trouble with an innocent mistake.

Perhaps the school system needs to reexamine the zero tolerance punishments on a case to case basis.

This brings up the incident a month back when a kid drew a handgun during drawing class to demonstrate a 3-D versus a 2-dimensional dreawing and was suspended.
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[desertgirl]

With all that publicity and being 2nd Amendment posterchild -- she could be a future senator for AZ .

Hope things get resolved to a reasonable end.
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[thesuperstitions]

Do you ever just get the feeling that there's no one with a lick of sense in positions of authority these days? Drawing a picture of a handgun is a suspendable offense? A box of shotgun shells in a vehicle is cause to potentially ruin a student's chance at the Olympics? Anti-gun advocates tend to prey on the fears of the general public and throw all semblances of common sense out the window. Shouldn't we cut a break to someone that has shown NO INTENT to harm anyone and who is a model for others to emulate? Kids make honest mistakes... hell, we ALL make honest mistakes all the time.

What would a rational response be? Maybe confiscate the shells, find out who brought them to school and the circumstances, reprimand the student and make it clear that any further incident of this kind would incur an expulsion?

I wonder sometimes if the school boards or superintendents in these cases just take actions like this to get their 15 minutes of fame. After all, that's what politicians do... make issues out of nothing and then promote themselves as the only one who understands and can solve the problem! Ego-tripping all the way.

Sorry for the rant. Sometimes I just can't believe how far down the slippery-slope of nonsensical behavior we've slid, and I wonder where we'll be in another 20 years.

[IGO]

[Suz]

uh oh........here comes the NRA
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58445

WND Exclusive Commentary Zero tolerance for zero tolerance
Posted: November 1, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

An Arizona high school student who is a competitive shotgun shooter was recently suspended for inadvertently leaving two unopened boxes of shotgun shells in her car. She did not – I repeat, not – have a gun in the car. The school cited its zero tolerance policy as justification for the suspension. This incident shows why reasonable people should have zero tolerance for policies that devastate a student's future without good reason.

Kim Peters, 17, attends Willow Canyon High School in Surprise, Ariz. (a suburb of Phoenix). She is also a competitive shotgun shooter who diligently practices her sport 12 hours a week at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility owned and operated by the Arizona Game and Fish Department. She has won several skeet-shooting trophies and was one of 18 students selected from across the nation to attend the Junior Olympic shooting camp in Colorado Springs, Colo., this past summer.

Last week, in her haste to get to school one morning, she accidentally left two unopened boxes of shotgun shells in her car. Her gun was properly stored at home, but she overlooked the shells in the back seat.

When a parking lot security guard saw the boxes through the window, Peters was suspended from school for four days under the school's policy relating to possession of a "dangerous instrument." If nothing changes, this will put a permanent negative mark on her academic record just as she is seeking to get into college – the "dangerous instrument" language will surely send up a red flag to college admissions officers who may think it refers to a gun or bomb and look no further before putting her application in the reject pile.

Willow Canyon High School has a zero-tolerance policy on firearms. And it has taken that policy to the extreme by suspending a good student for having ammunition in her car, even when school officials know she is a participant in a legitimate sporting activity and that there was no firearm in the car and no intent on her part to cause harm to anyone.

This is sad. This young lady is no danger to anyone. She is an accomplished athlete who brings credit to her school. In fact, it appears that school officials believe her explanation that in her haste not to be late for school she forgot to remove the two small boxes – unopened boxes – from her car. They agree she poses no threat. Yet they suspended her anyway and have denied her parents' appeal, citing the school's zero-tolerance policy.

Not tolerating gun violence is good policy; those who endanger innocent people through misusing firearms should be subject to serious punishment. People should be held accountable for actions that endanger others. Most zero-tolerance policies originated with such goals in mind.

But this situation does not fit that goal. What Kim Peters had in her car was not a gun, but only ammunition, just a couple boxes of shotgun shells. What's the danger? That she would start throwing them at people? Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that those shells are harmless in the absence of a shotgun.

You don't make rules just for the sake of making rules; you make rules to accomplish a specific purpose. And in a free society, the rules should impose no greater burden than to accomplish that purpose.

In the wake of school shootings, many schools have become aggressive in tightening safety rules. But the rules should be applied on a case-by-case basis to keep students safe, using sound judgment and taking all circumstances into account. Rules should not be mechanically applied without common sense, especially when such blind application can destroy a good student's hopes of higher education.

Leaving the ammunition boxes in the car was a mistake. Kim admits she was careless in doing so. But that mistake should not tarnish this promising young student's record and become an obstacle to her future education and successful career.

Guns were relatively common at school a generation ago, and their presence was not even a cause for concern. Many students stored rifles or shotguns in their cars or in school lockers so they could participate in school-sponsored shooting competitions or go deer hunting after class. There were no school shootings, other than at paper targets on the rifle range.

The fact that things have changed does require heightened school security but does not justify the kind of overreaction that occurred here. We're not talking about a student taking a gun to school or even having a gun in their car. All Kim Peters did was forget to remove two unopened boxes of shotgun shells from her car after practice.

This is a sad example of zero tolerance run amok. Policies that keep students safe are good. Policies that devastate a young lady's academic record because of an innocent and harmless mistake are not.

A little common sense, please. School officials should be reasonable. And there should be zero tolerance for polices that harm the very students they are designed to protect.

Sandy Froman is immediate past president of the National Rifle Association of America and a longtime member of the NRA board of directors. A practicing attorney in Tucson, Ariz., Froman is an international speaker on the right to keep and bear arms and an advocate for federal judges who will interpret the Constitution according to its original meaning.

[azbackpackr]

Excellent commentary above, hits the nail on the head.

My kids also competed at the Jr. Olympics, traveled to CO Springs and Atlanta on the planes, with gun cases, unaccompanied by parents, etc. Pre 9/11, needless to say.

In some "progressive" countries, such as Australia, it has gotten so bad that the Olympic shooting competitors have a lot of problems bringing their guns into the country, and being allowed to carry them to practice sessions, etc.

[IGO]

Frankly, I think Australia has the right idea.

OMG. Here we go.......
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[azbackpackr]

Probably you'd better ask the Australians......

[desertgirl]

azcentral.com

http://www.azcentral.com/community/surprise/articles/1105gl-nwvshoot1103.html
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[Suz]

Here is a question I have for you folks with kids in college. Exactly what sort of records are requested to be sent when in the university application process? It was mentioned today that perhaps this won't transfer with her into the future. Anyone know?

[Davis2001R6]

I'm not expert by any means, but I would count on any school considering giving her a scholorship to check for ANY disciplinary action.