Here we go again!: Student expelled over eyebrow trimmer

The 15-year-old student -- a Girl Scout and church usher -- says: "I want to be an anesthesiologist -- a nurse anesthetist and I feel like it's going to be on my record so it's going to dampen a lot of things I wanted to do for myself and I'm very upset. I did not come up there to hurt anybody." (KDKA.com)

Comments

[Soo]

This is like the time a neighbor girl tried to commit suicide by ingesting lots of Pamprin.

Or the young kid who got expelled under "zero tolerance" for having an inch-long chain on her key fob.

Is there no such thing as "common sense" anymore? Does no one in a position of authority have the ability to exercise individual judgment based on the gravity of the situation anymore? Have we all gone insane?

[Reno the pregnant goddess]

Soo, not all of us but it appears to be catching. Zero tolerance has taken the place (and thinking out) of what used to be known as common sense.

[twerp]

OMG AN EYEBROW TRIMMER! GET THE SWAT TEAM!!....and people wonder WHY there are school shootings...

[rockyMtnMac]

Ease up you guys! The administration did the right thing. People's eyebrows could have been TRIMMED. How would you like that? Huh? Just give them an inch and the next thing you know....TRIMMED! I don't think there is anyplace in our society for grooming run amok.

[joel]

I wanted to be funny, clever, and/or insightful in this post...but I am completely dumbfounded.

We, as a country, deserve to die a horrible and painful death. An eyebrow trimmer is a weapon. Seriously??

WTF!?!?!?

[Phranqlin]

More zero-brained, zero-tolerance school admins. Are they all on stupid serum?

I am familiar with this school district and it does have some ongoing problems with gang activity and violence. But suspending (or expelling -- WTF?!?) a Girl Scout honor student who picked the wrong day to bring a beauty aid to class isn't going to make that school the least little bit safer.

Confiscating the trimmer and giving her a warning would have been the appropriate way to handle this.

[twerp]

ya'll need to get cellufun accounts and pm me. I'm 1twerp on there.

[Jim]

A pound of prevention for an ounce of cure.
Idiots in charge.

[French]

I know many school board members, on many different school boards, and very often they are bright individuals. I know many superintendents and school principals as well, and they, too, are bright. So why is it that, when you put them all in the same room at the same time, their collective IQ drops to about 64?

[David]

Eyebrow trimmers are just the beginning, next it might be an emery board.

I mean WTF? The school needs some serious emails about this.

[Sheila]

I have known school board members and school administrators who were no smarter than vegetables and had no thinking ability whatsoever.

[RichmondTom]

This isn't "zero-tolerance". Didn't any of the school officials see Godfather Part III? The leg of a pair of eyeglasses can easily be used to kill someone. All students wearing eyeglasses should be permanently expelled.

[jj2]

She should be grateful all she got was an expulsion, the policy says they have to Tazer students who carry tweezers.

[stopeatingmysesamecake]

I think I could cause more damage with a Bic pen. And aren't those kinda all over a school?

[nellagain]

Soo,

It is perfectly possible to commit suicide via pamprin. It contains acetaminophen. The maximum daily reccomended dose is 4 grams; a toxic dose is only about twice that.

Acetaminophen OD can cause liver failure, an exceptionally unpleasant way to die.

An eyebrow trimmer? If your eyebrow growth is so aggressive that you need to carry a trimmer at all times, maybe you should just stay home. And braid them.

[Tank]

I can't speak for the folks of (what, Pennsylvania? I'm guessing here!) but here in the great state of Michigan, those of us foolish enough to serve on Boards of Edgamacation are a little less dense.

In my school, this wouldn't even have been a discussion in the cafeteria ...

"(2) If a pupil possesses ... a weapon that constitutes a dangerous weapon ...blah, blah, blah ... the school board ... shall expel the pupil from the school district permanently ... HOWEVER, a school board is not required to expel a pupil for possessing a weapon if the pupil establishes ... 1 of the following:

(a) The object or instrument possessed by the pupil was not possessed by the pupil FOR USE AS A WEAPON, or
for .... blah, blah, blah."

Forgive the editting, but there was a lot of lawyerese, and I hate lawyers ....

Bottom line, if you don't think she's getting ready to ninja-trim somebody, it's not a weapon.

[Tank]

I did a little checking.

1) Penn Hills did this one other time, with a student who was filing his nails with a swiss army knife. He sued to overturn, they lost, they appealed, they lost again. Judge said they overstepped their rights as a district because their Zero Tolerance gave their superintendant no flexibility.

2) The legislators in Pennsylvania created some crappy School Code, because it doesn't give any guidance for exceptions (like Michigan does,) so cowardly Boards with cowardly Lawyers on retainer hide behind Zero Tolerance instead.

3) The Penn Hills Superintendant is the most to blame, because he DOES have discretion, under the school code, so he could've waived the expulsion if it wasn't for the fact that he's obviously the biggest coward of all.

[Soo]

nell: I didn't know pamprin had that much acetaminophen in it. Interesting. Probably a good thing she gagged on a chalky Tums and hurled it all up. Still, rather stupid.

[Dances With Books]

Of course, we always have the ones who do manage to slip in with guns and ammo to shoot the place up. They don't catch those, but heaven forbid we let the girl have her eyebrow trimmer. This is why the educational system of this nation is a laughinstock around the world. Maybe if instead of worrying about an eyebrow trimmer they worried about things like teaching science, mathematics, reading, so on, things might, oh, I don't know, improve for the better.

[The Asshole Guy]

If she is so smart and bright why did she bring it with her in the first place? Sadly kids have to walk a fine line these days. This is life in the now, not the 80's but the now.

Sadly I will have to tell my daughter over and over and over and over to be carefull about what she takes to school but I will.

[R]

Soo, you are probably correct. People have the right to judge a situation before reacting. However, in this case they overreacted. Typical head up their butt attitude if you ask me...

[gary]

Still hating Catholics today?

[55Chevy]

"A 240lb lawyer and a 180lb lady? Maybe they should both try standing, or better yet, walking off some of that blubber."

Good grief Charlie Brown! What is the weight of a normal sized man where you are from? Everybody is not a dried up runt. If I went by the BMI chart I would be over weight at 211 lbs! I was at that weight when I was in the 9th grade and the same height I am now. I looked like a skeleton! That chart is a damn joke!

[nunya]

so,why were they nosing around in her purse for,anyway?wouldnt that come under invasion of privacy? i mean,if she had the thing out,trying to slice and dice someone,then it would make sense..but IN her PURSE? how abt that lipstick? she might be a latent graffiti artist in the making..and what would they make of a tampon?i'm sure they could find something sinister in carrying one of them. MORONS.

[steveO]

I think that after someone tried to kill the pope 25 years ago is when all this no-tolerance stuff started. If someone is trying to kill the pope, then they should be banned from school for having something that could hurt the pope.

[mianne]

I dunno, SteveO... Those points on top of the pontiff's hat look awfully sharp! Could cut someone really bad with 'em or at least put an eye out! Better safe than sorry y'know!

[c]

So how come no one said 'she knew the rules, she broke the rules, she takes the punishment'....

Although I agree with you all. Stupid Stupid school people

[NitroPress]

Just an odd thought: Since when is something so esoteric as an eyebrow trimmer something one carries around in a purse? It's as odd as a man carrying around a shaving razor in a pocket - that is, something infrequently used in grooming and normally left at home.

My mother was a high school teacher in the 1970s, and they had continual problems with students carrying "combs, just combs!" ... cake-cutter combs with the tines filed to razor sharpness. They could and did rip out gouges from face and skin.

So.

[Farmer Bob and the City]

All the idiots who drafted the Zero Intelligence Policy needs to be sterilized so their stupid genes can't be passed on.

[Navy Chief]

@55Chevy - I'm 6'3" and about 215. BMI says I should be at about 195. I was 185 or so when I graduated high school. If you are muscular, then throw BMI out the window. If not, at least by my example, it should work pretty well as a weight goal.

[just'cause]

55chevy......
Man, what are you taking..........?

[Greg]

> If she is so smart and bright why did she bring it with her in the first place?

Ummm... maybe because teenagers expect some degree of rationality and common sense from the adults supervising them? Maybe because teenagers still expect rules to bear some relationship to reality and haven't learned how to anticipate how the bureaucratic mind works (the type of mentality that regards reality as irrelevant and only is concerned what the rules say and with not sticking its neck out)?

[MP]

I will ban rosaries, they are dangerous. You can kill someone with a rosary faster that you can kill it with an eye brown trimmer. You can strangled someone with the rosary. Hang or beat someone to death with a rosary, although this last one method will take a little longer, like 2 or 3 days. And a rosary is certainly a very antique torture method. Besides the death by beating which will be painful,they can make you listen to ugly nuns praying the rosary while they are killing you.
Compare that to force trimming you eye brows...