The student allegedly nibbled his Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. Bill protects right to bear Pop-Tarts

Who knew a Pop-Tart could be so political?

When officials at a Baltimore elementary school suspended a 7-year-old for nibbling his Pop-Tart pastry into the shape of a gun, one Maryland state senator took action.


Josh Welch, a second-grader at Park Elementary School in Baltimore, was suspended last month for two-days after school officials say he made an inappropriate gesture with a Pop-Tart, which he pretended was a gun.

“You hear these stories and you’re like, ‘Wow, the kid got suspended for that?’” state Sen. J. B. Jennings, a Republican, told POLITICO.

So Jennings introduced “ The Reasonable School Discipline Act of 2013” into Maryland’s legislature last week. If passed — and Jennings says he’s not sure whether it’ll be put to a vote — elementary- and middle-school principals wouldn’t be able to suspend kids for drawing pictures of guns, making gun motions with their hands or pretending non-weapon objects, among other reasons.

There is a major caveat: Suspension can be issued if the child’s actions threaten another student.

For non-threatening first-time offenders, the maximum punishment for the student would be a conference with the parents and the principal — but the incident may not be recorded on the student’s record.

“If an elementary school kid gets suspended, it goes on their record – these administrators at middle schools look at the file and they say, ‘We’ve got little Johnny here who got suspended in second grade for something with guns,’” Jennings said.

He continued: “They don’t know the story behind it. They think they have a problem child. It stereotypes that kid when he was just playing with his food. Parents don’t want that on their kid.”

This article tagged under: Schools

Maryland