Who’s The Nut Here?

Normally I’d watch an interview like the one above and go “This Dad’s a dope!”  The more this Taunton father throws around phrases like “this is racism” and “They owe us a small lump sum for this,” the more I tend to think his story is bogus.

That is, until the bureaucrats start speaking.  They make everyone else appear smarter by comparison.

For example, Taunton Superintendent Julie Hackett refused to speak to the boy’s father for two weeks, until after this story broke.  Yesterday she maintained she couldn’t speak about the case publicly, but she sat down for an interview with the Boston Globe-Democrat and had no problem laying out details (she claims) of the case.  How bogus is that?

She claims the second grader “was never suspended,” but the Globe-Democrat reports that “The boy’s father showed reporters a report indicating his son was not a threat to himself or others and could return to school.”

Why did the boy need permission to return if he hadn’t been kicked out?

Superintendent Hackett says the picture we’ve all seen isn’t the one the teacher reacted to—OK, where is it?  She says the school didn’t punish the student, but that it “acted in accordance with the School Department’s well-established protocol.”  Acted on what?

As dopey as the Dad looks, the very expensive employees of the government-run Taunton school system look worse.  That’s the problem with zero-tolerance policies.  They result in school actions so stupid that they make opportunists like Chester Johnson look good.

If the teacher hadn’t overreacted, if she had just sent a note home to the parents raising concerns about the picture, there would be no story—no matter how hard Chester Johnson might try to make one.

Chester Johnson’s being a dope on his own dime.  What I resent is taxpayers having to pay  school officials to be even dumber.