Fourth Grader Suspended for Lord of the Rings Magic
Photo: Courtesy of The Everett Collection
A 9-year-old boy who boasted to a classmate that he could make him vanish has disappeared himself – from school. Kermit, Texas fourth grader Aiden Steward was suspended from his elementary school on Friday, one day after making the alleged “terroristic threat,” as the Odessa American describes it, of promising another child he’d render him invisible with his fictional “one ring” from the J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy series The Lord of the Rings. “It sounded unbelievable,” dad Jason Steward tells the New York Daily News, maintaining that his son “didn’t mean anything by it.”
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Aiden and his family had gone to see The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies the weekend prior and the father explains that his son was innocently making believe. “Kids act out movies that they see. When I watched Superman as a kid, I went outside and tried to fly,” Steward says, adding, “I assure you my son lacks the magical powers necessary to threaten his friend’s existence. If he did, I’m sure he’d bring him right back.”
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But principal Roxanne Greer didn’t see the charm in Aiden’s supernatural pretending and issued disciplinary action. The father says that Greer told him threats to another child’s safety would not be tolerated, even if they were make believe. The administrator declined to comment, insisting, “All student stuff is confidential.” Kermit Independent School District Superintendent Bill Boyd didn’t return Yahoo Parenting’s requests for comment either.
Texas Education Code, however, mandates that this type of mandatory leave “may not exceed three school days,” so Aiden should be back in action at
school this week. Though Jason says his family knows the deal by now.
Aiden has experienced two in-school suspensions already this school year. One
for referring to a fellow student as “black” reports the New York Daily News,
and the other for bringing in “The Big Book of Knowledge” to school, which his
teacher reportedly had an issue with because of its illustrations of a pregnant woman. “He loves that book,” says the dad. “They were studying the solar system and he took it to school. He thought his teacher would be impressed.”
Though the Stewards don’t believe Aiden’s actions warrant suspension, the principal was within her rights to issue the leave if the educator believed Aiden’s classmate’s “emotional health” was harmed. Texas Education Code’s student code includes suspension as a means of “preventing and intervening in student discipline problems, including bullying, harassment, and making hit lists.” Under the guidelines harassment is defined as: “threatening to cause harm or bodily injury to another student, engaging in sexually intimidating conduct, causing physical damage to the property of another student, subjecting another student to physical confinement or restraint, or maliciously taking any action that substantially harms another student’s physical or emotional health or safety.”
Suspension and expulsion as a means of discipline has gotten out of control, though, acknowledged the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice last year in their “Discipline Guideline Package to Enhance School Climate and Improve School Discipline Policies/Practices.”