Maybe we’ll make this a regular feature, spotlighting students who have run into idiots in education and find themselves punished beyond all reason.
The latest is Cole Withrow, 16, of Princeton, North Carolina. On Sunday he went skeet shooting. On Monday, he drove to school and noticed that he had forgotten to take his gun out of his truck. So he locks the truck and goes inside the school to call his mother to come pick the gun up and take it home. His intention was to do the right thing.
Someone in the administrative office overhears him talking to his mother, and the FREAKOUT is on.
He is apprehended. He is suspended. He is transferred to another school for the remainder of his student life. And he faces felony charges of bringing a weapon on school property.
Withrow is a solid student and an Eagle Scout. He made an innocent mistake and was trying to do the right thing once he discovered it.
The school says it has to follow the state’s zero tolerance law. But in two earlier cases involving staff, the school did not follow the law.
Others in the Princeton High community agree that Withrow’s punishment is too harsh, especially after charges weren’t filed when a loaded gun was found in an assistant principal’s car two years ago. The assistant principal and a school resource officer were each suspended for three days without pay in that incident.
Yet they’re set to ruin a kid’s life for doing the same thing.
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