Plainfield boy expelled from school for jabbing another boy with a pencil

Plainfield case restarts school discipline debate
By Kristen Schorsch
November 8, 2009

When a Plainfield sixth-grader was recently expelled until next fall for jabbing another student with a pencil, his case thrust another school district into the debate over what is school violence and what is a weapon.

School administrators recommended that Harmon Dehnert be suspended for 10 days for stabbing a classmate in the kneecap last month, but the Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202 board instead unanimously decided Harmon used the pencil as a weapon and expelled him on Oct. 26.

In an era of school shootings, bomb threats and potential litigation, school officials err on the side of caution, experts say.

"I think school administrators are very afraid of being criticized," said John Elson, a Northwestern University law professor. "They're cautious. They have a duty to protect the student body in general."

Gone are the days when pencils, compasses and paper clips were viewed simply as tools of the classroom. Now some districts define them as weapons if they're used improperly, graduating them to a class that includes guns and knives.

School districts and administrators had been bound for years by state and federal laws that mandate expulsion for bringing guns, knives or brass knuckles to school, said Ben Schwarm, an associate executive director with the Illinois Association of School Boards. In August, Illinois lawmakers amended the state code to give school officials discretion to decide whether bringing a weapon to school requires a slap on the wrist, suspension or expulsion, Schwarm said.

As a result, a pencil jab in one district can mean expulsion, while a pocketknife in a backpack might amount to a warning elsewhere.

Harmon said that on Oct. 14 he and a boy in math class at John F. Kennedy Middle School were miming to each other when the other boy said something he didn't like. Harmon, 11, crawled to the boy's desk and "poked" the boy in the knee with a sharp No. 2 pencil, penetrating his jeans and leaving what looked like a mosquito bite, Harmon said.

"I just, like, poked him," he said as he gripped a pencil and demonstrated the incident in his Bolingbrook home. "I didn't mean to hurt him."

The other boy's father, who did not want himself or his son identified, responded that his son said Harmon was being loud and they each exchanged "be quiet" and "shut up," before Harmon stabbed him in the kneecap.

"He's fine," the man said of his son. "It's passed. My thing about it is, what if it had been his eye instead of his knee?"

Harmon now may enroll for next semester in Plainfield Academy, the district's alternative school, attend a private school or be home-schooled.

Harmon and his father, Dan Dehnert, said they realize what Harmon did was wrong. But Harmon has severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and the incident could have been prevented if the school had provided a special education plan tailored to his disability, Dehnert said. Such plans sometimes include untimed tests or one-on-one monitoring, and it's harder to expel children who are in special education, experts say.

Harmon's ADHD can cause him to lose focus, yell at random or sometimes lie on the floor in the middle of class. But District 202 board President Rod Westfall said Harmon's diagnosis had nothing to do with the board's decision.

"Harmon basically stabbed a kid with a pencil," Westfall said. "That's something we take seriously. If he would have hit an artery we'd be having a whole different conversation."

Harmon's parents can appeal the board's decision to the board.

District 202 disciplines students on a case-by-case basis, but many schools still are loyal to zero tolerance, an initiative made popular in 1994 with the federal Gun-Free Schools Act that mandated expulsion for no less than a year if a student brought a gun to school.

This year, in a community near Pittsburgh, a middle school student was expelled for bringing an eyebrow trimmer to school. A student in Aurora, Colo., who brought fake rifles to school so she could practice for her drill team competition after class, received the same punishment. The school board repealed the latter decision about a week later.

In northwest suburban Carpentersville, officials have a rigorous discipline review to avoid expelling students who make poor choices but aren't necessarily violent, District 300 board member Anne Miller said.

"Sometimes kids, believe it or not, just do something stupid," Miller said.

Starting junior high school combined with trying to get Harmon's medication right affects his behavior, his father said. Math is Harmon's last class of the day, and his medication usually wears off by then, the boy said. Dan Dehnert emphasized that his son's grades so far this year are five A's and one B.

"He's no more a threat to another student than you or I," Dehnert said. "He is having problems with his medications and he has these impulses to do things, and he doesn't even think about what the ramifications are."

klschorsch@tribune.com

Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi- … 5879.story

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I would have been arrested when I was in school.  I once had a fight with a kid, we threw staplers at each other, thew punches, then I choked him.  Ya know what my punishment was?  One day detention.