Elementary School Kids Suspended Over Kool-Aid

[SOUSGT 357]

To think we are paying someone to make these types of decisions.

'Happy crack' got them in hot water

(NEWSER) – Nine elementary school kids in South Carolina have been suspended for violating a school drug policy because they were caught with so-called "happy crack," a mixture of Kool-Aid and sugar that is not actually illicit but, simply by resembling an illicit substance, violates school policy. WYFF4 reports that their punishment was reduced from expulsion to suspension, though privacy laws prevent the school from disclosing whether students, who are around age 10, were distributing or simply eating the powder.

"The way [the school] called me, I thought my son died," one mother tells ABC News. "She said there's this epidemic going on at school with happy crack. I Googled it. I'm like Kool-Aid and sugar, are you serious? I was appalled. I was floored. I really didn't think it would go to this extreme." But the policy, which parents say they were unaware of, clearly states that "no student will market or distribute any substance ... similar in color, shape, size, or markings of a controlled substance." Parents say kids can buy pixie sticks that are essentially the same powder. Last year a Cleveland 8th-grader was suspended for five days for a similar "crack candy" offense. (Sugar, by the way, may make us chronically sick.)

http://www.newser.com/story/233543/happy-crack-lands-school-kids-in-hot-water.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=iheartmedia&utm_campaign=story

[fdalumnus 165]

Geez, when we did something wrong the nuns smacked us.

[robert benz 344]

when I did something wrong my parents made sure it would not happen again.  school is in a no win on this one  they do something the parents scream  they don't do something the same parents will scream "why did this happen".

[bfd1144 22]

A kid violated school policy...he was dealt with. What's the issue?

[AFS1970 504]

The issue is the school policy, not the enforcement of it. The ban on something that simply looks like something else is what leads to a kid being told he can't wear his father's FD T-shirt because some gangs also wear blue, or that you can't top cupcakes with green plastic army men because the figures have guns violate the weapons policy. School administrators clearly do not live anywhere near reality.

[robert benz 344]

Seems like a lot of the world we live in or deal with is nowhere near reality

[calhobs 110]

The problem is that it looks like another drug, if they can't tell if it is or not how would they know what it is. I see it as the school being very proactive on this issue

[AFS1970 504]

So you do what any reasonable person would do, you investigate it. It is one thing to suspect someone of something illegal and quite another to punish them even after determining that nothing illegal occured. This policy is yet another example of a blanket policy designed so as not to offend or harrass the actual criminals.