Student Suspended For Having Caffeinated Gum

Student Suspended For Having Caffeinated Gum
School Official Says Gum Is Stimulant

POSTED: 1:43 pm EDT May 26, 2006
UPDATED: 2:05 pm EDT May 26, 2006

LOWER BURRELL, Pa. -- A suburban Pittsburgh middle school student has been suspended for three days for sharing chewing gum that contains caffeine.

Burrell School District Superintendent Amy Palermo said products acting as a stimulant are prohibited and possessing them is grounds for disciplinary action.

She said the Jolt brand gum is a stimulant that has no other redeeming quality.

The school has soda machines, but they aren't turned on during school hours and drinks containing caffeine aren't sold in the lunchroom.

http://www.local6.com/education/9280808/detail.html

This is the kind of organized, official stupidity that is forcing a lot of parents I know to consider home schooling.

authority, nothing will.
How stupid can people get?

...then they're smoking the pot, and the next thing you know they're shooting up cocaine and snorting LSD!

And the teacher's lounge was always smokey.

My how times have changed. I need to go polish my walker now :)

Now, some schools won't hire a teacher just for being a smoker. Can the pendulum start swinging the other way now?

They got tired of turning tgeachers into "bathroom cops", so they built a special courtyard area with lots of ashtrays and benches.. The teachers loved it, since they no longer had to police the parking lot and bathroom for "rogue smokers"..Some of the younger teachers who smoked, used the courtyard too..

I think I need my walker too. I graduated HS 28 years ago.

which leads to same sex oral copulation, no wait, that's what happens when fundamentalists get a hold of our youngins. If they could only make such a gum.

This PC shit has to stop. What next, breathing on a fellow student with coffee on your breath is a suspension?

There is always some crap like this somewhere.

Are they doing goddamned gum inspections, or what?

...Upon reflection, I realize school administrators are caught between competing imperatives, but why do they always seem to come down on the side of sheer stupidity?

Although his arrest for growing 60 plants could have landed him in federal prison, Alex Ashcroft was tried in state court and avoided jail -- despite his uncle's crusade for tougher federal drug laws and mandatory prison sentences.

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/01/12/ashcroft_nephew/index.html

Some kids get all the breaks...

a bus set aside for children who live in trailers - they didn't their precious children to be around such rifraff.

My brother's kids are in the school district and the story was relayed to me after a contentious school board meeting.

I'm not surprised by what happened here.

... is from the trailer park, as well.

Idiots!

We don't know what these school folks are up against here. When Johnny shows Billy his "gum with drugs in it", and Billy goes home to tell his mom, and mom goes to the school board and wants everyone and their brother fired . . .

I'm telling you, this is what it's like these days. On the one hand is common sense, and on the other hand is losing your job, your health benefits, your career plans, etc.

caffeine was a legal stimulant.

And why would a school have soda machines if they're turned off during school hours?

Oh, for PARENTS to use during school activities?

I'm SO over this kind of crap. When will we see a return to sanity in this country?

Up the revolution!

Last time I checked, no one had to show ID to get a cup of java--or caffeinated gum.

This school is a fascist factory.

Well, mostly.

I sure thought so when I was a teenager, and subsequent events haven't convinced me otherwise. Little conforming factories, paid for with our tax dollars.

Woo-hoo.

you'll have coffee and cigarettes coming out by gallons and tons once you start college!

Why don't these people just install a chip in everyone's head.

I have - for 20 years. They're crazy enough without the caffeine :)

I don't know anything about this caffeinated gum - although I've seen it in stores.

Early this year, I tried to get my administration to do something about the kids bringing in "energy" drinks to school. I tried one and became totally spaced out. I figured if that's what it does to me, who drinks Pepsi One all day and has a tolerance for caffeine, what does it to to 13 yo's? I did hours of research and came to the personal conclusion that it is a product that should not be allowed in school. When I spoke to our principal, he said that it could not be forbidden under our D&A policy. I asked him what would happen to a kid caught taking caffeine pills - instant suspension. I then told him that most of these "energy" drinks have the equivalent or more plus additional ingredients which enhance the effects of the caffeine. No change in his opinion.

I have a student whom I see drinking one of these every morning. He brings it to school and tells me he drinks 2 at home before he comes to school. By the time I see him at 10:30 AM in class, he is climbing the walls (after drinking one or 2 at lunch that he brought in). He is failing my class. He simply cannot concentrate. Typical characteristics of the middle school child is amplified 100 times in his behavior.

Time enough for kids to learn responsible consumption of caffeine later in life - HS or beyond. I am by no means an advocate of the nanny-state, but rules are put into effect to take care of kids who haven't yet learned the good sense (and some never do - but that's their problem!)to take care of themselves.

Bottom line - from personal experience, these drinks are a behavior-changing substance and should be treated as such by school entities.

but this should have been handled by a note to both sets of parents and a stern lecture to the kids by the principal.

That stopped most BS when I was in school.

This one incident is posted and everyone automatically thinks all schools are this stupid. It just gets annoying after a while.

Rigidity and zero tolerance = no brains.

:dunce:

That was cool!!