Ethan Chaplin

‘Zero tolerance’ is being taken to its most ridiculous extreme here. And to me it sounds like more bureaucratic nonsense from a state agency that tends to overreact. The Vernon father of 13 year old Ethan Chaplin - who was suspended from school for twirling a pencil last April made to look like a gun - can now face being taken away from his father, Michael...

A Vernon Township seventh-grader is now back in school after he was suspended several days for twirling a pencil between his fingers.

The mere act of imitating someone with a gun, whether intentional or not, apparently will cause alarm in a good many schools today. Look though any new site and you’ll see stories of kids who make gun motions or draw pictures of guns eliciting a variety of reactions from school officials...