WAYCROSS, Ga. - A group of third-graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward, police said Tuesday.
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The plot by as many as nine boys and girls at Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner said.
"We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely," Tanner said. "We feel like if they weren't interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been successful? We don't know."
The children, ages 8 and 9, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said. A prosecutor said they are too young to be charged with a crime under Georgia law.
School officials alerted police Friday after a pupil tipped off a teacher that a girl had brought a weapon to school, Tanner said.
Police seized a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape, electrical and transparent tape, ribbons and a crystal paperweight from the students, who apparently intended to use them against the teacher, Tanner said.
Nine children have been given discipline up to and including long-term suspension, said Theresa Martin, spokeswoman for the Ware County school system. She would not be more specific but said none of the children had been back to school since the case came to light.
The purported target is a veteran educator who teaches third-grade students with learning disabilities including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said.
The scheme involved a division of roles, Tanner said. One child's job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, he said. Another was supposed to clean up after the attack.
"We're not sure at this point in the investigation how many of the students actually knew the intent was to hurt the teacher," Tanner said.
The parents of the students have cooperated with investigators, who aren't allowed to question the children without their parents' or guardians' consent, he said. Authorities have withheld the children's names.
Police expected to forward the results of their investigation to prosecutors, Tanner said.
Children in Georgia can't be charged with a crime unless they are at least 13, District Attorney Rick Currie said.
Martin told The Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville, Fla., that administrators would follow school system policy and state law in disciplining the students.
"From what I understand, they were considered pretty good kids," Martin said. "But we have to take this seriously, whether they were serious or not about carrying this through, and that's what we did."
Four mothers of other third-grade students at Center Elementary called for the immediate expulsion of the suspected plotters.
Stacy Carter and Deana Hiott both cited school system policy stating that any student who brings "anything reasonably considered to be a weapon" is to be expelled for at least the remainder of the school year.
"We don't want our children around them," Carter told the Times-Union. "The one with the knife could have stabbed my child or someone else's child at lunch or out on the playground."
"This is an isolated incident, an aberration. ... We have good kids," Center Principal Angie Coleman told the newspaper.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080401/ap_on_re_us/children_s_plot;_ylt=AvC...
In a time when we regard our young ones as mindless little morons most interested in stuffing their mouths with snacks and playing video games, here we have a group of thinking, deliberating children tackling a perceived problem, discussing, organizing, planning and equipping themselves to accomplish a goal they collectively believed must be achieved. Personally, I think these children possess the skill sets that one day will make them prominent players in Corporate America.
"...learning disabilities including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity..." - I wonder how much of this is a genuine diagnosis, and how much is just badly parented kids. Just seems to me, that there's an awful lot of kids being diagnosed with this crap nowadays. Almost an epidemic.
I'd wager that a substantial number of the kids being diagnosed with ADD/ADHD are chronically sleep deprived. Even an hour less of sleep than recommended per night over a long period of time can have dramatic effects on personality.
No time to find the statistics now, but the average kid over the last couple of decades gets far fewer hours of sleep than medically recommended. Its likely no coincidence that sleep hours have been declining around the same time that ADD/ADHD diagnoses have been increasing.
(Of course, as starling suggested, structure and discipline would help too.)
Starling,
ADD, ADHD and all the other acronyms used to describe claimed mental disabilities in our children are only a Full-Employment Act for second-rate psychologists and a financial bonanza for the American drug industry. Pop a pill in that kid and give him a half-hour with a shrink. We'll all feel better. Unfortunately, the public education system long ago tuned in to this money-maker. If a kid is "learning disabled," that kid qualifies his school for extra money from the state. Long ago, in an Appalachian state, a school principal managed to get 80 percent of his students classified as "learning disabled." His school was rolling in dough! How it was spent is another matter.
mean just that attention deficit. Lack of attention from a parent or parents. Self explanatory.
donwert & purnhrt - you said it well.