School disciplines 10-year-old for gun-shaped pizza slice (Video)

posted at 10:19 am on December 26, 2011 by Howard Portnoy

“I didn’t know the lunch was loaded.” That is the story of a 10-year-old from a Nashville suburb who was disciplined by his school’s administration for brandishing a pizza slice that some say resembled a handgun.

The child, Nicholas Taylor, was at lunch with classmates in mid-December at David Youree Elementary School in Smyrna. He was eating a slice of pizza when a “kid across the table from him” remarked that the unfinished slice “looked like a gun,” Nicholas’s mother told ABC affiliate WKRN-TV (video report here). “So he picked it up and started shooting it in the air,” she added.

Of course LeAnn Taylor can’t say for sure what went down in the cafeteria because she wasn’t there. But neither was James Evans, of the Rutherford County School District, who explained why the boy was being sanctioned:

[S]ome students reported he was making some threatening hand gestures, that he was shooting other kids at the table and they reported it to a teacher….

I realize some might say we are going overboard but the principal is just trying to use an abundance of caution and send the message that we don’t play about guns and it’s not something we joke around about.

Evans did not reveal whether any of the students sustained injuries from the shooting, though a forensic analysis should help investigators determine whether any red splotches found at the scene are tomato sauce or blood.

As punishment, Nicholas was condemned to the “silent table” during lunch period for the remainder of the semester. I am no psychologist, but doesn’t associating mealtime with punishment send the sort of negative message that leads to problem eating? Paging Michelle Obama and the food police.

In addition to the stigma of silent lunch, Nicholas was required to meet with the school resource officer to learn about gun safety. I submit that the school should have further required that the child to meet with the dietitian to discuss pizza safety.

Nicholas has been warned that the next time he aims his food at another student he will be suspended. Let’s just hope the school doesn’t tempt fate by serving atomic wings.

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