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#1
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12-17-2014, 05:32 PM
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SCHOOL PUNISHES BLIND STUDENT BY REPLACING CANE WITH POOL NOODLE
Dakota Nafzinger is only eight years old, but he was born without eyes. He uses a seeing-eye cane to get around his elementary school, and even uses it to help him get on the school bus every day. Until the moment when the school bus driver thought he was using it to hit someone, and took it away. What did they give him to help him navigate his daily life? A pool noodle. Yes, instead of the sturdy cane that helped him know where obstacles were so he could get around them, the school gave him a flexible foam stick that is functionally useless. Michelle Cronk, spokeswoman for the North Kansas City School District, not only told reporters that they did take the cane away, she also said that it was school property that had been assigned to him when he enrolled. According to the school, Dakota hit someone with the cane while he was riding the bus, so the cane was taken away from him to prevent injury to other students. When they realized that he was fidgeting without it, they gave him the pool noodle to hold. They told Dakota that his punishment would last two weeks. Dakota’s mother told reporters that the boy had been written up for the incident, but she (like many who have heard the story) cannot grasp why the punishment was to essentially take away the child’s eyes. Dakota’s father told reporters that the boy occasionally lifts the cane up as he’s using it, and that they suspected the bus driver saw that and thought he was being violent with it. They are concerned that even if he was misbehaving, the humiliation of making the blind child use the pool noodle for punishment at all, let alone for two weeks, is a step too far. We can’t help but wonder if the school would take away a school-owned wheelchair if that handicapped student ran over another student’s foot with it. The story may have a happy ending, though. After Fox 4 Kansas City aired this piece on what happened to him, one of their viewers generously called the station and offered to buy Dakota his own cane so he no longer has to use the school’s. We tip our hats to that anonymous viewer. Well done. |
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#2
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12-17-2014, 06:41 PM
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Re: SCHOOL PUNISHES BLIND STUDENT BY REPLACING CANE WITH POOL NOODLE
Jesus Christ. Last sentence where somebody had to donate a cane to the kid pissed me off. Why the fuck wouldn't he already have had one that his parents bought him? What is wrong with people?? Canes are very cheap for God's sake!!!Having kids and can't afford a $40.00 cane??? |
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#4
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12-18-2014, 11:17 PM
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Re: SCHOOL PUNISHES BLIND STUDENT BY REPLACING CANE WITH POOL NOODLE
"The cane is school property, but dozens of people reached out after the story and offered to buy Dakota his own cane." You can get them a Goodwill for like ten bucks. I sense a lawsuit. |
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#10
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12-21-2014, 01:18 AM
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| My Rank: STAFF SERGEANT Poster Rank:818 Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 946 Mentioned: 3 Post(s) Quoted: 121 Post(s)
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Re: SCHOOL PUNISHES BLIND STUDENT BY REPLACING CANE WITH POOL NOODLE
there are worse things that they could have done. there are worse things in life. everyone needs a bit of that in life.
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