RI boy who made banned toy soldier hat gets medal

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island boy whose school banned a hat he made because the toy soldiers on it carried tiny guns was awarded a medal on Friday for his patriotic efforts.

Lt. Gen. Reginald Centracchio, the retired head of the Rhode Island National Guard, gave 8-year-old David Morales a medal called a challenge coin during an appearance on WPRO-AM's John DePetro show.

Centracchio said the second-grader should be thanked for recognizing veterans and soldiers.

"You did nothing wrong, and you did an outstanding job," he said. "We can only hope that kids of your caliber will continue to defend this country."

Centracchio also gave David a certificate that allows him to call himself a brigadier general.

David was assigned to make a hat last week for a project at the Tiogue School in Coventry. He chose a patriotic theme and glued plastic Army figures to a camouflage baseball cap. But school officials said the hat ran afoul of their no-weapons policy because the Army men held tiny guns.

The school has said David was offered the chance to wear the hat if he replaced the toy soldiers holding weapons with ones that didn't have any. Centracchio said that didn't make sense because soldiers are armed, and met with school administrators Thursday to share his concerns.

David said he felt great and called it an honor.

"I think it's really special," he said. "I'm going to definitely enjoy this day for a long time."

Also Friday, the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said it sent a letter to Coventry Superintendent Kenneth DiPietro saying the school's policy was an unconstitutional violation of students' free speech. It called on the district to revise the policy.

DiPietro did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

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fuck making a hat

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Ha ha. I don't even understand how that's a news story. Every detail is massively fucktarded.

lol rhode island.

Let's see. They didn't actually punish the kid in any way. They apparently didn't say he was a bad kid, or naughty, or wrong. All they did was tell him that his hat violated the no-gun policy, which also covers any toy guns brought to school.

So, the school administration was just trying to take a policy that makes pretty good sense in general and enforce it consistently, so there wouldn't be odd little exceptions to the rules confusing matters in the students' minds.

Exactly how is this a bad thing?

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So, the school administration was just trying to take a policy that makes pretty good sense in general and enforce it consistently, so there wouldn't be odd little exceptions to the rules confusing matters in the students' minds.

Did you miss the thread on the teen girl who was strip-searched on suspicion of aspirin? I'm not saying this is the same idea, but surely exceptions need to be made in some cases imo.

it's a stupid autocratic response in a stupid system. specifically, it involves three people being stupid:

1) a kid who wore a hat that ignored a school rule
2) a principal who responded like a reactionary boner.
3) some retired national guard knucklehead who sees the situation as An Issue and escalates it out of proportion.

thing is, kid got offered a fair chance at correcting the situation. students don't have 1st amend rights, exactly -- the supreme court maintains that freedom of speech/expression rights are mitigated by "special characteristics of school environment" which is kind of an elastic clause. in short: aimless OTM, which is somewhat unfortunate.

a principal who responded like a reactionary boner

AFAICS, there's no indication the principal acted like a boner. The policy was applied, but the story doesn't add any details that would suggest it was applied in a hamfisted or insensitive manner. The implication is that somehow not allowing the kid to wear a hat with army men firing weapons while he was at school was, in itself, an insult to the military.

So, how about having the kid wear camo makeup and bring a plastic RPG weapon? Because our brave fighting forces do this, would this constitute an insult, too?

The strip-search for Motrin or Midol was OTT, imo. but this doesn't seem like a heavy handed action to me.