http://www.arkansasnbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=1902337&nav=F8n2NWH1
Teacher Gives Students Toys-Mother Calls Them Toy Guns
A Rogers mother says she's upset after her first grader came home with a toy gun. Karen Young says her 7 year old came home with what she called a water gun on the last day of school. Young asked her child where it came from. He told her that his teacher gave it to him. Young says she considers the teacher an excellent educator but says this was a really bad decision on the teacher' part.
Assistant school superintendent Dr. Louise Standridge says the package that the toy came in says the toy is called a water squirter. It's in the shape of a fish. Dr. Standridge says the teacher had been teaching students about animals in the rain forest. "She thought the toy would be an appropriate favor to send the students home with on the last day of school at the end of their fish lesson," says Dr. Standrige. "She feels horrible about this entire situation." Dr. Standridge says the school administration takes every complaint seriously and the Rogers Public Schools regrets if any parent was offended by a teacher's intent to give her students a toy that related to the unit of study that had just been completed in class on rain forest animals.
Young says she has strict guidelines at home and she wants her children to understand that guns are not toys. Young says two of her brothers were shot in domestic disputes, her uncle committed suicide with a gun and she accidentally shot her ex boyfriend when the gun she hit him with went off.
Young says she isn't angry at the school. She just wants to make sure teachers at Lowell Elementary don't consider it appropriate to use toy guns to educate students.
