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Winchendon
Update
At approximately 5:00 pm on Friday GOAL's Executive
Director, Jim Wallace, received a call from the
Winchendon School Superintendent,
Brooke Clenchy. As is normally the case the
Superintendent stated that she could not discuss the
details of the specific case, but did relay that there
were other issues concerning this matter that were not
reported by the press.
"The Superintendent was professional and pleasant to
talk to. She conveyed to me that it was very important
that the respect for Memorial Day and veterans not be
tarnished," said Jim Wallace. "I also told her that
while I was angry over the incident (at least how it was
portrayed by the press), I was also concerned for her
staff who might be violating laws by taking possession
of certain items without a license. She told me that she
was unaware that possession of the shell casing
without a license was against the law, I offered to
provide some training and education for her and any of
her staff to prevent any problems for them in the
future."
GOAL would like to thank our members who responded to
this issue so quickly. GOAL will be watching this matter
closely. We urge our members to use this occurrence as
an example when contacting their legislators as to why
the laws need to be reformed.
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Winchendon
Youth Suspended for Memorial Day Souvenir
On May 29, 2008 the Worcester Telegram & Gazette
published a story concerning a ten year boy who was
immediately suspended when a school employee found him
with a spent blank shell. According to the story
entitled
"Souvenir Rifle Shell Gets 4th Grader Suspended" the
young man was given two of the spent casings by a
uniformed veteran after a Memorial Day event.
"This is a tragic example of how far over the edge this
state and our schools have gone. For the school
officials to react in such a manner is simply
inexcusable," said Jim Wallace Executive Director of Gun
Owners' Action League. "We have apparently gotten to the
point where people running our public schools have such
a visceral hatred of anything remotely connected to our
constitutional civil rights that they would severely
punish anyone who so much as possesses a Memorial Day
souvenir. Adults working within a public school should
have the intelligence to know the difference between a
safety threat and a child cherishing an inanimate
object. The truly sad ending to this episode is that I
fear the immature reaction by school officials will
forever tarnish this young man's view on Memorial Day,
Veteran's and his civil rights."
GOAL is urging all of its members to contact the
Winchendon School Department and express their deep
concern over the this incident. We would also urge our
members to contact their elected officials and let them
know that this sort of overreaction should not be
tolerated.
Winchendon School Department
Brooke Clenchy, Superintendent of Schools
978-297-0031
http://www.winchendon.mec.edu/
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May 29,
2008
Souvenir rifle
shell gets 4th-grader suspended
Winchendon family shocked
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By Gail Stanton
CORRESPONDENT
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WINCHENDON— Ten-year-old Bradley Geslak was
suspended from school this week for bringing a
Memorial Day souvenir to school.
The Toy Town Elementary School fourth-grader had
received two empty rifle shell casings from
blanks used during the town celebration held at
the GAR Park Monday morning.
He brought one of the casings with him to school
the next day.
“He was just playing with it at lunch,”
explained Crystal Geslak, Bradley’s mother. “He
wasn’t showing it to anyone; he had it in his
hand and was playing with it.”
Bradley said a teacher saw him with it and told
him to hand it over.
“The teacher told me to give it to her and I
did,” he said.
After the piece of brass was confiscated, Ms.
Geslak was called at work and told to come and
pick up her son; he was being suspended for the
next five days.
Her son was in tears when she got there.
“I was totally shocked. I couldn’t believe this
was happening,” she said.
“Ordinarily, I try to think ahead about things,
but to me, this was something good, not bad. It
was just an empty shell, not even from a real
bullet. A sharpened pencil would be more
dangerous than this piece of metal.”
Her son had been given the two blank shells by a
uniformed veteran who participated in the
ceremony Monday. Bradley gave one to his
grandfather and kept the other souvenir for
himself.
Having received the souvenir from an adult, he
never considered it wrong for him to have it,
his mother said.
“He was so proud to have been given them. His
dad’s a veteran, his uncle’s a veteran, both his
grandfathers are veterans. Memorial Day is a big
thing to us. It’s a very important holiday and
we have a big celebration every year,” Ms.
Geslak said.
She is now concerned about the impact that
having the shell taken away will have on her son
and his feelings about the holiday in the
future.
According to the family, a school official said
on Tuesday that the shell would not be returned
to them. The family said they were also told
that the next step might involve assigning a
probation officer to Bradley.
They also said they don’t know the whole story
yet.
“When I went to pick him up, I was told that the
teacher hadn’t finished writing up her report on
what took place and that I would get that
later,” Ms. Geslak said. “I would have thought
that when deciding to suspend my son that they
would have had a complete report ready for me.”
School officials refused to comment on the
incident yesterday, citing privacy regulations.
“I cannot give any comment on school
suspensions,” Principal Deborah Peterson said.
“I cannot confirm or deny a suspension took
place, and I cannot speak about anything
involving a minor. It’s all confidential, just
like at a doctor’s office.”
Attempts to reach Superintendent Brooke Clenchy
and School Committee Chairman Michael Niles for
comment were unsuccessful.
“I am worried about what having a weapon-related
suspension on his school record will mean to his
future,” his mother said.
“He’s like any other 10-year-old kid. Sometimes
he can have a bad attitude,” she said. “We dealt
with that once earlier this year and I don’t
want them to now think he is a bad kid or label
him as one.
“If he had been suspended for having a bad
attitude, I could have understood it. I would
have supported them in that. But not for this.
He didn’t even know he did anything wrong,” she
said.
Ms. Geslak will have plenty of time to think
about that in the coming days, because the
suspension also means that she has had to give
up hours at work to be with her son.
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Copyright
2008 Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp.
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