School district defends suspension in pencil sharpener incident

After a rash of irate e-mails and phone calls and a flood of national attention, the Beaufort County School District challenged the accuracy of a story published about a Hilton Head Island fourth-grader suspended after bringing a pencil sharpener blade to school.

Jill McAden, principal of Hilton Head Island International Baccalaureate Elementary School, sent a letter home to parents Thursday saying, "We regret that inaccuracies in a local news story created an impression that we do not use common sense in working with our children.

"The student was not suspended for having a pencil sharpener," McAden wrote. "He had an exposed blade which created a dangerous setting for the student and other children. The student was suspended for one day for inappropriate behavior in the classroom. The suspension was warranted."

The information in the story published in The Island Packet on Thursday was taken primarily from a Beaufort County sheriff's report. According to that report, the sheriff's office responded to the school after a teacher noticed the boy had what appeared to be a small razor blade.

"It was obvious the blade was the metal insert commonly found in a child's small plastic pencil sharpener," the deputy noted in his report.

The 10-year-old boy -- described in the report as"a very good student who has not been in any previous trouble" -- cried during the meeting with his mom, the deputy and the school's assistant principal, according to the report.

He had no criminal intent in having the blade at school, the sheriff's report stated, but was suspended.

In a news release, the district said the incident needed to be "clarified." The release stated the boy was suspended for "inappropriate behavior," a cause never mentioned in the sheriff's report.

"If they modified it, they've modified it," said Sheriff P.J. Tanner. "That's their jurisdiction to do so when it comes to disciplinary action."

District spokesman Randy Wall said the onslaught of calls and e-mails and the national attention did not drive the district's decision to send out the news release.

"We received many e-mails from people who believe the child had a pencil sharpener at school, that it broke and he got suspended," Wall said. "The (Thursday) article implies that the pencil sharpener happened to break at school and that's what caused this predicament. And that is not accurate."

The Island Packet article never stated that the pencil sharpener broke at school.

In the interest of student confidentiality and at the request of the student's family, Wall said the district could not elaborate on what the "inappropriate behavior" entailed.

He also said the district does not have a zero tolerance policy, despite being quoted as saying it did in the Thursday story.

The district did away with a zero tolerance policy last year and instead adopted a broader, more nuanced approach that requires the superintendent to ensure effective discipline of disruptive students and advises expelling or banning them from school activities only when necessary.

The student code of conduct says any person on school property carrying a weapon or what can be perceived as a weapon will be suspended and recommended for expulsion.

Wall said the boy created a "potentially hazardous situation" by bringing a piece of metal from a pencil sharpener to school.

Superintendent Valerie Truesdale said student discipline is left up to the discretion of individual school principals.

Though at first concerned about the school's action, Board of Education Chairman Fred Washington Jr. said he now believes the district acted responsibly.

"Given what we know, I think we handled it appropriately," he said. "There are some things, based on student confidentiality, even board members should not have access to."