School retracts ban on pencils

It is business as usual again in the sixth-grade classrooms at the North Brookfield Elementary School. Some students used traditional yellow No. 2 pencils, while others used pens and mechanical pencils – returning them to their desk or shirt pocket when they were finished.

Last week, Wendy Scott, one of two sixth-grade teachers, sent a letter home to the parents of all sixth-graders announcing that she and Susan LaFlamme were instituting a new rule barring students from carrying any writing implements on their person, in a backpack, or on the school bus. The memo explained that students would be issued a pencil for use in class that would be collected at the end of the school day. The memo cited behaviour problems and said any student found in possession of a pen or mechanical pencil would be assumed to have the implement “to build weapons,” or to have stolen it from the classroom art supply basket.


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Offending students would be sent to the principal's office for disciplinary measures, the memo stated. Interim Superintendent Gordon L. Noseworthy later explained that the memo was sent home only on the authority of the teacher who penned it, stating it had not been reviewed or approved by either Principal Deborah Peterson or the superintendent. Police Chief Aram Thomasian Jr. said he was approached by parents of one student who had been suspended for having a pen that had been altered to fire a rolled-up piece of paper.

“The student showed me how it worked. I'd be surprised if the spitball travelled 4 feet. And at that, I'm not even sure it had any spit on it,” he said. Mr. Noseworthy added: “This was an attempt to by a fairly new sixth-grade teacher to make changes that were not warranted. The student who was found with an altered pen was suspended and as far as administrators were concerned, the matter was put to rest.”