Last week a 9 year old from Kermit, Texas told a classmate that he would make him vanish by using his "Ring of Power" ... a toy replica from the Lord of the Rings films. Clearly the boy could not make anyone "vanish" with a toy ring, but the school wrote up the incident as a "terrorist threat" and suspended the boy. His father is in the process of appealing the decision however these cases are often up to the discretion of the school.
School faculty, staff, and administration have a responsibility to keep all students safe, and clearly it is better to be safe than sorry, but are schools going too far in protecting students in cases like these? Do we need to take all threats, even those we don't really think are real, seriously?