Administrative Buffoonery: Principal Sacked For Handcuffing Five-Year-Old

Dunce Cap
This is the rarest of the rare. Here is a story of a public school administrator that is being disciplined for an incredibly idiotic decision. Principal Sam Morgan, of Thurgood Marshall Academy, St. Louis, Missouri, had local police arrest an unruly five-year-old. After handcuffing him, the cops put him into the back of a police car, and "took him for a ride."

As an excuse for his lapse in judgment, Morgan offered that he had worked more with this boy, "Than any kid in this building, trying to steer him straight."

The Principal certainly had lots of experience working with unruly individuals, as Morgan had previously worked eight years in the Missouri Department of Corrections. We think that anyone that can survive eight years of working in a penitentiary should have been able to think of a better solution for controlling a ranting, screaming, and kicking kindergarten kid. Morgan should have known better.

And here at the 'Wonks, we thought only us classroom teachers were subject to being administratively disciplined for behaving badly.

The child's mother, Aroni Rucker, indicated that her son had "trouble" adjusting to school. "They put handcuffs on my baby." She said. "That's for adults who murder and kill. He's five. He's in kindergarten."

Far be it for us to "blame the victim here," but the question that we are asking around the WonkHouse is, "What kind of up-bringing had this mother given (or not given) to this child that caused him to be so out-of-control?" Was he properly prepared for school?

We are sure that it's all going to come out in the lawsuit that Ms. Rucker will surely file....