And To Think That The Accused Is Only Ten Years Old...

The circumstances surrounding what this ten-year-old boy did raises a whole lot of issues:

HEBRON, Ky. -- A 10-year-old boy has been charged with six counts of terroristic threatening for comments he allegedly made at school, officials said.

The Boone County Sheriff's Department told News 5 that a female student at North Pointe Elementary claims the boy told her he didn't like cheerleaders and was writing girls' names down on a piece of paper. He then said he was going to bring a knife to school and kill them, police said.

"You have to treat it as a very serious matter, whether the child was just playing around or not," said Milt Williamson, whose granddaughter is a cheerleader at the school.

The boy was suspended after the girl told school officials, but he apparently told investigators that he was just kidding.

"The problem is in this day and age we can't just sweep them under the carpet like that," sheriff's department spokeman Tom Scheben said. "We have to take them seriously."

Joking about killing cheerleaders at school is like going to the airport and making a wise-crack about having a gun or a bomb. Usually, once is all it takes to teach the joker a valuable life lesson. ---------------------------------See our latest education-related posts right here. Visit today's edition of The Carnival Of Education, guest hosted this week by MathandText, over there.