This is not a story from The Onion…


The Associated Press reports that a school in Rhode Island prohibited eight‐​year‐​old David Morales from wearing a hat that he decorated with toy soldiers that…gasp…had tiny little plastic weapons. According to school administrators, the hat violates a “no weapons” policy.


Here’s the relevant section of the report:

Christan Morales said her son just wanted to honor American troops when he wore a hat to school decorated with an American flag and small plastic Army figures. But the school banned the hat because it ran afoul of the district’s zero‐​tolerance weapons policy. Why? The toy soldiers were carrying tiny guns. “His teacher called and said it wasn’t appropriate,” Morales said. Morales’ 8‐​year‐​old son, David, had been assigned to make a hat for the day when his second‐​grade class would meet their pen pals from another school. She and her son came up with an idea to add patriotic decorations to a camouflage hat. Earlier this week, after the hat was banned, the principal at the Tiogue School in Coventry told the family that the hat would be fine if David replaced the Army men holding weapons with ones that didn’t have any, according to Superintendent Kenneth R. Di Pietro.

I’m not sure what to say about this, other than to link to Neal’s PA.