IONIA, Mich. (WOOD) - There were no guns involved. No weapons at all, aside from the 6-year-old's hands formed into the shape of pistols.
The kind of thing many kids have done at some time in their lives.
But Thursday, a kindergartner at Jefferson Elementary School in Ionia is sitting at home. Out of school. Suspended for two days.
"I just want to know why they decided to suspend him instead of doing something else," the boy's mother, Erin Jammer, told 24 Hour News 8.
But Ionia Public Schools District officials say other things were done, but couldn't elaborate on this specific case.
Jammer said it started Feb. 26. That was the day, she says, the school principal told her son was playing guns in the hallway and it had to stop. If it didn't, Jammer says she was told, the boy would be suspended.
That night she had a big talk with her 6-year-old. No more playing guns at school.
She thought the message got through.
But then Tuesday came and a phone call -- "Come pick up your son," Jammer says the school secretary said.
Her son had apparently been playing "guns" again. This time in the classroom. A suspension was enforced immediately.
And so on Thursday, he is playing at home, away from his classmates, under the watchful eye of his mother.
Jammer admits her son is a handful, but the school district was aware of all the issues he faces, she claims. She wonders if there was something else the district could have done that wasn't as harsh as a suspension.
Assistant Superintendent Ben Kirby told 24 Hour News 8 it is school policy to have a student meet with a counselor and to try to work things out within the building. Suspension is a last resort. In this case, there was a history that stretched back further, school policy was followed, but Kirby said he can't go into detail.
Jammer wonders if school officials overreacted after a shooting occurred in their city on Feb. 26 . A former Michigan State Police trooper shot and wounded his wife and stepson, before turning the gun on himself.
Jammer says the principal said to her, "I know [the boy] wasn't involved in this, but we have to take precautions."
The school district dismisses any connection between the two. Assistant Superintendant Kirby said, "it was purely coincidental" that the two events occurred on the same day.
Jammer is not sure what will happen next, and aside from picking her 6-year-old up from his kindergarten class on Tuesday, she said she hasn't had any contact with the school. She said she is still reeling from a decision she doesn't understand.
"If it was a squirt gun, I'd understand," she said, "but just his hands?"
Now she is finding ways to keep her son busy at home as he awaits to rejoin the rest of his class on Friday.
I remember when they started making them manditory tho! I think it was when some cop shot a kid with a lazer tag gun.