The Knuckleheads of the Day award Part One

We have another one of those days where knuckleheads are raining down upon us. TFM will be giving out at least three awards today.

Today's first winners are Don Bartch and Quentin Mastin. They get the award for the following.

Two Scales Elementary School educators were suspended without pay on Monday for pulling a prank in which they told sixth-graders on a field trip that there was a gunman shooting in the state park where they were staying.

Marilyn Mathis, director of Murfreesboro City Schools, decided that Assistant Principal Don Bartch and lead teacher Quentin Mastin will serve the suspensions until the school year ends June 1.

A news release issued by the school district Monday said the educators were suspended for "unprofessional conduct and neglect of duty."

Mathis, Bartch or Mastin could not be reached for comment.

The prank occurred last Thursday during a weeklong trip to Fall Creek Falls State Park, about 90 miles east of Murfreesboro. The 69 students were told that there was a gunman on the loose and they had to take cover.

Some got upset and started to cry. According to the school district, the prank was used by teachers as a learning experience to teach kids how to react in a "code red" emergency situation, and the few students who got upset were comforted afterward.

The incident has received international media attention.

Brandy Cole, who said her son told her he wished he hadn't gone on the trip, said she was disappointed the teachers didn't receive a harsher punishment.

"I'm glad that they saw fit to take disciplinary action, but basically they're getting two weeks of vacation. That's not discipline; that's two weeks off without pay," Cole said. "They should be treated just like a student would be if the shoe was on the other foot."

Mastin and Bartch deserve to be fired for what they did. What were these people thinking of? Yes you can run a drill, but making students think they are going to get shot is a more than little off the scale of common sense.

Joanne Jacobs wrote- That Scales Elementary administrators have a tendency to confuse stupidity with learning.

James Joyner wrote- Your mission, should you chose to accept it: Write a compelling explanation as to why the teachers in question are not frothing idiots.

Sorry James, I can't do it. What TFM can do is make Don Bartch and Quentin Mastin today's first Knucklehead winners of the day.

Also writing on this subject- Iowa Voice, Don Singleton, Joe G at The Moderate Voice, Common Sense Political Thought, Patterico,
Linked to- Amboy Times, High Desert Wanderer, Jo, Leaning Straight Up, Perri Nelson, Pirate's Cove, Random Yak, Right Voices, Right Wing Nation, StikNstein, Third World County, The World According to Carl, Yankee Sailor,