10 Year Old Texas Girl Gets Detention For Jolly Rancher Crimes

A few minutes ago I was at some random cable news website. Which one, I don't remember. I saw the headline, "3rd Grader Caught With Jolly Rancher Gets Detention."

I read that headline and thought to myself, please let it not be in Texas, please not Texas this time, please.

So, I was not at all shocked when I clicked on the link to quickly see my pleas for it to please not be Texas were to no avail.

Once more a Texas school is about to become a National, maybe International Laughing Stock.

Are there not any adults in positions of responsibility in this state who can put a stop to this type embarrassment?

Little 10 year old Leighann Adair came home crying, afraid to tell her mom and dad she'd committed such a horrendous offense that she'd been slapped with a week of detention for possession of a contraband substance.

The contraband? A single piece of Jolly Rancher candy.

No, you skeptics who live in the sane parts of the planet, I am not making this up.

I am a little unclear of the timeline of this crime, but recently a friend of Leighann's gave her the single Jolly Rancher. Two weeks went by without Leighann unwrapping the candy. And then, somehow a teacher at Brazos Elementary School in Wallis, Texas, got wind of the fact that Leighann was carrying contraband candy.

After interrogating Leighann, to find out who her supplier was, Leighann gave up the friend. Both were then convicted of the Candy Contraband Crime and sentenced to detention during lunch and recess. Plus both had to write an essay detailing their crime and why what they did was wrong.

The idiots, who somehow got into positions of responsibility over the lives of kids at Brazos Elementary, are standing by their draconian punishment, saying they have to be strict in order to enforce their no gum, no candy policy, because gum and candy can make a mess.

The Supreme School Idiot in Wallis, Texas, Brazos Independent School Superintendent, Jack Ellis, says it is a matter of following state guidelines to limit the amount of junk food in schools, saying, "Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,"

What is it about the moronic obsession about following rules in Texas? Idiotic rules are made to be broken, not followed.

The Texas Department of Agriculture says there is nothing in any sort of rulebook that compels a school to punish a student for junk food possession.

The department informed the school that state policy does not outline such punishments, saying, "If a parent wants to pack candy, it's their decision, not against school policy. A parent needs to decide what a student eats."

So, there are pockets of common sense in Texas.

Now, should not parents be able to hire a lawyer and bring a civil suit against this inept school district for the pain and anguish and embarrassment to which their daughter was subjected?

The Jolly Rancher ban is not this school's only Supreme Idiocy. Students are required to wear a belt, needed or not. A few months ago, Leighann's brother was suspended for failing to wear a belt, even after his dad had called the school to let them know that the boy would be beltless, because his dog had chewed the boy's only belt, right before the school bus arrived. The boy spent his jail time stuck in a room all day long, with nothing to do but stare at a wall.

Is there any connection, maybe, between these type lame educational standards and Texas schools being near the bottom, academics-wise, of the American states?