PROVIDENCE, R.I. — 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, was 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.
This week, the Tiogue School in Coventry sent the cap home with David at the end of the day after concluding it violated a zero-tolerance policy for weapons.
The principal told the family that the hat would be fine if David replaced the Army men holding weapons with ones that didn’t have any, said Superintendent Kenneth R. Di Pietro.
On Thursday, Di Pietro and the principal met with the retired commander of the Rhode Island National Guard, at the commander’s request. Lt. Gen. Reginald Centracchio praised the school system for its past work supporting the military, including a junior ROTC program. But he said he disagreed with the decision to ban the hat.
“The American soldier is armed. That’s why they’re called the armed forces,” he said. “If you’re going to portray it any other way, you miss the point.”
