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Word for word
Rubbery weapons stretch school's patience
By Times Staff
Published December 25, 2004
Where do you stand on the rubber band issue? Are they useful doodads for holding things together, or missiles capable of shooting someone's eye out?
In schools around the world, kids are launching wadded paper missiles, which they call birdies, tweeters, zombie darts, microshooters, hornets and wasps.
Whatever they're called, they pack quite a sting.
Says a Cincinnati master prankster (eighth-grader) who goes by Doctorworm32 at an online forum, the Prank Institute: "Got so bad teacher took away bands. People would come into class with welts on their cheeks."
Young Middle Magnet School of Mathematics, Science & Technology in Tampa, perhaps stretched beyond its limit, has banned the band. In a December newsletter, the Buffalo Bulletin, administrators warned parents and students.
- ELISABETH DYER, Times staff writer
"There have been recent incidences of students at our school using rubber bands as a method of projecting objects at other people. The students refer to some of the projectile objects as "wasps.' Occasionally, students are using their fingers to project the wasps. These activities have resulted in injured students.
"Rubber bands are not permitted at school. If students are in possession of rubber bands for any reason they will be subject to consequences that may include out of school suspension. When rubber bands are required for classroom use, they will be provided and collected."
-- Elisabeth Dyer can be reached at 813 226-3321 or edyer@sptimes.com
[Last modified December 23, 2004, 11:14:06]
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