These kids should not be suspended - so ridiculous. A lighter is very common for burning frayed strings - prevents them from fraying more. That plastic in the string melts at the end so it does not fray anymore. A swiss army knife, scissors, or pocket knife are also very common items in a lacrosse players bag. Anyone that has been around the sport knows this is common knowledge.

I find it silly. These guys are adults.

I mean really a pen knife and a lighter?

While people are dying from gunshots on the streets of Baltimore.

All that has been accomplished is to make us look like a laughing stock.

Have we as as a society lost our collective flppin minds,just another story of the school system not using any common sense.

What a waste of everyone's time. The administrators should be fired and replaced by humans. Their job is not to react like robots but to make sensible decisions.

These kids ABSOLUTELY should have been suspended. There is ABSOLUTELY no room for reason or sense when considering the safety of our children!
I don't think we're taking the threat of violence in our schools seriously enough. We need a stricter code! Millions of these potential psychopaths are entering schools with sharpened pencils for skewering, blunt force trauma-worthy textbooks, STAPLERS, shoelaces that stay on their shoes until needed for nooses!
Schools are battlefields now, and we need to prepare for every possible scenario of death and destruction.
We keep our airline passengers safe, but we let our children go into school every day unharassed and unfondled! It's not right!
I say that it's better to be safe than sorry. To make our schools the ABSOLUTE safest they can be, let's just turn away ALL students. We may not be the smartest country, but we'll definitely be the safest!

The coach should provide these items if they are so necessary. If someone takes the lighter/pen knife from one of these players and uses it to intimidate/injure another student, who is responsible? The person who brought the knife? the person who took it? the school? There's just no end. Leave the rules in place.

The following is my letter to the Editor of The Star Democrat, Easton's local paper, published last Friday:

We live in a community that cherishes our children; I see this demonstrated every day. Beyond our own best efforts at parenting we put a lot of time and heart into reaching out to help local children with character, body and soul building and providing compassionate protection and advocacy of the kids who need help most.
I am currently witnessing an unthinkable scenario occurring in what I know is a kind and caring town, the steam rolling of two young Easton High School children with unfathomable long term effects. Life changing public embarrassment, possible removal from school, marks on permanent records…all over a lighter and a small knife carried in their sports bags for keeping their lacrosse sticks in proper working order. In other jurisdictions these tools are required.
Instead of living by our community’s creed of standing up for our youth I see what amounts to harassment by those with authority. The effects are severe and permanent to those we should be protecting. These are guiltless kids caught up in a no tolerance policy that sweeps up innocent victims as if they were criminals carrying guns. Let’s be real about this, let’s look with tolerance at the good intent of these athletes and other kids caught up in similar situations. Let’s make a change in a black and white policy that’s simply wrong.

i played lacrosse in college in HS. i was a so called stick doctor.in my bag i always carried extra mesh, string, hockey laces, A LIGHTER and a KNIFE or SCISSORS.They are absolutely essential to string or repair a lacrosse stick with. This is just as stupid as it gets. I remember being on the buss melting the ends of my strings and stuff and never hearing a word about it.

Of course it's the correct decision. Your government (this is a public school) always knows what's best for you. How silly of anyone to think he or she can make decisions without the government's serene and beneficent guidance. These children must be taught that they are helpless and cannot be trusted with such dangerous implements.

The school administrators responsible for suspending these studendents need to be EXPELLED. As a taxpayer, I resent paying their salaries. Apparently, the ability to exercise common sense is not a job requirement for their position or considered a liability by their superiors who should also be dealt with.

Wow, really. So interesting that when two "good" kids get caught up in something like this we are all about mercy, but when it happens in the city or the kids are troubled or have a history of doing things that aren't appropriate we want justice. Either there is a zero tolerance policy or not. The administrators did exactly what they were supposed to do - it takes the decision out of their hands. No more justice for some and mercy for others. No more double standard. If this were two kids in the city who were suspended for the same thing there would be nary an outcry. How hard is it for kids - all kids - to understand what is and isn't allowed? A knife? A lighter? Heck we suspend kids for these things all the time and we should. Spare me the double standard.

@Keep Guessing
That's the problem - the institution of a zero tolerance policy that takes rational decision making from the picture is inherently a bad idea. The dividing line between right and wrong just can't be drawn that severely. There must be room for rationalization and common sense.

In response to Keep Guessing: You are exactly right. Kinda. Kids with history get dealt with very harshly, sometimes unjustly. But if this is happening to kids without previous problems, then we need to use this as a tool to bring to light all the nonsense and unjust policies our school system practices towards ALL students. There is no justice system in the schools. You are guilty until proven innocent.

Roxane - "The coach should provide these items if they are so necessary".
Then the coach would be in violation of the policies. What are you not understanding here. Yes, they are necessary - if you had played and had any understanding of the sport you would know that at a certain level it is pretty well mandatory. Go to Gilman, McDonogh, Loyola or Calvert Hall and check the bags - you will find these "dangerous weapons". Then you will be hearing from the lawyers.

This is ridiculous! Are we seriously wasting time with this? The kids did nothing wrong. A 2" knife is not considered a deadly weapon in this state. A lighter is not considered an explosive device. Following the logic exercised here, we should arrest all of the baseball and softball players because a bat is a much more deadly weapon than a 2" knife. Finally, let's search all of the teachers. I am sure there is at least one smoker among them who has a lighter. Is that not an explosive device? What is happening here is potentially ruining these kids lives. Shame on the school system for allowing this to happen.

Life is rarely black and white, therefore "zero tolerance" policies make no sense. I know nothing of lacrosse, but if it is common for players to use lighters and knives to repair their sticks, it is pure madness to suspend them for possession of such items. The sticks themselves are probably better weapons. :-/

If they're such crucial tools, then why were no other players suspended?

because they have common sense, that's why

Did they also search the baseball players bags and suspend them for having baseball bats? Do you know how many people are attacked by and killed by people yielding baseball bats? Anything can be used as a weapon. We do need common sense in our schools.

Freddie I did play Division I lacrosse in college so keep your thoughts to yourself regarding me. Can you tell me the magic length of a knife that makes it safe to have in a school building, Freddie? You so miss the point. If a lacrosse player can carry a knife, why not a wrestler (for stray threads) or how about a baseball player (for his glove)? When does knife carrying end? And why are athletes in a different category than a kid who wants to fish after school and will need a knife? Let's EVERYONE bring a knife! I am not defending the "sentence" by the administrators by any means; however, the kids did break the rules. You have obviously never been in a school building with kids who carry weapons. I have and you never know who will get his hands on it and use it for something awful.

My apologies, Freddie, my comments should have been directed to LoyolaL7. The private schooler.....

My apologies, Freddie, my comments should have been directed to LoyolaL7. The private schooler.....

LoyolaL7 I did play lacrosse in a Division I college, so don't presume to know anything about me. Maybe you can answer this: at what length is a knife no dangerous? If you went to a school where there are real behavioral issues, you would know that anything sharp is a weapon. If someone steals this knife and uses it, who is responsible? The school that changed the rules for the athletes? Should a baseball player be allowed to carry a knife so he can trim the strings on his glove? How can you even think that it's okay for one group to have a different set of rules. These kids are in public school - not Loyola.