Kody Smith: Second Grader Written Up For Saying Clouds Looked Like A Gun

A second grade student at Talbott Elementary School In Colorado Springs, Colorado, got in trouble thanks to his big imagination.

The teacher in the boy’s class told students to look into the clouds and drew a picture of what they thought they saw. The 8-year-old boy, Kody Smith, thought the clouds were shaped like a gun, so he drew a picture of a gun and showed it to the teacher.

The teacher in turn filed a behavioral report, then took the boy to the office and said his behavior was being disruptive to the school’s learning community.

The boy’s parents said they think the discipline was unwarranted.

“It hurts. It hurts that he was so scared for being penalized for his imagination,” Kody’s father, Jeff Smith, told KKTV.

His parents add that Kody was only following his teacher’s instructions.

“He’s 8 years old. He was doing exactly what he was told to do for the assignment,” said Kody’s mother, Angel Rivers.

The incident led to criticism of the school district, which later clarified that the mark will not go on Kody’s permanent record.

“Our primary responsibility as a school district is to ensure safety of all staff, students and community,” the district said in a press release. “We exercised an age-appropriate reaction to an incident. The student’s education was never disrupted nor is this incident on the student’s permanent record. Our response was in line with routine procedures focused on school safety.”

Kody Smith is not the first youngster in trouble for a vivid imagination. Last year, 7-year-old Josh Welch was suspended from school for two days after he was caught biting a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. Josh’s parents would later transfer their son to another school, and after more than a year of fighting with the school district still haven’t had the offense erased from his school record.

The second grader written up for seeing a gun in the clouds didn’t have it nearly as bad as another unfortunate student. In Calvert County, Maryland, a 5-year-old was given a 10-day suspension for bringing a toy gun onto the school bus last year. The boy was interrogated for two hours by school officials and during that time urinated in his pants.