What really happened in the pop tart "gun" incident?

In Anne Arundel, the boy’s disciplinary referral used the word “gun” four times, asserting that the child “chewed his cereal bar into the shape of a gun” and aimed it at other children. The document quoted the boy as yelling, “Look, I made a gun!” It cited classroom disruption as the primary reason for the suspension, and an administrator noted several previous incidents of disruptive behavior near the bottom of the form.

In Nussbaum’s opinion, dated June 26, he rejected arguments from the boy’s family that the school overreacted and that the suspension arose from a bias against guns. The father said he was told the day that the boy was suspended that it was for playing as if he had a gun, not for ongoing problems.

Nussbaum wrote: “As much as the parents want this case to be about a ‘gun,’ it is, rather, a case about classroom disruption from a student who has had a long history of disruptive behavior and for whom the school had attempted a list of other strategies and interventions before resorting to a suspension.”

Nussbaum said he was convinced that “had the student chewed his cereal bar into the shape of a cat and ran around the room, disrupting the classroom and making ‘meow’ cat sounds, the result would have been exactly the same.”

Nussbaum also said he found it troubling that the family allowed news media to attend the student’s hearing, noting the possibility that the child’s reputation would be tarnished.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/hearing-examiner-backs-suspension-of-boy-who-chewed-pastry-into-gun-shape/2014/06/30/f3aee730-004b-11e4-b8ff-89afd3fad6bd_story.html

 “We had not been able to make him understand that he had to follow the rules,” Sandra Blondell, principal at Park Elementary School, testified during an appeals hearing Tuesday that lasted more than six hours in what has become known as “the Pop-Tart case.”

Blondell said that the child, then 7 years old and diagnosed with ADHD, received the two-day suspension after repeated problems and lost instructional time. “This must have been probably the 15th or 20th time there was a classroom disruption,” she said.

At Tuesday’s hearing, school officials said the boy also had nibbled his pastry into a gun shape a day earlier. But his teacher, Jessica Fultz, testified that on that day (the previous day) he was more compliant when admonished. On the day he was suspended, she said, he was not responsive when she told him to stop.

School officials produced a lengthy log of various types of incidents. They argued that they had made many efforts to address the boy’s behavioral issues. The family said they had not seen the list before and had been unaware of a number of the incidents.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/pop-tart-case-gun-appeal-school-officials-say-the-problem-was-ongoing-misbehavior/2014/04/30/c5727900-cc6f-11e3-93eb-6c0037dde2ad_story.html

Lexia Reading Core5 levels

Lexia Reading Core5 levels are organized into grade levels of material:
Pre-K (Level 1),
    K (Levels 2–5),
1st grade (Levels 6–9),
2nd grade (Levels 10–12),
3rd grade (Levels 13–14),
4th grade (Levels 15–16),
5th grade (Levels 17–18).

Student's End-of-Year (EOY) Benchmark is to complete all of the material up to and including the levels that correspond to their grade level.

Strategies for solving subtraction problems in Common Core

from a 1st grade teacher:

We are exploring strategies for solving subtraction problems where the starting amount is a teen number. On Friday we reviewed 3 previously learned strategies and another option. I believe some students had some difficulty with the last option. Here are the strategies we've discussed.

Make a picture. 
Draw circles to show the starting amount. 
Cross out. 
Count what is left.

 This is a level 1 strategy in terms of complexity and would have been first used in kindergarten.

 For the problem 14-8=?, draw 14 circles, cross out 8, count 6 left.

Count on to subtract. 
Count up to the starting amount. 
Use dots or your fingers.

This is a level 2 strategy that is introduced and mastered in first grade. An advantage to this strategy is that it can be done without paper.

For the problem 14-8=?, think 8 + ? = 14
Count on: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.
Six counts gets you to 14.

Think addition and make a ten. 
Put up/show the rest. 
See the difference. 
Use dots or your fingers.

​This is a level 3 strategy that is introduced and practiced in first grade. It is practiced and mastered in second grade. (I haven't spoken about the levels with the students or the grade level of mastery.)

For the problem 14-8=?, think about 14 = 10 + 4 and 8 + ?=10.
8 + 2 = 10 and 4 more are needed. 

So 8+2+4=14 or 8+6=14 and 14-8=6.
This strategy, once grasped, is faster because the counting is eliminated (or minimized if one is still counting to make a 10). 

​Subtract across ten. 
Take apart the starting amount in two steps. 
The first step takes it down to ten. 
The second step takes away the rest off of 10.
This level 3 strategy is introduced in first grade, and there is minimal practice. We did it with counters and drawings, but ideally the strategy would be used mentally. This strategy is the most complex because it involves taking apart both the starting amount and the amount being subtracted.

For the problem 14-8=?, first do 14-4 =10 (subtract to 10, an easy problem).
Then, think "I took away 4 of the 8, what is left still to take off the 8?" 4 is left.
Do 10-4=6 (subtract from 10, a second easier problem than the original subtraction problem).

I.e.
14-8 = (14-4) - (8-4) = 10 - 4 = 6

All of these strategies are presented as options to students. They can choose to use any of the strategies.  They are not tested on the strategies themselves. They are asked to solve problems and show their thinking. The current goal is accuracy and understanding. A larger, longer goal is flexibility and efficiency. 

Of course, if someone already knows 14-8=6, then he or she should just write that! Each child can and should use the strategies that make sense to her.