In a peculiar incident in Georgia, a six-year-old boy with autism found himself suspended from school for shaping his sandwich into a gun and pretending to aim it at a peer, according to his family.
John Medina, who attends first grade at Sara Harp Minter Elementary in Fayette County, was expelled last March when school staff witnessed the lunchtime scene, his parents and school documentation confirm. The story was reported by Atlanta News First.
Recalling the day, Kristin Medina, the boy’s mother, remembered receiving a call from the school informing her that her son could no longer return following the playful incident with his lunch.
“It’s just baffling,” Kristin expressed to the news outlet, adding her concerns that the school may not have fully taken into account her son’s autism before reaching a decision to suspend him.
Despite the incident being over a year old, Kristin is determined to bring it back into the spotlight, hoping it might encourage school administrators to develop a more nuanced understanding of the behaviors of children with disabilities.
According to school records obtained by the outlet, more than two dozen disciplinary actions have been issued to John, including some that involved him kicking and punching other students during recess.
The school disciplined John at least 33 times, including 14 suspensions, since 2023, the records stated.
John was previously suspended for pointing a water bottle at someone else while making gun noises, and he was reprimanded for drawing a pilgrim shooting a turkey, records showed.
John Medina, a first grader with autism, was kicked out of Sara Harp Minter Elementary School in Fayette County last March, according to his parents and school records
Administrators said they found him pointing a sandwich he bit into the shape of a gun during lunchtime at the school
Kristin said her son became fascinated with guns after meeting a police officer, she told the outlet.
She and her husband have continued to fight for their son, and went on to hire Donna Reynolds, a former special education director who worked in a different school district in the state, to represent them during meetings with the Fayette County School District.
Local parents spoke directly to Fayette County Schools Superintendent Jonathan Patterson during a recent school board meeting where they expressed their concerns for their disable children
According to Reynolds, John’s most recent incident could have happened even if he weren’t autistic.
‘I don’t think a six-year-old without autism would understand that that’s not appropriate.
‘They make their fingers into a gun. They pick up sticks and make them into guns,’ she told the publication.
She strongly believes that school districts everywhere need to fully understand students before they make decisions.
‘They need to look at the whole picture. You need to look at his age. You need to look at his disability,’ she said.
‘You need to look at past behavior, and you need to determine whether this is more of a teaching moment or is this something that really needs discipline, and is that discipline then going to change the behavior?’
During a recent board of education meeting, several local parents took to the podium to share their frustrations about how they think their disabled children are not being treated fairly by district administrators.
They spoke directly to Fayette County Schools Superintendent Jonathan Patterson and his colleagues before the meeting ended.
After they did so, an Atlanta News First reporter approached Patterson, but a law enforcement officer stepped in and said that he needed to make an appointment to speak with him.
Before that, the journalist reached out several times to Patterson but never got a response, the outlet stated.
Eventually, Patterson shared a brief statement that read: ‘We’re committed to meeting parents to try to work through these challenging situations that maybe we agree on, that maybe we don’t agree on, but we’re committed to keep coming back to the table and trying to resolve those things.’
Meanwhile, since the suspension, Kristin said her young son has been struggling.
‘I think he feels like he’s a bad kid. There were definitely times when he would come home and say “I’m a bad kid” and that’s really hard to hear as a mom,’ the worried mother said.
Although the incident occurred more than a year ago, Kristin (pictured with her son and husband) said she wanted to bring renewed attention to it in hopes that administrators could have a better understanding of what it’s like to be and raise a child on the spectrum
When contacted by the Daily Mail, a spokesperson for Fayette County Public Schools made a statement on behalf of Paterson.
‘After careful consideration, we have decided that we will not be providing a statement or responding to questions regarding this matter,’ they said.
The Daily Mail contacted Sara Harp Minter Elementary School Principal Stacie Coppola for comment.