Alyssa Cornish, a fifth-grader, suspended for three months for playing with a toy gun at school

The Shawnee Mission School District, which has never been known to overreact about anything, suspended Alyssa Cornish for three months. Cornish must be some kind of delinquent, right? Uh, not exactly. She’s an 11-year-old, straight-A student council member at Santa Fe Elementary.

But she did a bad, bad thing. She admitted playing with a toy gun on school grounds on a Sunday. Alyssa received an initial suspension of 10 days, which sounds fair. She made a mistake, and there are consequences. But she gave a written account to school officials, admitting that she fired the spring-powered Airsoft BB gun, and school officials ratcheted up the punishment, claiming she violated the school district’s weapons policy.