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This is the most messed up thing I’ve heard in a while. Dakota Nafzinger, an eight-year-old Kansas City boy who was born without eyes, had his cane confiscated by his elementary school after he allegedly hit another child with it on the bus earlier this week. It’s unknown whether or not the incident was an accident, but the school claims that he was acting out. As punishment the school humiliatingly replaced the boy’s cane with a foam pool noodle for the next two weeks. This might come as something of a surprise, but a foam pool noodle is not an adequate substitute for a blind person’s cane.
Here’s the part of the story that doesn’t make sense to me, though. The Gracemor Elementary School was actually well within their grounds to take the child’s cane because the cane is actually school property, and prior to this school year Nafzinger did not even possess a cane. As abhorrent as it is to make some poor blind kid walk around with a pool noodle, you can literally get free canes online through the National Federation for the Blind, or even customized child-sized ones for under $20 online. There is no reason why this kid should be without a cane.
Between the school and the parents, or even the TV station reporting on this story, somebody please just get it together and find this poor blind kid a cane.