School punishes blind child by taking away his walking cane and replacing it with a pool noodle

School punishes blind child by taking away his walking cane and replacing it with a pool noodle
(Image credit: iStock)

An elementary school in Kansas City, Missouri, confiscated a blind child's walking stick after a bus driver said he hit another student with it. He was given a pool noodle to hold instead, a switch he says school officials told him would last for two weeks so he couldn't hurt other kids.

Eight-year-old Dakota Nafzinger was born without eyes. His family says he sometimes lifts and fidgets with his cane, but didn't intend to hurt anyone. With the pool noodle, they add, he couldn't accurately feel his surroundings. After his family's protest and a growing uproar on social media, the school relented and returned Dakota's walking stick.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.