Gun joke earns second-grader trip home

A Post Falls second-grader would have done well to heed the mantra of airport security officials: Don’t even joke about it.

The Prairie View Elementary student kidded with a couple of friends about having a gun as they walked back from the library to their classroom on Thursday.

Those friends told a teacher, and the student was sent to the principal’s office and ultimately sent home for the day.

When the principal asked the student why he said that, he replied: “Well, I was trying to think of a good joke, and that’s all I came up with,” according to Jerry Keane, superintendent of Post Falls School District.

“Even in jest, it’s going to be taken very seriously,” Keane said Friday.

Still, Keane acknowledges mitigating factors such as the child’s age and that he said what he did in a non-threatening manner.

The school is working with the parents to educate the child about the gravity of what he said. He was back in school Friday.