A visitor at the National September 11 Memorial in New York.  (Mark Lennihan/AP)

Dumb kids kicked out of 9/11 memorial for throwing trash

6/25/2012

America's middle school students are in a public relations slump. Last week, it was bullying a 68-year-old bus monitor that grabbed headlines. Now, it's an unruly mob of them who were kicked out of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum for throwing trash in the fountains. During a field trip to the somber site, several kids from an east NYC junior high were caught tossing baseballs, plastic soda bottles and other garbage into the water. "An absolute disgrace," said a school teacher visiting the memorial, but the students saw it differently: "No one was disrespecting. It wasn't nothing like that," said one student. "Everyone was kind of bored and it was just something to do." Nobody was arrested, but school officials say they're investigating, and we hope the kids at least got grounded.

most recent

How should the kids be punished?