School Administrators Missed Warning Signs of Lego DREAMZzz Set Snuck Onto Campus in Student’s Backpack
Officials are looking for more clues today as the town of Middle Rock reels from a terrifying morning. It all started as students at Middle Rock Elementary returned from the holiday break, and made their way to classrooms after what is known as ‘drop-off.’
‘There was nothing out of the ordinary at drop-off,’ says parent Sarah, who requested we omit her last name for security reasons. ‘The kids were playing around, or being bullied; the dads were looking at their phones, nonplussed. Someone who had brought their dog was ignoring the crap it took on the cafeteria side lawn. Nothing to suggest…’ Sarah is unable to finish her sentence, as she recounts the text she received just an hour later, notifying her and other parents that a student had brought a Lego DREAMZzz set onto campus and was beginning to play with it.
Joshua Thacker, a fifth grade student at the school recalls the moment he realized the Lego DREAMZzz set was going to be passed around from kid to kid, as students vied for the opportunity to get their hands on the ‘playset that helps encourage kids to enter a world of magic and unleash the power of their dreams.’
‘It was a Castle Nocturnia, which is a pretty serious, um, set. I didn’t really know what was going on at first, until I, like, saw one of my classmates, um, in the quad, like, making the lion fly around.’
Students say it was difficult to know whether the 10-year old student purported to have brought the set onto campus was planning on displaying it as the Castle, Tower, or Forest, as the Castle Nocturnia is well-known for its transformational abilities and tantalizing opportunities for children to partake in adventure beyond their imaginations.
The American Toy Society released the following statement this morning: We extend our sincerest apologies, thoughts, and prayers to the families that were impacted today by the presence of Lego’s best-selling Castle Nocturnia on the campus of Middle Rock Elementary. We believe that the first step toward harmony with the public who are vehemently against children’s rights to own toys would be to discontinue the practice of ‘No toys at school.’ This anti-toy, or toy control regime is a straight route to tragedy.
The parents’ Facebook group ‘Parents of Middle Rock Elementary’ was aflutter for the remainder of the morning, as details unfolded about whether or not school administrators had been warned ahead of today’s incident, and what precautions were – or were not – taken.
‘There were calls made,’ one parent from the Facebook group told reporters. ‘Several. Administration definitely knew that a kid was going to bring the DREAMZzz set; the kid had posted on Facebook five or six photos of himself posing with it, along with the minifigs MadTeo, Dizzy, and The Never Witch. Apparently – I don’t know if this is true, but my son told me – the kid had bragged to a couple of other kids that his father had given him the set for Christmas, and he was planning to bring it in to show the other kids.’
Shawna Perkins, a parent of a third-grade student at Middle Rock Elementary, agrees that school administrators knew in advance about the set. ‘They knew. They absolutely knew. They were just so busy planning the retirement party for the attendance secretary, they failed to notice. They failed.’
Middle Rock Elementary declined to comment on this story.
*An earlier version of this story stated that the school administrators were so busy sending emails to parents asking for school supply donations that they failed to notice the DREAMZzz set warnings. The story has since been updated.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Liz Lydic is a mom, writer, and local government employee in the Los Angeles area. She also does theatre stuff. Liz has been published in JMWW, McSweeney’s, BULL, Defenestration, Santa Fe Literary Review and many others. She holds an honorable mention for her story ‘Girls in Fall’ in the Easy Reader 53rd Anniversary Writing & Photography Contest.
Image generated on Magic Studio
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