The point is that IMHO even if the kid did shoot a rubber band at a teacher, that isn't worthy of expulsion from school. It's a silly (OK -- even stupid) prank. He may have been facing jail time had it been (gasp!) a spitball or heaven forbid a paper airplane. These are kids. If they had nothing to learn they wouldn't need to be in school. I certainly did worse than shoot rubber bands in class, and I never even received a suspension, let alone a permanent expulsion. I don't know -- maybe this kid had a long record of being a problem and this was the last straw -- I hope that's the case...