Toy soldiers run afoul of school's weapons ban

"His teacher called and said it wasn't appropriate because it had guns," Morales said.

Morales' 8-year-old son, David, was assigned to make a hat for the day when his second-grade class would met their pen pals from another school. She and her son came up with an idea to add patriotic decorations to a camouflage hat.

Earlier this week, the Tiogue School in Coventry sent the hat home with David after class. He wore a plain baseball cap on the day of the visit instead.

Superintendent Kenneth R. Di Pietro said the principal told the family that the hat would be fine if David replaced the Army men holding weapons with ones that didn't have any.

"The issue for us was, can it be done in a way that didn't violate the zero-tolerance for weapons?" he said. "Nothing was being done to limit patriotism, creativity, other than find an alternative to a weapon."

Di Pietro said the district does not allow images of weapons or drugs on clothing. For example, it would not allow a student to wear a shirt with a picture of a marijuana leaf on it.