3-year-old deaf Hunter Spanjer signing his name

(Scroll down for video) School officials told a deaf boy’s parents to change the sign name of their son, since the sign language gesture resembles a gun and it violates the school board’s weapons policy.

The Grand Island Public Schools board says its “Weapons in Schools” policy bans any instrument that looks anything like a weapon. The school wants him to change his sign name.

“Anybody that I have talked to thinks this is absolutely ridiculous. This is not threatening in any way,” said the boy’s grandmother Janet Logue.

The school board wants to work out a compromise. “We are working with the parents to come to the best solution we can find for the child,” said Jack Sheard, a school board spokesman. But Hunter’s family isn’t interested. “It’s a symbol. It’s an actual sign, a registered sign,” Brian Spanjer, Hunter’s father said.

They’re bringing in lawyers from the National Association of the Deaf to fight for their son’s right to sign his own name.

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