When a Miami-area middle school student came home with unacceptable grades, his father sent him to the streets.
Seventh grader Michael Bell, Jr. stood on busy North Kendall Drive sporting a sandwich board sign telling passersby that he is failing three classes -- civics, language arts and math, he told Local10.
"Hey, I want to be a class clown. Is it wrong?" read the front of the sign, while the back read, "I'm in the 7th grade and got 3 F's. Blow your horn if there's something wrong with that."
Michael Bell, Sr. stood out on the road, too, telling WSVN the punishment was the last way he knew how to try to reach his son: "If I don't do nothing, he's gonna be a statistic. And I don't want him to be a statistic."
The message seemed to be getting through.
“I don’t like it, but I know that it’s my fault,” Michael Bell, Jr. told Local 10. He also vowed to change his ways: "I'm sorry that it had to get to this point. When I get back to school, I'm gonna do better."
Bell is not the first kid to do the sandwich board walk of shame. Earlier this year, experts debated punishment by humiliation after a Tampa mom made her son wear a sign when he only answered four questions on the FCAT and had a grade point average of 1.22. A Virginia pastor’s 15-year-old son also wore a sign in 2009 for failing grades.
But controversial discipline practices aren't limited to creative signs. North Carolina father Tommy Jordan, who filmed a YouTube video of himself shooting his daughter’s laptop as punishment for writing a rude post on her Facebook about her parents. It became a viral video with people both supporting and condemning his parenting choices.
WATCH Michael Bell, Jr. spends his Spring Break on the street with his sign.