Search Box
|
He won his appeal with the school board on the rest of the year suspension, and turned to class(22 ). A sixth grader was suspended from school because the ten inch key chain on her tweety bird wallet was considered weapon and violated the schools zero tolerance policy (23 ). In Pittsburgh a kindergartner as disciplined because he Halloween fire fighter costume had a plastic ax (24 ). Teenager Ashley Smithwick made a mistake and grabbed the wrong lunch that was prepared for her at home. She grabbed her fathers lunch that had a paring knife. For this mistake Ashley was suspended from school (25 ). The Board of Education released a clueless statement."The Lee County Board of Education is legally prohibited from releasing details and commenting on this student discipline matter further. The Board, however, contends strenuously that the related television and newspaper articles are inaccurate and that all relevant laws and board policies were adhered to and followed," (26 ). The problem is the laws and board policies. Just following orders eh? A 16 girl in Washington State was expelled for using her finger to make a gun and saying bang. She was reinstated (27 ). A Thirteen year old Texas boy was arrested for writing a scary story about killing his classmates. He spent five days locked up until his hearing (28 ). An 18 year old boy in Georgia about a deranged student that goes on a rampage at a school in his Journal. This resulted in his expulsion and arrest and he missed his opportunity to Graduate (29 ). A seven year old was suspended for bringing Nail clippers to school (30 ). Sex related zero tolerance A ten year old girl repeatedly asked if a boy if he like her. They boy complained to a teacher. The girl was suspended for violating the schools zero tolerance guidelines against sexual harassment (31 ). Race related zero tolerance A thirteen year old drew a picture of a Confederate flag on a piece of paper and was suspended for racial harassment and intimidation (32 ). WTF?! A fifteen year old Virginia boy was suspended for dying his hair blue (33 ).end result The bottom line is the above policies are the worst possible solution to address the problems they are suppose to solve. To be blunt an expulsion will not stop a bullet. What will work, is common sense polices, thorough investigations, and justice intervention if needed. An attorney for the Children's Law Center in Boston said "[z]ero tolerance does away with the entire concept of innocent until proven guilty." (34 ). All this might be more palatable if zero tolerance worked. But researchers said "Yet faced with an almost complete lack of evidence that zero tolerance is among the strategies capable of accomplishing that objective, one can only hope for the development and application of more effective, less intrusive alternatives for preserving the safety of our nation's schools."(35 ). May I dissent, these unconstitutional acts did accomplish their objective. They made the career of many politicians and Bureaucrat. But as with any get tough policy, they don't accomplish more than this. |
||
Zero tolerance = zero sense?