Introduction:
A "zero tolerance" policy is one that enacts harsh punishment for any violation of school rules, without exceptions and without any consideration of mitigating circumstances.*
There are many cases surfacing, all over the country, in which Zero Tolerance has trumped common sense. An eight-year-old was suspended from school for three days, for pointing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher and saying "Pow, pow, pow." Two eight-year-olds were charged with "making terrorist threats" because they were playing cops and robbers with a paper gun. And the list goes on and on. Someone at the Rutherford Institute stated it well: "By refusing to consider each individual's personal history and the intentions that inspired their actions, zero tolerance policies deny the unique worth and dignity of every person."1 Zero Tolerance policies put teachers and principals in the position of having to make irrational decisions in relatively simple cases. It makes no sense to suspend children for playing cops-and-robbers on the playground or giving a cough drop to a friend.2
For openers, here is a story, quoted in its entirety from CNSNews, which exemplifies Zero Tolerance stupidity:
The same story quoted on Newsmax: Pupil Suspended for Drawing Soldier.Third-Grader Suspended for Drawing Armed Soldier
(CNSNews.com) - A picture of a soldier holding a canteen and a knife has earned the third-grade boy who drew it a suspension from school. Wire reports said the third-grader also drew a fort, listing its inventory as guns, knives, and first-aid kits. The principal of Lenwill Elementary School in West Monroe, La., is quoted as saying that the school "can't tolerate anything that has to do with guns or knives." The boy's father said he's been forced to explain to his son that being in the Army and owning guns "is not bad." According to press reports, school officials stand by their decision to punish the child for what they consider "a violent arrangement."
Links to other web sites dealing with "zero tolerance" are listed at the bottom of this page.
Outrageous! 97-year-old handcuffed, jailed for unpaid traffic ticket. Police say they had no choice but to go by the book when they handcuffed a 97-year-old woman and took her to jail for failing to pay a traffic ticket.
Editor's Note: The police are really saying they have no common sense, no judgement, no latitude or discretion of any kind. This is the inevitable end product of zero tolerance policies. Is the arresting officer any safer with this woman handcuffed? Is Highland Park safer with the old lady under arrest? Can you imagine the riots that would have resulted if she had been black?
Other sources for the same story.
Zero-tolerance — zero-thought. For 75 days or so our kids have escaped the clutches of that bureaucratic government-employee union operated system of quasi-instructional gulags we sometimes erroneously refer to as "public schools." They're not "public schools," you see; they're government schools.
Criminal Intent. The [Texas] Legislature is debating reforms to the 1995 Safe Schools Act. Under this "zero tolerance" law, otherwise exemplary Texas students have been expelled to juvenile justice boot camps and referred to prosecutors. Their heinous crimes? Unknowingly bringing a pocket knife to school that was left in a jacket from a weekend hunting trip, or taking Celebrex at lunch to relieve pain from a broken knee, are just two examples.
Texas School Suspends Student for Answering Call in Class From Dad in Iraq. A Texas sergeant and his son recently found themselves separated not only by an eight-hour time difference, several bodies of water, hundreds of miles and a war, but by a high school official who suspended the boy for answering his dad's call during class. Cove High School in Texas, where half the students have at least one parent deployed, justified the punishment against Brandon Hill by saying he had violated the no-cell-phone policy when he took the call from his father, who is serving in Iraq.
Attack of the preschool perverts: Is American public education a form of child abuse? The Washington Post's Brigid Schulte reported this month on a student named Randy Castro, who attends school in Woodbridge, Va. Last November at recess he slapped a classmate on her bottom. The teacher took him to the principal. School officials wrote up an incident report and then called the police. Randy Castro is in the first grade. But, at the ripe old age of 6, he's been declared a sex offender by Potomac View Elementary School. He'sguilty of sexual harassment, and the incident report will remain on his record for the rest of his school days — and maybe beyond.
Zero tolerance policy nixes common sense. According to a district spokesperson, the code of behavior stipulates that police may be called for "offenses involving weapons, alcohol/drugs, intentional injury, and other serious violations." Um, call us crazy, but what [Six-year-old] Randy [Castro] did doesn't meet that test.
Ninth Grader Punished For Taking 40-Cent Lunch. A Sumner County ninth grader is charged with theft and sent before a judge for taking a 40-cent lunch without paying. Krista Goetleuck thinks her son's school went way too far. She said her son is not a troublemaker, he was just hungry. "Our last hospitalization was $78,000," said Goetleuck, who moved to Nashville a few months ago. She said her youngest child has had brain surgery. With a family of six and a sick child, every penny counts for her family, Goetleuck said.
Girl, 10, Arrested for Using Knife to Cut Food at School. A 10-year-old Florida girl faces felony weapons charges after bringing a small steak knife to school to cut up her lunch, according to a report on MyFOXOrlando.com. School officials say the Ocala 5th grader had brought a piece of steak for her lunch, and a four and a half inch steak knife with which to cut it. According to the report, a couple of teachers took the utensil and called authorities, who arrested the girl and took her to the county's juvenile assessment center.
Same incident:
More zero tolerance idiocy: ALa has the story of a 10-year-old fifth grader in Ocala, Florida, who brought her lunch to school from home, a piece of steak — and brought
When "Policies" Run Amuck... I completely understand the need for caution in schools when it comes to weapons in the building, but I would also hope that the college-educated staff would incorporate common sense into their day-to-day enforcement of those policies.
Zero Tolerance for Common Sense. The American Bar Association says the modern zero-tolerance-for-children movement is a response to the school shootings of the 1990s. No one doubts the good intentions of those who pushed these policies; it's the enforcement that has raised concern. And [Adam] Liston is far from the only victim of this noxious overcriminalization, although he may be one of its older victims.
3 suspended for not standing for Pledge of Allegiance. Three small-town eighth-graders in Minnesota were suspended by their principal for not standing Thursday morning [5/8/2008] for the Pledge of Allegiance, violating a district policy that the principal now says may soon be reworded to protect free speech rights.
Did someone mention the Pledge of Allegiance?
Pragmatism vs. Zero Tolerance — Let Science Be the Guide. Whereas policymakers may not be looking critically for evidence before making decisions, the good news is that real parents dealing with real teenagers in the real world seem to be paying attention. Recent news from the California Parent-Teacher Association suggests that parents fed up with zero tolerance "horror stories" will lead the way in making pragmatic, science- based decisions.
Texas Zero Tolerance. When our children in Texas public schools can be accused, found guilty, ticketed, often times arrested, and removed from school before parents are notified, there is something intrinsically wrong with a system that claims to work in partnership with parents for the education and well being of their children.
Has Zero Tolerance Eliminated Campus Danger? Zero Tolerance, once adopted by a school district, cannot take into account a student's age when meting out discipline for violations. … The problem with the zero tolerance policy in academia is that the policy champions "a one size fits all solution to schools' problems".
The School Crotch Inspector: Fighting the Advil menace, one strip search at a time. There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind who think it's perfectly reasonable to strip-search a 13-year-old girl suspected of bringing ibuprofen to school, and the kind who think those people should be kept as far away from children as possible. The first group includes officials at Safford Middle School in Safford, Arizona, who in 2003 forced eighth-grader Savana Redding to prove she was not concealing Advil in her crotch or cleavage.
Backlash Forms Against 'Zero Tolerance'. Lawmakers in several states say the strict policies in schools have resulted in many punishments that lack common sense, and are seeking to loosen the restrictions. "A machete is not the same as a butter knife. A water gun is not the same as a gun loaded with bullets," said Rhode Island state Sen. Daniel Issa, a former school board member who worries that no-tolerance rules are applied blindly and too rigidly.
Boy, 8, suspended after sniffing Sharpie marker. A Westminster parent says Adams School District 50 overreacted by suspending a third-grade student for smelling Sharpie marker fumes and the clothing on which he'd drawn a stripe.
School suspends boy for sketching gun. Chandler school officials have suspended a 13-year-old boy for sketching a picture that resembled a gun, saying it posed a threat to classmates. But parents of the Payne Junior High School student said the drawing was a harmless doodle of a fake laser, and school officials overreacted.
Boy punished for T-shirt with gun image. The family of a middle school student who was given detention for wearing a T-shirt bearing the image of a gun has filed a federal freedom of speech lawsuit against the school district. Donald Miller III, 14, went to Penn Manor High School in December wearing a T-shirt he said was intended to honor his uncle, a U.S. Army soldier fighting in Iraq.
Oregon first-grader suspended for violent drawing. School officials in this southern Oregon town suspended a first-grader whose drawing of a stick figure shooting another in the head attracted complaints from parents. Ryan Weathers, 6, was sent home from Little Butte School on Tuesday [11/13/2007].
New Jersey 2nd-grader suspended from school for drawing stick figure with gun. Kyle Walker, 7, was suspended last week for violating Dennis Township Primary School's zero-tolerance policy on guns, the boy's mother, Shirley McDevitt, told The Press of Atlantic City. Kyle gave the picture to another child on the school bus, and that child's parents complained about it to school officials, McDevitt said. Her son told her the drawing was of a water gun, she said.
Zero-Tolerance for Doodling: A 13-year-old was suspended for doodling a picture of a gun on his homework. While it is discouraging that this type of overcriminalization is continuing to occur in our nation's schools, hopefully the increase in media attention will continue to highlight the ridiculous and harmful consequences of these policies.
I Have Zero Tolerance for Zero Tolerance Policies. I have a confession to make. When I was a child, I was a chronic, repeat doodler. During dull moments at school, I admit, I not only drew soldiers shooting one another, but also tanks, bombers, fighters, and even the occasional space ship with planet destroying powers. These days, of course, any of them would have been enough to get me kicked out of school. In our era of zero-tolerance, I would surely have spent most of elementary and middle school shuttling between suspensions and expulsions, with an occasional time out for social studies.
Ill. students lose diplomas over cheers. Caisha Gayles graduated with honors last month, but she is still waiting for her diploma. The reason: the whoops of joy from the audience as she crossed the stage. Gayles was one of five students denied diplomas from the lone public high school in Galesburg after enthusiastic friends or family members cheered for them during commencement.
Boy charged with felony for carrying sugar. A 12-year-old Aurora [Illinois] boy who said he brought powdered sugar to school for a science project this week has been charged with a felony for possessing a look-alike drug, Aurora police have confirmed.
Schoolboy Turns in Found 'Weapon', Gets Suspended For His Effort. In school we tell our children that guns are bad. We tell them to be good little children and turn in those bad, evil guns to a parent, a policeman or a teacher. We tell them to do the supposed responsible thing. Be an upstanding citizen and take that evil gun out of circulation so that someone else won't kill half the city, runs the logic. So, a young boy at Troy Middle School near Joliet, Illinois follows this sage advice and what is his reward? He is kicked out of school for following his indoctrination.
The End of the Pocket Knife. It used to be common for adolescent boys to carry their pocket knives everywhere, "in their pockets," although we know most schools would not approve. Such school policies might make sense today. However, the mindlessness with which these policies sometimes are enforced by school officials is alarming. Even more alarming is when the criminal justice system is employed in ways that defy common sense and our traditional notions of justice.
A new policy to keep students in line. The district's proposed policy has already drawn support from some parents infuriated at what they regard as heavy-handed discipline at schools. Students on the receiving end of such chastisement may become more prone to miss class or drop out entirely because they feel they are misunderstood. Parents also are concerned that administrators aren't giving suspended students a fair shake. Naomi Haywood is one such parent. She believes her 16-year-old son, Jonathan Hargrove, has been suspended twice for fights he did not start because the school he attends, Fremont High School in South Los Angeles, has a zero-tolerance policy for fighting.
Zero Tolerance for Security Guards. Security guard George Stevenson chased a suspected burglar onto Arlington Elementary School property and through the school itself. When he was apprehended, the suspect was armed with a knife. According to school officials, however, the real criminal was Stevenson. Because he carried an otherwise legal pistol, Stevenson was arrested and charged with felony possession of a weapon on school property.
Suspended for folding a piece of paper. Destiny Thomas, an 11 year-old student at Amber Terrace Intermediate School in the Desoto Independent School District, folded a piece of paper into the shape of a gun. She and two classmates were suspended and sentenced to 30 days of alternative school for their flagrant violation of district anti-gun policies.
Perhaps they would have given her a lighter punishment, but...
SELECT PUNCH LINE:
• her paper gun was loaded!
• she had modified it for full-auto!
• she didn't draw a trigger lock on it!
Toy gun on transit bus leads to police investigation. A police investigation for an action that is not criminal, plus a school district investigation. The goal: to expel a student for posession of a toy gun that was not used improperly. Does this strike anybody else as ridiculous?
Indiana students punished for school rule violations that occur "anywhere at any time". Although the streaker was not on school grounds, the event did not happen during school hours and did not involve any of the corporation's schools, East Porter County [says it] was well within its legal right to suspend the student.
Boy Faces Suspension For Bringing a Butter Knife To School. A butter knife in a boy's book bag led to suspension at Omaha Public Schools this week. … Now, there's a standoff. Gray's parents say they won't send their son to school until the district backs down on its mandatory suspension, and the district said it doesn't have any plans to do that.
"Zero Tolerance" Policies and the Constitution. The Columbine High School shootings in Colorado in 1999 produced a climate of fear and near-hysteria among school administrators around the country. Many public school systems responded by imposing disciplinary policies calling for "zero tolerance" for weapons possession, drug use and threatening speech, in some cases creating absurd and tragic results. School authorities justified these "zero tolerance" policies under a Clinton-era federal law, the "Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994" that required as a condition of receiving federal funds (as all state educational systems do) that states enact laws mandating one-year expulsions for any student who brings a "weapon" to school.
Rutherford Institute Appeals to U.S. Supreme Court on Behalf of Kindergartner Suspended for Make-Believe Game of "Cops & Robbers". The lawsuit stems from a playground incident that resulted in four kindergarten boys being suspended from school for three days for playing a make-believe game of "cops and robbers" during recess.
Zero Common Sense School Discipline Rules Cheapen Students' Humanity. Ever since an over-eager school administrator first dreamed up the concept of "zero tolerance" policies, the outrages have been pouring in from all across the country. Incidents include a boy suspended for bringing a water pistol to school, a student disciplined for telling friends that breath mints would make them jump higher, a girl expelled for bringing a nail file to class and a high schooler commended for his valor in taking a knife away from a suicidal friend — although he was then suspended for violating the school's zero tolerance policy against weapons possession.
Why tolerance is fading for zero tolerance in schools: Unaware it had turned cool overnight, Eddie Evans's 12-year-old son bolted out of the house in shirt sleeves. He was on his way to the bus stop when his mother called him back for a jacket. In third period the boy discovered that the three-inch pocketknife he had taken to his last Boy Scout meeting was still inside his coat — a definite no-no under the school's zero-tolerance policy. Unsure what to do, he consulted a friend before putting the knife in his locker. The friend turned him in and, after lunch, police arrested him and took him to a juvenile-detention center without contacting his parents, according to senate testimony.
5-year old censored by NY school will get his day in court. 5-year old Antonio Peck had no idea when he turned in his homework assignment — a poster about protecting the environment — that it would land him in federal court. … It featured, among other things, a cut out picture of Jesus — something he reportedly thought applicable to the environment, and the assignment.
4-year-old suspended for hugging teacher's aide. School administrators gave a 4-year-old student an in-school suspension for inappropriately touching a teacher's aide after the pre-kindergartner hugged the woman.
Cops and Robbers? Not On This Playground. From California to New Jersey, public schools are banning the children's game of "cops and robbers" and threatening students with expulsion out of a fear that even imaginary weapons pose a threat.
Zero Tolerance, Zero Evidence. Despite the controversies that it has created in school districts throughout the country, zero tolerance continues to be a widely used response to school disruption and violence. This paper explores the history, philosophy, and effectiveness of zero tolerance school disciplinary strategies.
"Zero Tolerance" = Ethically Inert. One can sympathize with schools and school boards, in this litigative era, that decide to install "zero tolerance" policies that eliminate any opportunity for debate or analysis. You do "X" and the punishment is "Y." No excuses, mitigating circumstances, or special dispensations allowed.
Zero tolerance or zero common sense? A first-grader at Struthers Elementary School in Youngstown, Ohio, was suspended for 10 days for taking home a plastic knife from the school cafeteria in his book bag. The 6-year-old wasn't threatening anyone; he just wanted to show his mother he had learned how to spread butter on his bread.
Suspended for disagreeing. Tyler Zilz, a sixth-grader at Willowcreek Middle School disagreed with new school rules that prevented students from socializing before school and during lunch periods. With the help of his older brother he wrote a three page letter and distributed copies. … The principal gave him a one day in-school suspension for "interfering with the educational process".
Eight year old boy faces charges for pointing toy gun. An 8-year-old Whitmore Lake boy is facing criminal charges for pointing a toy gun at three other youngsters and threatening to shoot them. Even though the incident involved a toy gun, the Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office said, Tommy Davis' intent was to threaten and scare the other children. The boy, who was 7 at the time of the incident, has a hearing on three felonious assault charges … in Washtenaw County Juvenile Court.
School drops knife case against student. Warren Township school leaders today [4/4/2006] ordered a halt to the disciplinary proceedings against a teenager who said he accidentally brought a pocket knife to his middle school.
AK-47 boast earns Pottstown Middle School student suspension. A seventh-grade student was suspended for four days last month after talking about bringing an AK-47 assault rifle into Pottstown Middle School.
Bar Association Wants End To "Zero Tolerance". The American Bar Association voted [in February, 2001] to recommend ending "zero tolerance" school discipline policies. Advocates hope the resolution will prompt school districts to re-evaluate such policies, which cover weapons, drugs or violence in schools. The National Association of Secondary School Principals didn't agree.
Report Details the Folly of "Zero Tolerance". Destructive "zero tolerance" policies in the nation's schools are leading students off the academic track, sometimes straight to the jailhouse, critics say. In what's billed as a "first-of-its-kind" report, a public policy group called the Advancement Project noted, "In school district after school district, an inflexible and unthinking zero tolerance approach to an exaggerated juvenile-crime problem is derailing the educational process."
Zero Tolerance and the Never-Ending Lockdown in America's Public Schools. The imposition of draconian zero tolerance penalties teaches our young people a very bad political science lesson: that government authorities have total power and can violate constitutional rights on a whim. To those who are concerned with the erection of a police state in America, such policies should be causing alarm bells to go off.
Scented hair gel, deodorant could mean jail time for Canadian youth. "A Halifax-area teenager may face criminal charges for wearing Dippity Do hair gel and Aqua Velva deodorant to school after his teacher complained to the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Mounties] about his fragrant abuse of the school's no-scent policy.
Board of Education expels student for three policy violations. Although the student did not actually have access to any firearms he was expelled as the district has made the idea of a gun equivalent to actually possessing one.
Editor's Note: Here is another interesting point in the story above: "[Superintendent Lynn] Evans noted that although the student is expelled, he is still considered a student in the district; however, he cannot attend classes. The superintendent explained that the district remains responsible for the student's education." What does that mean? He cannot attend classes, but the school district wants to retain control of his education, and wants to be reimbursed by the US Department of Education as if he was still in a classroom.
Zero Tolerance and the U.S. Supreme Court: The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from a New Jersey boy who, as a kindergartner in 2000, was suspended for playing cops-and-robbers (using pointed fingers as "guns") with three other little boys during recess. The appeal of the summary suspension — there was never a warning given — claimed that the school district had violated the boys' constitutional rights to free speech, procedural due process and equal protection of law ("just plain silly" is not a basis for a Supreme Court appeal).
"Zero Tolerance" Policies and the Constitution. The Columbine High School shootings in Colorado in 1999 produced a climate of fear and near-hysteria among school administrators around the country. Many public school systems responded by imposing disciplinary policies calling for "zero tolerance" for weapons possession, drug use and threatening speech, in some cases creating absurd and tragic results.
Kindergarten "Cops & Robbers" Case Goes to the U.S. Supreme Court. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of elementary school student A.G. and his parents in their case against the Sayreville Board of Education and the principal of Wilson Elementary School. The lawsuit stems from a playground incident that resulted in four kindergarten boys being suspended from school for three days for playing a make-believe game of "cops and robbers" during recess.
Excellent! Tracking and Fighting Zero Tolerance: A long annotated list describes the Rutherford Institute's activity in defense of schoolchildren whose rights to freedom of speech, due process, property, privacy and public education have been violated by imposition of Zero Tolerance policies.
This commentary was written in 1999:
Smashing Free Speech and Turning Our Schools Into Pressure Cookers. During the past seven years, less than one percent of the schools across the country have experienced a violent death on campus, according to June Arnette, associate director of the National School Safety Center. However, since the latest shooting in Conyers, Georgia and Littleton, Colorado, schools have instituted oppressive "safety" measures such as sign-in sheets, metal detectors, uniforms and unwarranted searches. As a result, many of our nations' schools now resemble prisons more than educational institutions. The students are paying the high price for such safety, and it is costing them their civil rights.
Let Boys Be Boys, Not Criminals-in-training. By today's zero-tolerance standards of child's play, my brother and I both should have been sent to the electric chair decades ago. In fact, every child in our neighborhood and at school would qualify today as a juvenile delinquent at least, a potentially homicidal maniac on average.
Silencing Student Speech — And Even Artwork — in the Post-Columbine Era: The relevant supreme court cases, and how they have been misapplied.
One Strike and You're Out. A female Cadillac Junior High School student who brought prescription drugs on school grounds was expelled for the remainder of the school year. Principal Jack Richards said the student received an immediate 10-day, out-of-school suspension and the incident was reported to the local police.
Another GI Joe Suspension. A third-grader at Sun Valley Elementary was suspended for bringing a G.I. Joe toy handgun to school. … "It's about an inch long," said Vicki Stewart, the boy's grandmother and guardian. "(The principal) had to tape it to a piece of paper to keep from losing it."
"Zero Tolerance" Must End Now. It's clearly ineffective, since there have certainly been more school shootings over the past five years than ever before. It teaches children that Constitutional guarantees don't apply to them, which goes against everything schools should be teaching them. It tells children that schools consider them untrustworthy, violent creatures, which is the sort of thing some children will take to heart. It takes decision-making responsibility away from teachers and forces principals and administrators to defend ridiculous decisions, eroding respect for the school system. And most importantly, it punishes the innocent.
Watching You: A Diet Coke shared among friends was enough to undo 12-year-old Alyssa Nemec's life.
When Policies are blindly Applied: Andrew Follett, Jr., 18, was a junior at Downingtown High School East until he was permanently expelled March 18 by a vote of the Downingtown Area Board of School Directors. He was charged with possession of a controlled substance and being in possession of a weapon. The problem is the items he is charged with "possessing" were found in his father's car across the street (Route 113) in the parking lot of Calgary Fellowship Church.
Florida teen takes Mom's car to school, gets expelled. Amanda Conroy had some car trouble so took her mother's car to school. That happened to be the day that police did a random search of students' cars. Inside her mother's Durango was her mother's stun gun.
Dangerous cookie carrier suspended for a month and a half. Jules Gabriel was suspended on April 2 and will remain suspended until at least May 13. His crime was possession of a deadly weapon - a snack pack of Nutter Butters.
Patterns and stripes go next. School bans solid color T-shirts to counter gangs.
School suspends teen for rap lyric: A 15-year-old Brookfield Central High School student's homemade rhymes earned him a five-day suspension and could get the honor student expelled because of a lyric deemed threatening toward the principal — perhaps the first such case in Wisconsin.
Zero tolerance is turning students into criminals. Acts once handled by a principal or a parent are now being handled by prosecutors and the police.
Sledder hurt in accident may be arrested. Julie Miles has two kids at A.G. Bell Elementary in Kirkland, a school with a zero tolerance for snowballs. Students there say they were told they can't even touch the snow, much less pack and hurl it.
Zero tolerance has its limits: A student's suspension is cut so his school won't lose money.
The zero-tolerance failure: Administrators and board members must always look for ways to put more common sense into the procedures. Blanket policies are no substitute for a thoughtful approach to each case. "When in doubt, kick 'em out," is not good legal or education policy.
Student Punished For Keeping Extra Soda From Machine. A Rio Rancho [NM] teen was slapped with an in-school suspension for taking both sodas that came out of a vending machine, when he had only paid for one.
Bleeding Through the Band-Aid of Zero Tolerance: The fear that school violence is escalating is unfounded. According to the US Department of Education, school violence has actually been on the decline since 1990. Some sources say that it has decreased as much as 30%. In fact, a child is three times more likely to be struck by lightning than to be killed violently at school.
Department of Overreaction Department: We're fooling ourselves and conning our kids if we claim that zero tolerance for normal practices that involve trivial risks will result in zero disasters. The world just doesn't work like that.
4th-grader suspended for gun shell in pocket: Campus sponsors "Camouflage Day," then kicks out the boy due to "zero tolerance".
Student broadcaster suspended for saying "God bless". A high school student dismissed from his school broadcast program for signing off with "God bless" is rallying community members to his side. James Lord, a senior at Dupo High School in Dupo, Ill., was suspended for one month from his daily news broadcast on the school's closed circuit television after signing off his Dec. 17 broadcast, the Belleville News-Democrat reported.
Pro-life shirt barred as "obscene": A Virginia high school student was barred from wearing a shirt with a pro-life message because it violates the school's policy against profane or obscene language.
Expelled, and it wasn't even a real phaser. Zero-tolerance policies along with gutless administrators combine to destroy a young man's education.
High School student suspended for possession of Tylenol. Rachel Warrick changed into her PE clothes and headed for the gym, leaving her book bag in the locker room as she always did. She then joined the other students as they waited for class to begin. Shortly, an announcement came on through the PA system explaining that all students would be locked into their second period classes until further notice. Drug bust. This is a normal event in almost every high school across America.
Common Sense Urged over "Zero Tolerance": The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) says that no evidence exists that proves that zero-tolerance laws lower school crime rates nationwide. The NCES, an arm of the Department of Education, is conducting a study on the effectiveness of such laws.
Zero-tolerance and school discipline policies: State-by-state evaluation. [PDF]
Losing my Tolerance for "Zero Tolerance". (See photo below.)
Reader Comments on "Zero Tolerance": "This collection of letters is not representative of all letters received. The balance is actually a much higher percentage of agreement than disagreement than shown here!"
Zero Tolerance Equals Zero Thinking: What are we really teaching children by zero tolerance? To see evil where none exists? Or that justice is arbitrary and authorities are waiting to get you? Who is really out of control?
Toy Soldiers: "Zero tolerance" is a handy buzz phrase for concerned citizens dealing with bad things. But the phrase is also a good sign that people are putting their brains in neutral and surfing a popular panic of the moment.
Less Than Zero: This isn't just another story about zero-common-sense policies in the schools. It's about how families can show zero tolerance for these policies by taking matters into their own hands.
Zero Tolerance, 100 Percent Control: In its daily editorial website, the Wall Street Journal keeps a running tabulation of the "zero tolerance" inanity that has swept public schools in this country. From the suspension of a third grade boy in Monroe, Louisiana, for drawing a picture of a soldier to the high school honor student kicked out of school because someone saw a dull table knife in her car, we are treated to accounts of "education" bureaucrats running amok.
America is a police state. Would you say that kicking a young girl out of school because her Tweetie Bird key chain is a weapon is just a bit rigid? How about expelling an Eagle Scout who inadvertently came to school with his Boy Scout ax in the trunk of his car after a Scout meeting the previous night?
Girl gets "unexcused absence" for Bush event. Student sings in choir at presidential speech, punished with 'D' grades.
Schools' Zero Tolerance Not Always Best, Schlafly Says: A pro-family leader says many of the zero-tolerance policies being implemented in public schools across the U.S. are having a detrimental effect on young boys.
The Problem with "Zero": No human institution can be run by the inflexible application of bureaucratic rules, without any regard for individual cases or any attempt on the part of those in authority to apply thoughtful judgment to situations. Why would anybody think so?
The insanity called "zero tolerance": What are we doing to children? They can no longer have imaginations. They can no longer have innocent flirtations, even in the first grade. And worse, they can no longer do the right thing and get a hero's appreciation. They have become victims of a totalitarian nightmare called "zero tolerance."
California: No Gun Photos Allowed. A nine-year-old is almost suspended from a Los Angeles Unified School District school because a substitute teacher discovered photographs of him and his brother shooting firearms. The photos were taken when their aunt, a police firearms instructor, took them for some safety training.
The Insanity of Zero Tolerance: I am here to express my outrage over a widespread shortcut being utilized in public schools throughout the nation, and also by law enforcement in many jurisdictions. This shortcut, this doctrine of destruction, goes by the name of zero tolerance.
Special Report: "Zero Tolerance Policies": On June 20, [2000,] The Civil Rights Project of Harvard University released "Opportunities Suspended: The Devastating Consequences of Zero Tolerance and School Discipline Policies." The Report described zero tolerance as "a brutally strict disciplinary model that embraces harsh punishment over education." "Children are not only being treated like criminals in school, but many are being shunted into the criminal justice system as schools began to rely heavily on law enforcement officials to punish students."
Back To School Special: The school year begins, and parents have two new things to worry about: Will our children be safe from violence, and will our children be safe from school administrators who — over-reacting to the actual level of danger — might suspend our children, expel our children or send our children for psychiatric evaluation because of a joke or a misunderstood comment or a nail-clipper.
From the Zero Tolerance Follies: Doodles of Death!: A Pennsylvania sixth-grader was suspended for three days for drawing stick figures of two teachers with arrows through their heads. The school called them "terrorist threats".
Draw Your Weapon: An 11-year-old fifth grader was taken from his elementary school in handcuffs after his classmates turned him in for drawing pictures of weapons.
Schools' solution to violence: Silence the weird. What a windfall Columbine has been for timid educational bureaucrats: They don't have to deal with their disaffected students, they can just wash their hands of pain-in-the-backside kids and ship them off to jail.
This ties in nicely with the Draconian Punishment of the Month: In the 7th century B.C., an Athenian named Draco established a code of laws which, rather than promoting stability and equality as expected, became known for their terrible severity. Even 2600 years later, we use the word Draconian for cases like [the ones on this page.]
Zero tolerance strikes again: Under Nevada state law, a student who has never had a problem before can be deemed a "habitual" troublemaker with one erroneous act.
Sunscreen is Banned while Ritalin is Abused: It is especially important for children to avoid sunburn, because research has found that childhood burns may much later lead to cancer. But sunscreen has now been banned as a drug in schools.
Crackdown on Children Won't End School Violence: Although school violence is rarer today than in more than a decade … politicians and interest groups continue to push their own pet solutions.
Texas City Restricts Toy Guns in Public: The Carrollton City Council has restricted the possession of realistic toy guns in public after a recent scare in which a police officer mistook a replica gun held by a child for the real thing.
Anti-Gunners Targeting Kids' Toy Guns In NYC: Criminals in New York City are increasingly turning to children's toy guns as their weapon of choice, according to some members of the city council, who want their colleagues to consider banning the sale of plastic pistols altogether.
Schools contend with complications of zero-tolerance policies: Zero-tolerance policies on violence have become hotly contested in some public school districts where strict interpretations of the code have demonstrated that a policy which looks good on paper may not be in practice.
Zero tolerance rule upsets kids and parents: Kids playing with finger guns were accused of "violent and aggressive behavior"; then the parents are asked if they had guns in their homes. One parent's reply: "It's none of their business if we have a gun."
Imaginary gunplay backfires: A fifth-grade girl, armed only with an oak leaf, is now in big trouble thanks to Zero Tolerance.
Madison [Wisconsin] Sixth-Grader Faces Expulsion Over Science Project: A Cherokee sixth-grader could be expelled for a year, after bringing a kitchen knife to school for a science project. He needed it to cut an onion. Chris' father Larry Jorgenson reportedly said that district officials unofficially told them that Chris would be eligible to return to school if he admits he committed a "crime," submits to psychological evaluation and completes an anger management course. District officials consider this a no brainer. There is "no tolerance" for weapons in school. However, Chris Schmidt, 12, considered the knife a kitchen utensil -- not a weapon.
Editor's Note: On one point we agree: It is a "no brainer". But apparently it is the school officials who aren't using their brains.
Guidance for Fighting A Zero Tolerance Injustice: Free advice from "just another parent that has experienced this injustice and has heard from countless others who have had similar nightmares."
The failure of zero tolerance: A nationwide crackdown on students has resulted in disproportionate punishments and racial profiling.
Criminalizing Toy Guns: Gun control has reached absurd limits in America. In Michigan, an 8-year-old boy is being prosecuted for pointing a toy gun at three other youngsters and threatening to shoot them. If this had happened in my day, every boy would have spent his youth in prison.
British Gun Control Activists Want to Ban Air Rifles: British gun control advocates have launched a campaign to strengthen laws restricting the use of airguns by children and teens, but shooting associations call the new restrictions unnecessary.
Senator Seeks to Confiscate War Relics, Other Guns: An anti-gun senator has added a provision to the Defense Authorization Bill that would allow the federal government to confiscate antique military rifles and other military surplus items.
Town's curb on BB guns becomes a clash of values: Once an icon of Rockwellian America, the lone boy toting a Daisy BB gun as he wanders the woods has a new reputation - that of an outlaw. In the boldest of a growing ledger of laws across the country aimed at grade school "gunslingers," a new ordinance here makes it a crime to let children under 16 use a BB gun - or its modern cousin, the paintball gun - without parental supervision.
How Firearms Background Checks Backfire: The Brady anti-gun law has resulted in denial of a firearms purchase to a former policeman who is an honored war veteran. Why? A juvenile record from 42 years ago that was supposed to be "sealed" nonetheless came back to deny him the right to buy a gun for his wife's protection.
Patriotic pins are not "gang paraphernalia". Officials say teacher banning flag button "acted outside district policy" In prohibiting a pair of students from wearing patriotic pins emblazoned with an American flag and the words, "God Bless America," a teacher misapplied the district-wide ban against "gang paraphernalia," according to California's Anaheim Union High School District.
Zero Tolerance = Zero Common Sense = Zero Justice. This page is devoted to challenging and exposing primary and secondary school administrators' mindlessly inflexible enforcement of so-called "zero-tolerance" policies, which dictate that all infractions, however minor, against certain regulations will be punished as major offenses. (Quoting: It's no laughing matter when innocent children, who have no criminal or malicious intent, have their learning disrupted by long expulsions, or are labeled as 'drug-smugglers', 'weapons-carriers', or 'sexual harassers' in semi-permanent academic records that may be shown to law-enforcement officials or potential employers.")
Teachers, Guns, and Zero-Tolerance Tyranny: Teachers are the forgotten casualties of the education establishment's absolutist war on guns.
Zero-tolerance spiral, quoted from OverLawyered.com:
Criminalizing Kids: The officer pointed out a kitchen knife lying on the floor of Lindsay's car. She was surprised to see the knife and ealize that it must have fallen out of one of her moving boxes. For unknowingly having the kitchen knife in her car, Lindsay was arrested, handcuffed, and hauled off to the Lee County jail. She was suspended from school and banned from graduation events.The OpinionJournal.com "Best of the Web" feature has lately made it a special project to collect reports of zero tolerance excesses, which are fast mounting beyond our ability to record them. F'rinstance, there are the school officials in West Annapolis, Md., who have banned kids from playing tag during recess, citing the school's "no-touching" policy; and the honor student given an in-school suspension in West Monroe, La., for drawing a GI Joe-style commando with canteen, knife and grenades. A 16-year-old student at Legacy High School in Broomfield, Colo. "may be charged with a felony after school officials found an unloaded BB gun in his car."
Update:
No charges in a kitchen knife case. Florida state prosecutors won't file criminal charges against Lindsay Brown, an 18-year-old whose arrest made national headlines after she was barred from high school graduation because she had a kitchen knife in her car. "It once again helps us realize our system works and common sense at least works there (in the judicial system)," her grandmother said.
Criminalizing Kids II. It was a cool, clear October day in Washington, D.C., when the closing bell rang and twelve-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth ran out the door of Alice Deal Junior High School. She stopped at a fast-food restaurant for an order of hot French fries and then headed for home. Ansche took the escalator down into the Tenleytown/American University Metrorail station to catch her train. In the station, she ate a single French fry. Moments later, the junior high student was in handcuffs and headed for jail. Ansche had no idea that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) had picked that Monday to kick-off a week of "zero tolerance" enforcement of "quality of life offenses."
Shut Up, They Explained. The speech police discover "zero tolerance."
"The notion that having 'zero tolerance' of second- and third-graders engaging in harmless play is going to do anything to stop high-schoolers from shooting up their schools is sheer lunacy. And such policies do have a potential cost; it's hard to see how they can do anything other than sow moral confusion among young children. How are parents supposed to teach their children right from wrong when they are subjected to school rules that are completely unhinged from common sense? … These eight-year-olds will be teenagers by 2006. Can we expect them to have any respect for adult authority when they have seen it exercised in such a capricious way?"Quoted from The Archives of the Zero-Tolerance Watch.
Coalition Resists "Tolerance" Police: The group plans to place an ad in at least one major U.S. newspaper. "It will be about the extent to which the left in this country has misused and misapplied the term 'tolerance' to impose a rigid, politically correct ideology on America," the group's national director explained.
Teen will fight zero-tolerance insanity: A Canadian family wants their school board to apologize after a boy is suspended without evidence for drugs.
Zero Tolerance for Zero Tolerance: Zero Tolerance is another example of the road to hell paved with good intentions. What was originally intended as a policy to improve safety in school by ensuring that all children — regardless of race, athletic ability, or parental influence — follow the rules is used now as an excuse to treat all children the same when they are in need of corrective measures. Schools should have zero tolerance for the idea of doing anything that treats all students the same. One size does not and cannot fit all.
Suspensions and expulsions aren't always the answer: Despite the overwhelming popularity of expulsion and out-of-school suspension among educators, there is little scientific research to show that zero-tolerance or other "get tough" measures are effective in reducing school violence or increasing school safety.
November 1997: A Colorado Springs, Colo., school district says it did the right thing when it suspended 6-year-old Seamus Morris under the school's zero-tolerance drug policy. The drug? Lemon drops. Taylor Elementary School administrators called an ambulance after a teacher saw the boy give another student some candy, which was a brand teachers didn't recognize. "It was not something you would purchase in a grocery store," a district spokesman said. "It was from a health-food store." A spokesman for St. Claire's Lemon Tarts, however, noted that the candy is indeed sold in Colorado's largest grocery store chain. School officials were not impressed, and not only upheld the half-day suspension, but told the boy's mother that a child who brings candy to school is comparable to a teen who takes a gun to school.
Quoted from This is True by Randy Cassingham.
Popular, Obscure Symbols Defined as 'Hate': Many images and symbols have been used in the promotion of racism and violent bigotry in western culture; Nazi swastikas and other military insignia, or hooded Ku Klux Klansmen gathered around a burning cross. But increasingly, the number of symbols is growing to include numerology, acronyms and religious symbols, some of which are generating confusion and even lawsuits over their use and interpretation.
Propagandizing the Police: In principle, the Connecticut law is of a piece with recent proposals to give the FBI and other agencies enhanced power to keep political "extremists," almost always of the "right-wing" variety, under special scrutiny. Those "extremists" considered particularly prone to violence would be subject to interrogation as a means of deterring such outbursts.
Zero tolerance comes to two Tucson intersections. "From what I've seen the first three days, I'm not sure we have enough cops to take care of all the infractions," said one Tucson policeman after watching vehicle and pedestrian traffic at one of the targeted intersections. They plan to issue citations for just about everything as part of a "traffic safety" campaign.
Anti-Smoking Policy Reminiscent of '3rd Reich': If you smell like smoke, you'll be suspended for five days. That's the message students of a Massachusetts high school will receive when they return this fall, under their school's new anti-smoking policy.
End Zero-Tolerance Idiocy.
* "Even in our courts, there is no such thing as Zero Tolerance. Each case is decided on only its merits and there is no one right answer."
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Editor's Note: In order to prove "weapon possession", ordinarily you'd have to prove that the item is a weapon. Except in California, of course.
Other web sites dealing with zero tolerance issues:
Zero Intelligence: The implementation of a zero tolerance policy is the equivalent of giving up on common sense, reasonability and intellect. All infractions are grouped into types with uniform punishments regardless of the individual facts of the incident. Possession of Advil is treated as if it were equivalent to pushing crack. An honor student with the wrong type of pencil sharpener is punished the same as a known delinquent with a switchblade would be. Improper use of an inhaler leads to arrest as assault with a weapon. It is easy to see why we call these "Zero Intelligence Policies".
End Zero Tolerance: "A comprehensive and up-to-date national resource for those interested in learning more about the negative impact of Zero Tolerance upon students, families and society."
Z T Nightmares: This site publicizes the downside or evils of zero tolerance school discipline policies, and contains dozens of rather alarming anecdotes and numerous additional links.
Parents Against Zero Tolerance: This is a newsgroup on Yahoo, and apparently requires registration.
Katy Zero Tolerance. (Katy is a suburb of Houston.) This site has lots of information about a recently passed Texas law addressing this issue, and links to other resources for Texas residents fighting the same battle.
Jerry Moore's Zero Tolerance News Blog. Many more anecdotes and lots of useful information about the ZT problem and ways to deal with it.
Social Consequences of Zero Tolerance. Yet another page that describes a number of ZT cases.
Parent Advisory Council Team. This site offers advice about due process and describes ways to effectively deal with injustices at public schools by filing complaints with the right people.
The Madness is Spreading. You might think "Zero Tolerance" is a playground issue — just a way for school administrators to deal with violent kids. If you did, you would be wrong. ZT is a mindset of black-and-white rules applied to a gray world.
Our Horrible Children is a freqently updated weblog devoted to tracking the idiocy of the zero tolerance policies prevalent in most public schools today.
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