zero tolerance sucks

Chris Knight's avatar

I’ll be damned if (Lord willing) I get blessed with children and I put them in a government-run school.

They’re not here yet.  But I already love them too much than to subject them to the insanity of a modern public school.  And few things exemplify that madness more than do zero-tolerance policies.

(Hey, I ran for school board once.  It can’t be said that I never tried to make the public schools better.  But things won’t going to get better until more people get up the gumption to tell the bureaucrats “ENOUGH!“)

Two stories demonstrating my point.  The first is about seven-year old Christopher Marshall of Suffolk, Virginia.  He was suspended from his elementary school last week per a policy of “zero tolerance”.

What was his crime?  Pointing a pencil as if were a gun at another student and making “bang! bang!” noises with it.

Yeah, ...

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Michael McIntyre, t-shirt, Marines, school

Genoa-Kingston Middle School student Michael McIntyre is a young supporter of the men and women serving in the armed forces.  So much so that he has taken to show his enthusiasm for the United States Marine Corps by wearing this t-shirt (left).

But in spite of wearing it many times to school, Michael has now been threatened with suspension by his school’s faculty and administration unless he removed or “covered up” his Marines shirt.  It was deemed inappropriate and against school policy to have an image of a gun.

It’s the sort of story that we’re hearing too much of lately: public school students either threatened with suspension or suspended outright because they draw pictures of guns, or point their fingers like guns on the playground, or even go “bang bang!” at each other.

Now it’s a t-shirt that says “Marines” and features two military rifles crossed.  As if Marines ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Alyssa McKinney has learned a valuable lesson courtesy of Lewis-Palmer Middle School in Monument, Colorado (and its primary asshole Superintendent of Schools John Borman)…

“The lesson that I learned from this is not to help people, because helping people is just going to get yourself in trouble,” McKinney said.

McKinney’s classmate Breana Crites was having an asthma attack during a gym class last month. Alyssa McKinney let Crites borrow her asthma inhaler. It might have saved Breana Crites’ life, or at the very least kept her from being hospitalized.

But for that act of Good Samaritanship, Alyssa was placed on ten days’ suspension (with the possibility of expulsion if the school “administration” judges she makes one measly further “mistake) and Crites was expelled for the rest of the year.

Read all about it here.

Superintendent John Borman had this to say…

“I think absolutely the suspension was appropriate.”

People ...

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Matthew Whalen is an Eagle Scout from upstate New York. He got suspended for a month from school for having a pocketknife in his car while it was parked on his school’s campus.

Zachary Christie is a six-year old Cub Scout from Delaware who was sentenced to 45 days in reform school. His “crime”? Bringing a spork (combination spoon and fork) to school so that he could use it to eat his pudding.

Fortunately however, the ensuing public uproar embarrassed administrators enough to bring Christie back to his regular school. And Whalen has been assured by West Point Military Academy that his situation will not be a mark against him when he applies for admission (something he has dreamed of since first grade).

It’s “zero tolerance” craziness like this that has contributed a lot to a loss of faith in America’s public education system. What the hell is going ...

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15-year old Amanda Rouse wasn’t feeling very well, so she stayed on her school bus for a ride back home from Marina High School. While the bus was on the road the driver fell out of her seat and hit her head. The bus went out of control and hit two cars, and had Amanda not jumped out of her seat to apply the brakes, this might have turned out a lot worse.

Because of her quick thinking, Amanda Rouse saved the lives of 40-some people on the school bus and perhaps those of others also. The girl is a heroine.

And now school administrators are punishing Amanda with Saturday detention for her “truancy”.

Too many school officials in this country – not all of them, but darn enough of them – are heartless, unthinking robots. Those of Marina High School exemplify this. Not to mention this story demonstrates ...

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