Monday, December 17, 2007

Zero Tolerance Policies In Schools Often Make ZERO SENSE!!!!

The Pink Flamingo has the latest episode here at Girl Arrested for Bringing Knife to School – to Cut Food.

This is a major pet peeve of mine. Multiply the above episode by a thousand a day and you have what is not only a horrible injustice and waste of money but something that is very damaging.

I ran across this all the time when I worked in the local DA's office. Often it was school fights. I remember two friends that got into into some fisticuffs over a damn coke. They were friends!!! Teenage boys do this. part of school is learning how to socialize and yes sometimes teenage boys and girls learn that fighting is not a part of it. But that comes through experience. Now what happened to these two boys. They went to JAIL.

Parents had to post bond. This is silly. The parents should have been called and that was it.

Now I know why this happens. In certain areas for instance there is a race issue. People will say whites kids are getting it worse than black kids and the Hispanics kids are getting worse than all of them etc etc. Now there will always be a certain faction of parents that Will stir stuff like that up. Other say it is a economic thing or who knows who etc etc. Basically stupid parents will always be with us. SO the grand solution!! Zero tolerance and haul kids off to jail to getting into shoving matches.

Elected School Board Members must show some courage here and allow their staffs to have some leeway to judge a situation before hauling 16 years olds to the Pokey. They should stand by their staffs when they do it. Parents and citizens should then stick up for the elected officials who do that. . SO from school fights to children bringing an aspirin to school there has been a tad of overreaction.

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