Sometimes things are just too utterly stupid to believe. And the frequency that such stupidity reveals itself among the nation's educators is troubling.
Six-year-old Zachary Christie, fresh from his first Cub Scout meeting brought his folding fork, spoon and (yes) knife to school. He didn't sneak it onto the bus or into the school. He brought it because he was proud and excited and wanted to share his excitement. Bad move Zach. That's him up above. Vicious looking little tyrant, isn't he?
The camping tool was discovered on the school bus, where the bus driver informed school administration who followed their "zero tolerance" policy and suspended the kid for 45 days, AND, this award-winning six-year-old excellent student may have to spend those 45 in the state's reform school, presumably with actual violent offenders. Won't that teach the 6-year-old menace a valuable lesson?!
Read it all here.
Check out his mom's website, helpzachary.com.
Thank heaven we live here in South Dakota where common sense prevails! Oops! Wait a minute. When a student entered a high school here with a shotgun under his coat, we didn't outlaw shotguns in High School, we outlawed coats in High School! I know kids who have been suspended for three days for possessing nail clippers, while others who committed assault got one day of in-school detention.
I nabbed the photo of Zach and his mom, Debbie and his pop, Curtis from the New York Times.
4 comments:
Michael - I understand your disgust...but in this case it is misdirected. The School’s “Zero Tolerance policy” is a state law, passed by the state legislature. The Principal and Teacher really didn’t have any choice in the matter – it was suspend the kid OR break the state law. As we know in the state of South Dakota, just because it is a stupid law doesn’t mean you can break it.
What we have here is a poorly written and conceived law. They tried to amend it once to give discretion to faculty and staff in the case of expulsions…but they did not amend the law in the case of suspensions. The teachers hands were tied – he had to send the kid to the office (because other kids had seen the knife – he knew that if one of them mentioned that to the wrong parent/etc. that there would be trouble) the principal’s hands were tied for the same reason.
We can’t blame the educators for following the law that the state legislature passed and the governor signed. This was a law that was passed to score points in the polls. To look tough on teen violence. To look tough on crime. What it did was to make a 6 year old kid miss a bunch of school for bringing his new cub scout toy to school with him.
I will point out that this is a perfect example of “mandatory minimum sentencing” and how it takes all decisions out of a judge’s(or in this case, a principal’s) hands, and makes a punishment that does not fit the crime.
Anthony D. Renli
In south dakota there is a maximum 90 day suspension for bringing alcohol to school, a maximum 1 year suspension for violent behavior/possesion of a gun on school grounds. I know of a highschool student here in the Hills that was expelled for one year because he allowed another student to use his laptop to send racist emails threatening violence. The second student agreed that number one sent no racist emails, but the young man who did is the son of a school board member. And was truly not aware of the seriousness of the act, as is common among boys.
The point of this rambling story is that we have left good sense behind long ago, especially in our schools where the folks that can't teach administer. ( In my opinion...)
Anonymous,
The Zero Tolerance policy was one of the school board's, not the state Legislature.
They amended the policy yesterday, to leave such decisions to the school principal (which is where that responsibility SHOULD lie) for students in kindergarten and first grade. Second graders(7 and 8 year olds) will have to go to reform school.
This is why I have a zero-tolerance policy for zero-tolerance policies.
Post a Comment