Crow

I was reading an email that i just got from the libertarian party...It was on the topic of Zero Tolerance laws and brought back a memory of mine...

Just recently i learned that at a middle school in my city, two kids were suspended for possesion of "marijuana". The vice principal caught two kids in the bathroom...one was selling to the other.
In the end, it turned out to be tea and not marijuana, but both kids still recieved a suspension of 8 days and 2 days of in school suspension.

Some other examples that were in the e-mail are as follows:

* A 6-year-old in Colorado was suspended for
violating the
school's anti-drug policy after a teacher saw him
share a lemon drop
candy with a friend. The school also called an
ambulance for the lemon-
drop-eating friend.

* In New Jersey, a 9-year-old was suspended --
and forced to
undergo psychiatric counseling -- for threatening to
shoot a classmate
with a rubber band.

* A 10-year-old in Colorado was expelled
because her mother put
a small knife in her lunchbox to cut an apple. When
the girl realized
the knife could violate the school's anti-weapons
policy, she turned it
over to a teacher. The school then expelled the girl.

* Three grammar school students in Colorado
were suspended for
possessing a weapon -- a water pistol.

* A 13-year-old in Arizona, inspired by the
movie October Sky,
built a rocket -- fueled by three match heads -- out
of a Pringles
potato chip canister. When he brought the potato chip
canister to
school he was suspended for a year for having a
"weapon." The school
also reported him to the police.

* In Michigan, a third-grader was suspended
for showing his
classmates a gun-shaped medallion, slightly larger
than a charm for a
necklace. He had found the piece of jewelry in a
snowbank. "State law
requires us to take action even though it was a toy,"
said a school
administrator.

* A school in New Jersey suspended two
kindergarten students
for playing "cops and robbers" on the playground. They
had pointed
their fingers at each other like guns and shouted,
"Bang bang!"

* In Maryland, a school suspended a 9-year-old
after he drew a
picture of a gun on a piece of paper.

* In Virginia, eight students were suspended
for one week after
they were caught sniffing Kool-Aid. They were charged
with "possession
of contraband" because they were "using Kool-Aid in a
way that imitated
the use of illegal drugs," school officials said.

--------------------------------
I just don't understand why anyone would be so fearful as to suspend and expel students for non-crimes. School officials need to rethink what they are doing and why they are doing it.
i'd like more input on this issue...please reply:

Niteshift

I'm pretty sure that it was the American Bar Assoc. that just passed a resolution at their convention opposing zero tolerance rules in schools. They cited a lot of "weapons" violations and a few drug ones as examples.

suede

Crow,
Your middle skool tea party ,I can see happening.The two needed to get busted.The kid selling the tea for thinking he was getting over.The kid buying the tea for being stupid.Possibly both for trying to set up the authorities for a bogus bust.(and let's not leave out the Vice Principal).He would've won D....A.. of the year for busting an illegal tea transaction back when I was in school.So someone had to be made an example of....!I think all the other examples you quoted are either fictitious or the people involved in all of them are completely ignorant.There are many degrees of "0" Just as there many degrees of intellegence.Learning institutions set rules.These rules give them guidelines to defining "0 tolerance". My personal thoughts on the american barass ociation.! not today

suede.

__________________
End World Hunger

The GCW

I think of the Bible, which is not zero tolerant.

That helps put into perspective those that support The Zero and those that are The Zero.

Will the real zeros please stand up.

Suabakey

Man, those stories are terrible.

Most of these kinds are under 10 years old! The one about the girl with the little knife really pissed me off. What's this world coming to?

__________________
~ Suabakey

Crow

suede, it's not my middle school...i don't go to middle school...that doesn't matter though

anyway, the kid selling the tea was attempting to rip off the kid buying it. the kid buying it thought it was MJ but since he didn't know, he still bought it. They weren't trying to set up a bogus bust or whatever you were trying to say about that. Also, do you really think that two kids should get a 10 day suspension just for selling tea? They didn't actually break any school rules.

Crow

oh yeah, and those examples do come from the American Bar Assoc.

Quiksilver

That's what's wrong with schools today, so much is left for the teachers to "interpret", and it's not what is lawful, but what the teachers and administration consider to be "right" or "moral". Then they turn around and use the excuse that they are "protecting" children this way. Ah, who knew our educators could be so twisted?

Crow

Also, i learned recently from a youth officer in my city that the school officals can legally search you without probable cause. All they need is reasonable suspicion. If your eyes are red, and you seem to be high, they can search you. I don't understand why they can do that if it's against the law for police to.

mrpotty

as soon as you enter school property everything changes...you give up your protection from unreasonable searches for everyone's "safety"