zero intelligence
Elliot Voge forgot about the whittling knife in his coat pocket. When he stuck his hand in his coat pocket, it was too late. He had just left his step-father's car and the car had already left. He was now at school and what was he to do? You are not supposed to have knives at school. So Elliot did the responsible thing. He went to the front office, explained his situation and turned the knife over to them. After all, Elliot is a responsible kid. He never gets in trouble at school. He is a model student. So the admin office commended him for his responsible behavior, told him they would hold onto the knife and that he could get it back if he brought a parent in with him, and sent him on to his class...yeah, right.They suspended him for ten days and recommended that he should be expelled from school. Only after serious pressure from the community at large (who recognized the stupidity of this), the administrator decided to drop the expulsion recommendation. The family is still fighting the suspension even though it has already been completed. They want it expunged from Elliot's record, and rightfully so. The message that the administrators are sending is loud and clear. If you come across a zero-tolerance item that inadvertently made its way to school, do NOT do the responsible thing or there will be repercussions. Hide the weapon or pawn it off on somebody else. Plant it on an administrator and then call the cops (anonymously of course), but whatever you do, do NOT act responsibly. That will only get you in trouble.
School administrators are paid reasonably well. They are expected to make good decisions, even difficult decisions, but they cannot trust themselves to make responsible decisions when it comes to meting out punishments, so they abdicate all responsibility in this arena to a soulless, heartless, unthinking policy and breath a sigh of relief that they have avoided potential litigation. Poppycock. Elliott's family is now more likely to sue than they would have been if the administrators had simply done the reasonable thing. Litigation was not avoided. Zero-tolerance (IOW, zero-intelligence) policies only exacerbate the likelihood that a school will be sued. Oddly, in this case, there was no zero-tolerance policy to defend. But the position stems from an increasingly knee-jerk response system that over-zealously punishes even the most inane infractions, all in the name of zero tolerance. The truly dumb aspect of this whole scene is that by Indiana law, the administrators have the leeway to make reasoned decisions using factors such as the student's academic and disciplinary records and intent. But the administrators want a defensible position where they can point to policy and say, "Talk to the paper. Blame the policy. I am forced to hold this position."
And are zero tolerance policies TRULY zero tolerance? If I were to walk back to a school kitchen and find any employees with knives, is it safe to say that these employees will be fired? How about employees in shop classes? Don't give me any, "Now you're being silly...". The whole zero intelligence, er, tolerance load of horse hockey is silly. You want to see silly? Check out www.zerointelligence.net for some eye-opening silliness. Zero-tolerance is simply bad policy. If a school board won't take a stand against it and make reasonable judgments then the community ought to come together and put people in their place that will make the tough decisions.
posted by bylaw @ 9:45 PM
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