A third-grade girl was expelled after her grandmother sent a birthday cake along with a knife to school. After serving the cake, the teacher reported the girl and she then was expelled. Zero-tolerance policies are implemented in various schools across the United States
A zero-tolerance policy is exactly what the name says, a policy that has no exemptions. In the past decade, violence in schools, such as Columbine, has set a trend for school districts to develop a new, strict policy of weapons on school campus. In the editorial, “It’s a Fork, It’s a Spoon, It’s a… Weapon”, Ian Urbina, a writer with many editorials on the New York Times website, describes a situation dealing with zero-tolerance policies in schools. Urbina writes about an incident in which a 6 year old child, Zachary Christie, is suspended for breaking a zero-tolerance policy. Zachary takes a utensil (that contains a fork, a spoon, and a knife), which he had received recently after joining Cub Scouts, into school, in order to show his friends. Zachary is caught while having the utensil during school and faces the judgment of zero-tolerance policy. According to this policy, the school has no other choice than to suspend Zachary, and force him to go through 45 days of reform schooling. Zachary is currently being home-schooled, while his mother is attempting to persuade the local school board in their favor by creating a website called helpzachary.com.
Urbina emphasizes on how the school’s decision is negative through using authoritative figures opinions, but neglects to analyze the parenting involved with the child. There is a complication that lies in the matter of how the child obtained the utensil. Urbina described the object as a camping utensil, and then stated that the child had recently joined the Cub Scouts. The pairing of these two sentences can lead a reader to assume, that the child obtained the utensil through the Cub Scout program. Information gathered on when a Cub Scout receives his or her first knife depicts a different situation. A Cub Scout may receive his or her first knife when they “come of age”, which is usually at the third-grade level, also the scout must obtain a Whittlin’ Badge. Zachary had recently joined the scouts, and is only 6 years old; this leaves the question of where he got the utensil. If he wasn’t given the utensil, then his parents must have bought it for him; this places the responsibility on the parents. Had Zachary been directed by his parents not to take an object containing a knife to school, the issue could have been avoided.
When I entered kindergarten I had learned the basics, my name, phone number, address, and how to call 911. I had no clue about the rules associated with attending school. Unbeknownst to me, when I entered the school doors, I was signing an invisible contract in which I would obey all of the school’s polices. My parents knew the rules that I had to follow, but I could barely read or understand them. My father had recently given me a small pocket knife for my sixth birthday. I brought the knife to school for show and tell and it was promptly removed from my possession. I had obviously broken a rule, but I was neither suspended nor punished, I was simply told not to bring a knife to school again. There are many circumstances in which the child isn’t necessarily at fault, and is simply confused. Although I would not consider my parents “bad parents”, they had never told me the places I could take my knife. Had this exact situation been replicated today, the consequences of a simple misunderstanding would have been easily blown out of proportion. When a zero-tolerance policy is broken, the local school board should make an effort to look at the situation more closely. By investigating the situation, schools will be able to detect cases that are similar to Zachary’s, and take the appropriate actions.
Many schools have a zero-tolerance policy in order to, not only protect students, but protect their staff and the school itself legally. By using absolute zero discretion, they are able to protect other students from any possible harm. Although the policy is effective, it still removes the offending student from a controlled environment, the school setting, to a less controlled and possibly worse environment. When a student is placed in unpredictable and less controlled environment, their behavior is likely to worsen.
State Representative Teresa L. Schooley, whom Urbina also quoted, states that schools should “… act with common sense for the well being of this child.” If a student is neglected by the school system, specifically if the student isn’t at fault, that student could feel betrayed and develop a negative attitude towards school in general. Suspension and reform school should be saved as a last resort, when the student shows a clear sign of danger towards the wellbeing of other students.
The point of having a zero-tolerance policy was to make schools safer. Ronnie Casella, an associate professor of education, explains that there is no evidence of zero-tolerance polices making schools safer. Schools that have the zero-tolerance policy generally will convict a student on black and white terms. The student either has broken the rule, or hasn’t. The school that Zachary attended clarifies in their policy, that “regardless of the possessor’s intent”, the school will punish the student at hand. A zero-tolerance policy becomes sketchy when the policy calls for ignoring the intent of the student with the weapon. In order to for a student to be punished, they must first show or reveal the weapon. Whether the student is openly using it, or if it is concealed, will often depend on the intent of the student. At this point, if a student intends to harm another, a weapon may not be necessary to complete their goal. Ultimately, a zero-tolerance policy falls short in that it assumes that school staff members are attentive enough to catch a student with a weapon. Other methods, such as medal detectors, could be used as an alternative to protect students, rather than attempting to use a zero-tolerance policy to weed out “bad” students.
Zachary’s case was just one in many unjustified expulsions or suspensions, in which a student has broken a zero-tolerance policy. Although the zero-tolerance is assumed to protect students and staff both physically, its main purpose is to protect the school district legally. With no productive purpose, the zero-tolerance policy is just causing more harm than good. Good students are being punished as though they were criminals just over simple misunderstandings. If we can eliminate the danger at the source, then cases similar to Zachary’s would have never happened. The fact that we have to issue zero-tolerance policies at all is disappointing, but the waste of resources these policies have caused, is even worse.
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