No-Doz equals crack
Mom labels zero-tolerance policy ‘ridiculous’
Hannah Gable, a 13 year-old student at Hershey Middle School in the Derry Township School System, is serving a 10 day out of school suspension plus a 60 day ban from school-related activities. Her crime? Pushing drugs. The actual substance in question? A No-Doz caffeine pill. She was caught giving one to a friend on the school bus.
“I figured she’d have a few days’ suspension, and it would have been well-deserved,” [Hanna’s mother Deborah] Mallek said.
…
[The punishment given], Mallek says, is unreasonable. Mallek wants the Derry Twp. School Board to re-evaluate its “zero-tolerance” policy.“The fact that it could have been a vial of crack and she would have the same punishment is ridiculous,” she said.
The district’s Student Handbook (page 39) lists the use, possession and distribution of drugs as a level IV offense. There is no attempt to identify what is considered a drug nor any gradient of punishment for the danger or even legality of a “drug”.
Davelyn Smeltzer, a policy consultant with the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, said the association doesn’t recommend one type of drug and alcohol policy. She said many school districts are seeking more flexible language.
“They’re tending to get away from the zero-tolerance type of policy to one where the discipline that’s imposed is based on the severity of the violation,” Smeltzer said. “Zero tolerance binds your hands.”
The school disagrees.
Superintendent Linda Brewer said she disagrees that the district’s policy qualifies as “zero tolerance.”
She said one reason the policy doesn’t distinguish between types of drugs is the proliferation of look-alikes, substances that resemble controlled substances or are passed off as such.
Brewer said people have bad reactions even to Tylenol.
“Whether it’s crack, cocaine or No-Doz, you can’t predict when someone might react badly,” Brewer said.
The punishment for distribution is severe because the action could injure someone else, Brewer said.
Technically she is correct about the policy not being strict zero tolerance as written. The policy specifies a punishment of “Up to 10 days out-of-school suspension” for Hannah’s crime. They gave her the maximum possible punishment under their drug policy for a violation involving a legal medicinal. They’ve made it a zero tolerance policy in practice regardless of whether it was intended as such.
The school board agreed to take Mallek’s suggestions under consideration when the policy is revisited.
> “Whether it’s crack, cocaine or No-Doz,
> you can’t predict when someone might react
> badly,” Brewer said.
>
> The punishment for distribution is severe
> because the action could injure someone
> else, Brewer said.
So the punishment is based on the fact that someone “might have had” a “bad reaction” to the item in question?
“Someone might react badly” to a perfectly legal substance is the equivalent to giving someone crack?
Is peanut butter next on the list?
Well, all forms of candy have been banned (but homemade cookies are ok, WTF? ) in the school district my wife works at. So, yes, peanut butter may very well be next.
Are they really worried about kids or is there another motive. The concept of discipline does not need to come at such a great price to a few. Only gross incompetence and indifference needs to parade an iron fist to feel in control.
Guess they better ban coffee, tea, caffinated soft drinks, mouth wash, . . . .
When I work at the concession stand at the high school football games, and offer thermally tempered liquid dihydrogen oxide with magnesium sulfate taste enhancement in a polyethylene terephthalate dispenser, I thought I was just looking for coneheads but now I’m afraid I’ll get arrested…
In my school sport, football and basketball, the players are encouraged by the coaches to take No-Doz… a major discrepancy. How can views on the sucject be so different?!
First of all, they should have been more specific in the student handbook, and secondly, the punishment for illegal drugs and legal drugs should have a thick border. What’s more, she was caught giving the pill, not selling it. “The action could injure someone else”? So, if Hannah or her friend dropped the pill and some kid whose blood already contains more than 200mg of caffeine happens to pick it up and swallow it… Please, this isn’t elementary school.
Ten days-that’s a long time to be out of class. Will Hannah be allowed to make up her class work or will she fail as a result of her suspension?
Wow, What a joke. There should have been no such punishment for a simple caffeine pill.