Ontario Starting to Recognize Problems with Zero Tolerance
Education reporter Tess Kalinowski reports in the Toronto Star that zero tolerance policies are not harmful only to “good” students, but also to those with more troubled lives, minorities, and the poor:
It’s an issue a new coalition of Toronto youth and community advocates say has been allowed to fall off the public radar.
But, with a provincial election looming, it’s time for the Liberal government to repeal Ontario’s controversial Safe Schools Act, according to the group behind the Safer Schools Campaign.
It says the so-called “zero tolerance,” tough discipline law is still being used arbitrarily to push kids, particularly minorities, out of school and into the criminal justice system.
Many of the stories we report on this site involve good kids caught up in overly broad definitions of what constitutes bad behavior. Thus, we have cake knives in home economics treated the same as switchblades or a comic book-inspired T-shirt treated the same as delivering a message about, say, killing cops for fun. But at the heart of the problem with zero tolerance policy is the lack of gradation, and that extends even to when a more troubled child has a legitimate minor infraction treated the same as a more serious one.
The punishment for a minor infraction, such as weaponless fighting, becomes extreme, with the child under long-term suspension or even expulsion as opposed to punishments such as an after-school or in-school detention. The more extreme punishments can push students out of the school and into a life on the street. Micheal, who’s last name was withheld in the article and was a community volunteer, said it well: “You’re saying, ‘Here’s a chance for you to go outside and make yourself bad.’”
Pressure is rising in Ontario to repeal the Safe Schools Act for just this reason. Unfortunately, while changes are anticipated this spring, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne declined to give details. Let’s hope that Ontario will see that the one-size-fits-all policy of zero tolerance just won’t work and will instead find a better, more intelligent way.