ZeroIntelligence.net

The Sentinel of Carlisle, Pennsylvania reports on a Mechanicsburg area boy who has been expelled for weapons possession. The reason he had a knife was that he took it away from another boy on the morning school bus to stop him from threatening another student.

He made one clear mistake in that he returned the knife to the original owner on the afternoon bus ride, and that kid turned around and threatened his victim again. That was just foolishness. (As an aside, the boy doing all this threatening with a knife has been charged by the police, and I have no sympathy for that one.)

The other “mistake” is that he didn’t immediately take the knife to school administrators when he got to school. From the Sentinel article:

Middle School Principal Len Ference testified that had the boy taken the knife to the school office and reported the threat to administrators, they would have investigated, but he probably would not have been disciplined.

Ference said the middle school, through its anti-bullying program, encourages students to take a stand and come forward to officials any time there may be an infraction of the rules. The boy did not do that.

That easy enough to say after the fact, but it’s not clear that it’s really the case. Quoting again from the Sentinel’s story:

State law requires school districts to expel students found to be in possession of weapons, no matter what the intent, Hood said Tuesday. However, the school code gives superintendents the discretion to modify the minimum one-year expulsion for the offense if circumstances warrant it.

…

“The victim at no time could feel safe during the school day,” [Mechanicsburg Area School Superintendent Joseph] Hood said, adding some amount of expulsion is necessary for the boy and other students to realize the weapons ban has to be taken seriously.

We’ve seen this before, with kids realizing they have inadvertently bringing a weapon to school, voluntarily turning over the weapon to the administration, and getting caught up in zero tolerance anyway. Our previously reported story involving a BB gun is a perfect example. If the boy had marched into the principal’s office and had a knife in his hand, even as part of reporting a crime, the state law, as described in the Sentinel, would still apply. It’s convenient for the administration that this boy didn’t trust them, as they don’t have to fall back on a “our hands are tied” defense for a bad decision.