ZeroIntelligence.net

I received an email from an anonymous correspondent claiming to be a school administrator disgusted with the effects of zero tolerance. I debated with myself about the appropriateness of posting these stories as there are no specifics I can use to corroborate them. It could all be a clever fiction. In the end, I decided to go ahead and give these stories from “Job Line” to readers for their consideration, but with this leading disclaimer, as he or she could just as easily posted them to comments.

So, without further preamble, consider what he or she has to say:

I have a few zero tolerance stories to tell as a school administrator. I am not revealing my identity to protect my job. Meanwhile, violent students continue with their violence with or without zero tolerance policies.

Story #1
As an assistant principal, one of my duties was supervision of the lunchroom. One day, a boy approached me and said a boy at his table had a knife. The boy knew about the zero intelligence rule the district had. I approached the table and a moderately mentally handicapped boy showed me his 1″ long plastic GI Joe knife. I took it from him and told him he shouldn’t even bring toy guns to school. That was going to be the end of it but somehow the principal found out and reamed me for not suspending the student and requesting expulsion. He ordered me to suspend the student for 10 days pending an expulsion hearing. Being that he was special education, we had a manifestation hearing to determine if his disability was related to the offense. Because I was the case conference coordinator, I made sure the determination was that the offense was related. The punishment then became only the 10 day period. I never forgave the principal for this and left at the end of that school year.

Story #2
This took place while I was a principal. The school board in all its wisdom said that they needed to be tough on violence and adopted a zero tolerance policy. I spoke against it, but they were more interested in putting on a good show for the media. A straight-A student was in the computer lab and came across a website that had recipes for making bombs. He said to his friend. “I can’t believe it. Someone could really make a bomb out of this and hurt someone.” The teacher overheard him and printed off the page. Because word gets around in this district, all the board members found out about it before the end of the day. Of course I was ordered to suspend the student pending an expulsion hearing. At the expulsion hearing, the woman thankfully brought along a lawyer who told them that if this child was expelled, he was planning on multiple lawsuits against the district and individual board members. Because he could prove they were discussing private information about this child in public, they were violating FERPA laws. He succeeded in getting this boy off with just a 10 day suspension.

Meanwhile, the son of one of these board members sexually assaulted a girl on campus. The board told me that if I suspended the boy longer than 3 days, I would be looking for another job.

Story #3
This was another that occurred while I was principal. Another great student on the honor roll had a boy scout camp-out the previous weekend. He forgot about the pocket knife he had in his jacket from the camp-out. When he found out, he brought the knife to the office. Unfortunately, a person in the office who saw this contacted a board member and once again, I was required to suspend this boy for 10 days and recommend expulsion. The story ended up good because they put the boy in a home-school cooperative and the boy re-entered school as a junior in high school. He graduated with honors.