ZeroIntelligence.net

The Danvers Herald has a jaw-dropping article filled with the Danvers School Committee’s consideration of revisions to school handbook rules. The disconnects with reality come one after another.

For example, I think even those opposed to zero tolerance policies can agree that high school students taking heroin in school is wrong and worthy of significant disciplinary measures. After all, it’s an illegal drug and using it causes all kinds of negative side effects. Which side effect concerns Danvers? Get this:

“We just want to keep our school safe,” said [Acting Principal Mark] Strout, explaining the new availability of the police dog search unit, noting that a student on heroin could fall down the stairs and be injured.

At least two School Committee members mentioned problems with zero tolerance policies, such as the presumption of guilt before evidence and the removal of any allowance for discretion on the part of school administrators. While the final vote isn’t until August, the proposed changes were accepted unanimously. It appears these problems aren’t going to stop anyone from approving them.

Here’s another example of what should alarm people:

“I have the right to search. They don’t,” Strout said. “Even if the police are with me, they have to get a search warrant.”

There are several more. I leave it as an exercise for the student to see if you can spot them all.

I hadn’t bothered to write about the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case because there’s already so much material out ther about it and I figured those of you interested in the ills of zero tolerance would already know about it. So when it showed up today on one of my favorite blogs, Opinion Journal’s Best of the Web by James Taranto (fifth item,) I was cool with that.

Taranto also goes on to talk about a six-year-old accused of sexual harassment as reported in the Enterprise of Brockton, Massachussetts, a case I didn’t catch and he did. I can only hope that’s because I don’t have the awesome power of a world-class paper behind me!

I encourage you to read what he has to say over there on BotW. I’ll not bother to steal his thunder.

Anti-BB Gun Project Deemed Too Dangerous

Eighth graders Nathan C. Woodard and Nathaniel A. Gorlin-Crenshaw were disqualified from the state middle school science fair because their project was deemed too dangerous. Their project sought to show that BB guns are dangerous.

Nancy G. Degon, vice president of Massachusetts State Science Fair Inc. and co-chair of the middle-school fair, said fair rules prohibit hazardous substances and devices.

“The scientific review committee does not consider science projects involving firearms to be safe for middle school students,” Degon said.

Middle school kids all over the States use BB guns. It’s perfectly legal as they are not (despite quips from executives of Science Fair Incorporated) firearms. These two conjectured that BB guns, though legal, were not safe. They conducted experiments with ballistic gelatin at considerable cost to try to prove their theory. Ironically they were dismissed out of hand for trying to prove what a fair organizer decided arbitrarily.

This is how science is taught today? It seems remarkably like the science taught in 1633.

And yet it does move. - Galileo

(Tip credit to Opinion Journal, Tim Wise)

An Act RELATIVE TO THREATS IN SCHOOLS

A proposed law in Massachusetts would make virtually every document produced in a modern school illegal.

Chapter 7 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 37N the following section:—

Section 37O. Whoever, in any public or private school in the Commonwealth, produces alone or in concert with another or others, a document by any means, containing the name or names of fellow student or school personnel or both which would thereby cause anxiety, unrest, fear or personal discomfort to any person or groups of persons shall be punished by imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not more than 2 ½ years or by a fine of not more than $5,000 or by both such fine and imprisonment in a jail or house of correction.

Any document with a teacher’s name on it that causes discomfort would be illegal. Say goodbye to report cards as well as teachers’ performance reviews.

Any document with a fellow student’s name on it that might cause anxiety would be illegal. Say goodbye to group projects.

The law states that if any person feels anxious because of a document with names on it the list writer is a criminal. It does not even go so far as to restrict the victim pool to people who are actually on the list.

To add insult to injury, this law is completely unnecessary. There are already statutes in Federal law as well as Massachusetts law that adequately handle written threats.

I have seldom seen a more worthless law proposal, or one with more obvious opportunities for abuse. I live in Georgia so that’s saying something!

Contact information for legislators sponsoring this law:
State Representative Brian Knuuttila; 2nd Worcester District
State Senator Scott P. Brown; Norfolk, Bristol & Middlesex District
State Senator Stephen M. Brewer; Worcester, Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin
State Representative Christopher G. Fallon; 33rd Middlesex District
State Representative Edward G. Connolly; 28th Middlesex District

(Tip credit to Michael Rich)

T-shirts cause a reaction

Last Tuesday was National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day and dozens of Milford High School (Milford Public School District) students participated. But not for long. Administrators went from classroom to classroom instructing the students to remove, cover or turn inside out their pro-life t-shirts.

The students say it’s a free speech issue, but administrators say the shirt violated the school’s dress code.
…
Principal John Brucato said about three or four students brought the shirts to the attention of Assistant Principal Kevin Maines.

“They were very upset that these slogan T-shirts were being displayed by kids,” Brucato said. “One was upset enough to have left school and maybe a couple of others visited the adjustment counselor.”

Adjustment counselor? What in the world is an “adjustment counselor”? And why would you let a student leave school because they don’t like somebody else’s t-shirt?

The t-shirt stifling was the direct result of the complaints of “three or four” students but the veto bar is actually just a fraction of that number.

“These young ladies have the right to express their views and opinions — they have not been denied those rights,” [Brucato] said. “What we said simply was this type of advertisement is offensive to others in the community. I’ve been consistent. If even one or two individuals finds something offensive I’m going to ask that individual to remove it. I’m exercising my authority and judgment as a school administrator to administrate to the population as a whole.”

So according to Brucato, anything that is offensive to even a single person will be banned. I certainly hope the students take advantage of this incredible enfranchisement.

See Rhymes With Right for much more commentary and detailing of the 1st amendment issues involved.

Additional Contact Information:
Superintendent Thomas J Davoren
Assistant Principal Nancy M. Angelini

‘Anti-Racist’ Message in Mass. Math Class
Making math more complicated than it needs to be
Mountain: Math curriculum doesn’t add up

Updated 14 February 2004: More information on anti-racist math from Gene Expression. Links at bottom of post.

In Newton Public Schools math classes, addition and subtraction are a secondary priority to their “commitment to active anti-racist education”.

According to benchmarks for middle school education, the top objective for the district’s math teachers is to teach “respect for human differences.” The objective is for students to “live out the system-wide core value of ‘respect for human differences’ by demonstrating anti-racist/anti-bias behaviors.”

Priority No. 2 is where the basics come in, which is “problem solving and representation � students will build new mathematical knowledge as they use a variety of techniques to investigate and represent solutions to problems.”

(more…)

Student suspended over ‘gay’ remark

16 year-old Chris Carreiro, a student at Joseph Case High School in the Swansea School District, was suspended for a day for saying his teacher was acting ‘gay’.

Carreiro said he was helping a friend with books, and was late for computer class. The teacher sent him to the guidance office for tardiness, he said.

In the guidance office, he told counselor Edward Pettine that the teacher was “being gay,” but not that the teacher actually was gay.

“There’s a difference,” Carreiro said. “There was no homosexual thing. I wasn’t using profanity.”

Carreiro said the guidance counselor shouted at him, and dismissed him from the office. He later found out that he was suspended, and that Pettine wanted him to serve detention.

A school administrator commented that Carreiro was punished for more than using the word ‘gay’ but did not reveal what these items might be. Paperwork sent home to Carreiro’s parents mention only “inappropriate language and behavior.” Sounds more like a cop-out because they realized they went way overboard in punishing a student for stating his opinion.

The school and district websites lack any contact information but email for superintendent Stephan Flanagan was found on the state DOE site.

(Tip credit to Precinct 333 and Opinion Journal)

Parents want answers on security issues

Picture this scene. You go to Forestdale, your child’s school to take care of some administrative business. It’s the middle of the school day so your parking spot is nowhere near the front doors. You see a secondary entrance so you try that door. It’s locked so you give it a couple of jiggles to make sure then you make the trek to the front doors. What response would you expect to this action from the school and the community? In the Sandwich School District the response is nothing short of amazing.

Dec. 17, the school instituted a “lockdown” procedure when an individual attempted to enter the school through a locked door. Under the lockdown procedure, some students are instructed to line up against walls or duck under desks. Teachers also put paper over the glass windows on the doors leading into the classrooms. The lockdown procedure keeps students in their rooms until the situation is deemed safe. The man trying to get into the school turned out to be a parent, trying to access the school through a secondary door.

(more…)

Student suspended for knife

A 15 year-old student at North Central Charter Essential School brought a pocketknife to class.

“He just had it — he wasn’t intending to use it,” [Principal Melanie Gallo] said.
…
Gallo said students are not allowed to bring knives to school, and if they do they receive an automatic 10-day suspension.

Gallo called Fitchburg police to have them confiscate the knife.

The knife wasn’t illegal and the student isn’t facing any criminal charges so why were the police necessary?

The boy did not use it, did not threaten with it and even the principle agrees he had no intention of doing anything of the sort. The boy brought the knife to school and the school does not permit pocketknives so some punishment is certainly in order but ten days is massive overkill. Unfortunately they have a zero tolerance policy and that amount of punishment is mandated regardless of the actual circumstances of the infraction.

8-year-old suspended for bringing syringe-like device to school

Eight year old Xiomara Roman brought a syringe to school. It was the one her mother (Sandy) had used to give their cat oral antibiotics. Unfortunately a teacher noticed it and the result was a call to the Fitchburg Police and the Department of Social Services. Xiomara ended up with a four day suspension from school for this blatant drug related offense.

“This is ridiculous. I don’t agree with her bringing it to school, of course, but a four-day suspension?” Cortes told the Sentinel and Enterprise of Fitchburg. “I got the call at work, and I almost killed myself driving from Gardner.”
…
Cortes said she was questioned by Fitchburg Police and the Department of Social Services, both of whom were called by school officials.

“They treated me like I was a junkie,” she said. “I don’t know, last I knew drugs weren’t bright pink.”
…
School superintendent Thomas Lamey said a four-day suspension for a third-grader was “not very common at all, but it depends on the student’s history.”

Cortes said her daughter has never before received a detention or suspension.

South Street Elementary School principal William Terrill did not return calls asking for his comments on the bust.