ZeroIntelligence.net

PassablyNews.com reports on Hempfield Area High School’s investigation of a bomb threat worthy of the Keystone Kops. They had the time, date, and phone number of the bomb threat, called in to the student hotline. Follow it back, and you have Cody Webb, a 15-year-old student, who was arrested and put in a juvenile detention center.

The call was made on March 11 in the wee hours of the morning. The school forgot about Daylight Savings Time until they figured it out twelve days later, after which Cody was released and charges were dropped.

On March 20, a few days before Cody’s release, the school established a new policy that blocks incoming calls that don’t have caller ID information. Good thinking, Hempfield Area! Once those people that want to bomb your school realize they can’t call in the threat anonymously, they’ll be forced to either call in and identify themselves or give up on bombing you altogether.

This may not be a case of zero tolerance, but as tipster Henry Cate said in his email to me on this subject, it’s a pretty classic case of zero intelligence.

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.

13 teens face felonies
Discussion and analysis at Slashdot

Updated 01 July 2005: Link to Slashdot discussion/analysis added. Tip credit to Craig Bell for the link.

The administrative password was well known at Kutztown Area High School (in the Kutztown Area School District). Between 80 and 100 students used it to reconfigure their computer accounts. They were able to disable the spy programs on their laptops and removing their Internet browsing restrictions. Prosecution on third degree felony charges has been recommended for fourteen of them.

James Shrawder spoke on behalf of a group of parents of six of the accused at a June 20 school board meeting. He said the administration may have railroaded the process by not providing authorities with the whole story.

“That’s absurd,” Superintendent Brenda S. Winkler said after the board meeting, in response to Shrawder’s allegations that the administration withheld information until the end of the school year.

Shrawder asked that the school board act in order to reverse the damage done by the administration.
…
“I don’t know why this is such a big deal,” he said. “At no time was the security of the server breached, and I don’t know that it has cost the taxpayers any money.”

Winkler agreed that the server, where grades and other private records are stored, was never threatened.

The administrative password was widely distributed at the beginning of the year and the student’s use of it apparently continued until May. This begs the question “Has the administrator been fired yet?” There is no excuse in the world for having a security breach of this magnitude and scope.

I also wonder if the school could be found guilty of contributing to the delinquency of minors. If I left a beer unattended in the presence of students and they drink it I am guilty of this crime. They left an entire network unprotected for the bulk of the school year. The students could not have committed the “crime” of looking at porn at school without the improper actions of the school’s employees.

(Tip credit to Mihir Patel)

Eighth Grader Suspended For Taking Pain Reliever

Sadie Liggett was on a field trip to Hershey Park with her eighth grade class. The York County student had a migraine and took an over the counter pain medication. She has been suspended for the remainder of the school year and faces an expulsion hearing to determine if she will be allowed back to school next year.

“A friend sitting across the (bus) seat from me asked if I needed to take medicine,” Liggett said. “I said yes and she pulled out a bottle of pills and gave it to me.”

The pills were the pain reliever Naproxen. Liggett took two and then told a teacher about taking the pills.

Big mistake. A student today must never tell any scholastic authority about medication that they take. Whether it is prescription, over the counter, legal or illegal, informing a teacher is a guarantee of being suspended and likely to result in expulsion. Today’s students can’t afford to confide in their instructors.

The drug pusher student who supplied the Naproxen was also disciplined.

Expelled student’s fate due today

Updated 31 May 2005: Student expelled, family protests. Details at bottom of post.

14-year-old freshman Sahib Brown Jr., a student at Easton Area High School in the Easton Area School District, found an Exacto knife in the hallway. He put it in his backpack with the intent of turning it over to his teacher but then forgot about it. A month later a schoolwide search resulted in the art knife and (horror of horros) a set of nail clippers being discovered. Sahib was immediately suspended for 10 days and then expelled indefinitely under the school’s zero tolerance weapons policy.

The suspension didn’t sit well with the Browns, but they ultimately accepted the punishment.

It wasn’t until Sahib Jr.’s suspension was nearly over that he and his parents got a letter from the school district that shocked them.

“I was really surprised that, two days prior to the suspension being over, we got a letter for an expulsion hearing,” said Brown Sr.

During the hearing, school officials told the Browns that Sahib Jr.’s actions endangered other students and that he would be kicked out of school indefinitely. The average to above average student who had never before been in trouble was then barred from setting foot on school property, his father said.

Teachers called to give their condolences but none of them spoke in Sahib’s defense during the expulsion hearing. The Browns will learn today how long Sahib’s expulsion will be.

Contact Information:
Principal William Rider
Superintendent Dennis Riker
School Board President George Bright
School Board Member Dr. Brooks
School Board Member Alfred Capecci
School Board Member A. Roy Cortez
School Board Member Patricia Fisher
School Board Member Dawn Heim
School Board Member Timothy Reilly
School Board Member Richard Siegfried
School Board Member Dr. Pat Vulcano Jr.
(more…)

“No Bags” Policy at Tamaqua Area High School

What rules should a school impose after a false bomb scare? I honestly can’t give you a perfect answer but I can just about guarantee that Tamaqua Area High School’s new “No Bags” policy isn’t the right one.

Starting Friday, students at Tamaqua Area High School can only bring books, notebooks and things to write with to school. Book bags, purses and gym bags are banned.
…
“We hope by limiting the items that people bring into the building we can better ensure that our facility is secure for the safety of our students,” said Fred Bausch, Superintendent of the Tamaqua Area School District.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

AK-47 boast earns Pottstown Middle School student suspension

A seventh grade student at Pottstown Middle School in the Pottstown School District made a comment about a gun and was suspended for four days.

The student told Pottstown Middle School Principal Principal Wayne Thomas, that the comment was “if there were no rules, I could bring in an AK-47 for self-defense.”

Several of the seven other students from the class who were interviewed by Thomas confirmed the student used the phrase — “if there were no rules,” [John Armato, the school district�s director of community relations] said.

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Teaching Darwin splits Pennsylvania town

The Supreme Court has ruled definitively that Creationism is not to be taught in public schools. Enter “Intelligent Design”, aka Creationism Lite. Proponents of Intelligent Design try to work it into school curriculums by claiming it is science, not religion. Sometimes the truth comes out, as it did recently in Dover, Pennsylvania after the school board ordered teachers to downplay evolution and start teaching intelligent design.

“Darwin’s theory is a theory … not a fact,” the school board declared in their statement to the teachers. “Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view,” said the report.

The command landed in the sprawling, red-brick Dover high school like a bomb. Biology teachers refused to read it, while around 15 students walked out in protest.

(more…)

3 Phila. children handcuffed by police

Two 9 year-olds and a 10 year-old, third grade students at Willard Elementary (site badly out of date) in the School District of Philadelphia, were arrested and taken from school in handcuffs. The 10 year-old was charged with having a weapon on school property, the other two were held but not charged.

Joseline Perez, 9, said the canister of Mace fell out of her friend’s pocket when they were on the playground. She thought it was perfume, she said, and as she picked it up, it discharged toward the ground. One of her friends then sprayed it into the air, she said.

When they saw that a nearby second grader was hurt by the fumes, she said, she and her friends ran into a school bathroom and helped the girl “clean up.”

The police officer handcuffed her and her friends together, side by side, she said. She was in the middle, with cuffs on both hands.

“I felt real scared. I kept on asking them to call my mom. Call my mom,” Joseline said.

(more…)