ZeroIntelligence.net

The Washington Post reports today on some nonsense at Kilmer Middle School in Vienna, Virginia. A boy has been disciplined for hugging his girlfriend in violation of the school’s “no touching” rule.

That’s right, no touching, of any sort. According to the rules, hugging your boyfriend or girlfriend violates the rules, as do high-fives, pats on the back, hand-holding, and so on. Hopefully, delivering CPR and the Heimlich Manuever are excluded, although it doesn’t appear to be that way.

From the article: “Deborah Hernandez, Kilmer’s principal, said the rule makes sense in a school that was built for 850 students but houses 1,100. She said that students should have their personal space protected and that many lack the maturity to understand what is acceptable or welcome.” At the end of middle school, you can be assured that they still won’t understand what is acceptable or welcome as they will have less experience interacting with others in a natural environment than is normal.

Consider what other similar bans could be instituted for similar reasons.

No talking: “Students should have their feelings protected from hurtful comments and many lack the maturity to understand what is acceptable or welcome.”

No writing: “Students should have their feelings protected from hurtful writings and many lack the maturity to understand what is acceptable or welcome.”

No looking at each other: “Students should have their feelings protected from disapproving and angry looks and many lack the maturity to understand what is acceptable or welcome.”

I’ve personally encouraged my daughter to consider attending an online high school instead of the public high school, but her main objection is the danger of losing out on opportunities for social interaction. Should rules such as “no touching” expand, the ability to have normal social interaction will go away and her main reason for going to the school will go with it. Why do school adminstrators believe children enter their schools still in need of learning academic subjects, but should already know everything there is to know about proper social interaction?

And to take that question down another path, why are our public schools pushing sex education at younger and younger ages and decrying abstinence education as ineffective, yet pushing some kind of “touch abstinence” answer to activities like handshakes?

Thanks go to Brian McDonald for steering me to this article. As a humorous aside, I think that an article about discipline over a hug could have little better name for the main character than “Hal Beaulieu”. His last name fits the article in a subtle way, much like one I noticed some time ago involving a policeman named Peter Couture.

VA Educators Face Lawsuit Over Fifth-Grader’s Treatment

Administrators in the Pittsylvania County School System have a warped sense of proper discipline. They are being sued for punishing a male student by forcing him to dress up as a girl.

A lawsuit alleges that fifth-grader Matthew Thornberry was the victim of assault and battery when principal Emma Austin and assistant principal Jenny Eaton put makeup on the boy last year while he was a student at Twin Springs Elementary School. Pittsylvania County School superintendent
James McDaniel is also named as a defendant in the case. The three educators have also been sued for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and gross negligence.
…
The suit also alleges the administrators required students to refer to Thornberry as a new student named “Mattie.” According to the attorney, the young boy may find it difficult to live down the incident in the community. “It’s a community where the person you went to fifth grade with will probably be a friend of yours or an acquaintance of yours for the rest of your life,” he says.

I wonder what he did to inspire these academians to such a ridiculous punishment. Perhaps the fifth-grader said something sexist, abusive and unforgivable like “girls are icky”.

(Tip credit to Joanne Jacobs)

Police Arrest 8-Year-Old After Alleged Outburst in Williamsburg Elementary School

An eight year-old student at Rawls Byrd Elementary School in the Williamsburg-James City County school district was handcuffed at school by police officers. The boy had a violent outburst when he was forbidden from going to recess with his classmates.

The four-foot pupil was led away from Williamsburg’s Rawls Byrd Elementary School in handcuffs Tuesday and charged with disorderly conduct and assault and battery.
…
Authorities say he head-butted his teacher and kicked an assistant principal when he was told he couldn’t go outside to play with other students.

Just when was the responsibility for handling and disciplining eight year-olds transfered from the schools to the police? And just when did it become commonplace for police to handcuff little kids?

Contact Information:
Superintendent Dr. Carol Beers
WJCC School Board Email Addresses
Principal DeVeria Gore
Assistant Principal Cathy Vazquez
Police Chief David Daigneault

(Tip credit to Greg Gilchrist)

U.Va. Study Shows How Schools Can Safely Deal with Student Violence

University of Virginia professors Dewey G. Cornell and Peter L. Sheras performed a study on guidelines for student threat assessment (PDF) recommended by the U.S. Department of Education. During the study period 188 threats were identified and resolved without a single one leading to violence.

Appearing in the current issue of School Psychology Review, the field�s leading journal, the study was the first to field-test recommendations resulting from the FBI�s 1999 investigation of school shootings. The threat assessment approach, developed using both FBI and Secret Service recommendations, represents a radical departure from profiling and zero tolerance approaches, which are the most widely used practices in the nation�s schools.
…
All elementary, middle and high schools in Charlottesville and Albemarle County, which have a combined enrollment of approximately 16,000 students, participated in the study. School principals, assistant principals, psychologists and school counselors completed threat assessment training prior to the field-testing. School resource officers assigned to schools by the local police departments also participated.

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Va. Boy’s Defiant Words Draw Police Response

What Yishai Asido lacks in tact he makes up for with directness. His response to a school instruction to write a letter to a Marine was to state “I wish all Americans were dead and that American soldiers should die”. Seeing as this came from an 11 year-old would your first inclination be “immature reaction” or “national security risk”? If it was the latter, you share company with some of Virginia’s finest.

When the two plainclothes Loudoun County sheriff’s investigators showed up on her Leesburg doorstep, Pamela Albaugh got nervous. But when they told her why they were there, she got angry: A complaint had been filed alleging that her 11-year old son had made “anti-American and violent” statements in school.
…
Albaugh described her son as a rambunctious student who has long opposed armies of any kind. He refused the Veterans Day assignment and told his teacher that the Marines “might as well die, as much as I care.” Whatever was said, the words had been the source of anguished conferences, phone calls and, ultimately, a day of in-school suspension.

Albaugh thought the whole thing was resolved in school until Investigators Robert LeBlanc and Kelly Poland showed up last week. What followed, she said, was two hours of polite but intense and personal questioning.

They asked how she felt about 9/11 and the military. They asked whether she knows any foreigners who have trouble with American policy. They mentioned a German friend who had been staying with the family and asked whether the friend sympathized with the Taliban. They also inquired whether she might be teaching her children “anti-American values,” she said.

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8-Year-Old Suspended For Having Butter Knife In Lunch Bag
Boy returns to school after butter-knife suspension

The King William County zero tolerance policy was founded on the idea that all weapons are created equally. A butter knife is the same as a hunting knife is the same as a ninja sword is the same as a bayonet affixed to a loaded assault rifle. 8 year-old Nicholas Heath ran afoul of the policy when his mother packed him a lunch including bread, peanut butter, jelly and a butter knife to assemble his sandwich.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Nicholas, a third-grader, had been suspended for 10 days and faced the possibility of being placed in disciplinary classes for a year.
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[Joyce] Heath said she packed a butter knife in her son’s lunch along with a package of peanut butter and jelly on Oct. 1. She said Nicholas did not do anything threatening with the knife.

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Zero Tolerance Angers Parents

Patrick Dimarchi is an excellent student (3.5 GPA) and had never been in trouble at school. He went on a camping trip and inadvertently left a hunting knife in his car. Last week his car was searched at school as part of a random search.

Shenandoah County Public Schools have a strict policy like many school districts that prohibits any knife with a blade longer than three inches to be on school property.
…
Patrick has been suspended for 10 days and could be expelled. Other students at Stonewall are facing similar charges.

Exemplary student, honest mistake, zero tolerance. The school board does have the discretion to be lenient and allow Patrick to remain in school. I hope they use it.

Students at Virginia School Told to Remove Pro-Life T-Shirts

In Spotsylvania, Virginia, a 12 year-old student at Battlefield Middle School was initially permitted to wear her shirt. She also distributed 40 pro-life shirts to friends. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper, a principal later asked the students to remove the shirts when they caused a classroom of students to begin debating abortion.

This is a t-shirt campaign organized by the pro-life group Rock for Life and supported by the Thomas More Law Center.
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Update 30 April 2004: Perry gets the benefit of some tolerance (at bottom of post)

Alexandria Superintendent Busted For Drunk Driving
Schools Chief’s Arrest Sparks Criticism, Support
Alexandria School Chief, Board Discuss DWI Charge
Zero Tolerance — For Mistakes or Second Chances

Last Friday, Alexandria City Public Schools Superintendent Rebecca Perry was arrested for driving drunk. Her blood alcohol level was 150% of the legal limit.

Perry became the city’s first female superintendent when she took the job in August 2001. She had previously been superintendent in Mecklenburg County in Southside Virginia and had spent 21 years in Fauquier County public schools as a teacher and administrator.

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Pr. William Expanding Discipline Case Options

Prince William County is overhauling its alternative education system. The 63,000 student school system will be increasing its available slots from 120 to 480. This moves Pr.William closer to neighboring districts. Currently, Pr.William kicks out a far higher percentage of students.

From July 2002 to June 2003, Prince William expelled 140 students. In contrast, Fairfax, with more than twice the student population, expelled only 45 in the same period. Virginia Beach, which has about 10,000 more students than Prince William, expelled 18.

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