ZeroIntelligence.net

Bringing a grenade to school for show-and-tell isn’t a terribly bright idea. Howver, I can understand a kid seeing it as no big deal when it was a disarmed WWII grenade that had likely been laying around the house since before he was born.

CBC News reports that in Moncton, New Brunswick, a boy has been suspended for five days for bringing the harmless grenade to school. Central to the story:

The disarmed Second World War grenade turned out to be harmless, but the principal said he won’t tolerate any kind of weapon on school property.

Principal Mike Whittleton said the boy has to face the consequences of his actions.

“The seriousness of the event determines the amount of time that he’ll be suspended,” Whittleton said Tuesday. “This is a fairly serious event, so he’ll be suspended for five days.”

Hopefully no students will bring a rock to school for geology class show-and-tell, since that would be similarly dangerous as a disarmed grenade. I just wonder what it would take for Whittleton to consider an event unimportant.

Education reporter Tess Kalinowski reports in the Toronto Star that zero tolerance policies are not harmful only to “good” students, but also to those with more troubled lives, minorities, and the poor:

It’s an issue a new coalition of Toronto youth and community advocates say has been allowed to fall off the public radar.

But, with a provincial election looming, it’s time for the Liberal government to repeal Ontario’s controversial Safe Schools Act, according to the group behind the Safer Schools Campaign.

It says the so-called “zero tolerance,” tough discipline law is still being used arbitrarily to push kids, particularly minorities, out of school and into the criminal justice system.

Many of the stories we report on this site involve good kids caught up in overly broad definitions of what constitutes bad behavior. Thus, we have cake knives in home economics treated the same as switchblades or a comic book-inspired T-shirt treated the same as delivering a message about, say, killing cops for fun. But at the heart of the problem with zero tolerance policy is the lack of gradation, and that extends even to when a more troubled child has a legitimate minor infraction treated the same as a more serious one.

The punishment for a minor infraction, such as weaponless fighting, becomes extreme, with the child under long-term suspension or even expulsion as opposed to punishments such as an after-school or in-school detention. The more extreme punishments can push students out of the school and into a life on the street. Micheal, who’s last name was withheld in the article and was a community volunteer, said it well: “You’re saying, ‘Here’s a chance for you to go outside and make yourself bad.’”

Pressure is rising in Ontario to repeal the Safe Schools Act for just this reason. Unfortunately, while changes are anticipated this spring, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne declined to give details. Let’s hope that Ontario will see that the one-size-fits-all policy of zero tolerance just won’t work and will instead find a better, more intelligent way.

Ontario teen receives apology from Governor General

Jeremy Patfield, an 8th-grade student in Ontario, was on a class trip to Rideau Hall. While touring the official residence of the Governor General he caught sight of her and posed an indelicate question to his class. The visit was aborted on the spot by the tour guide and Jeremy was later suspended by his school.

“I said, ‘Is that the woman that spends the money on the Queen when she comes?’” Patfield told CTV News.

While the Governor General was within earshot, she didn’t hear the comment. Nevertheless, the remark was not well-received by Rideau Hall staff and a tour guide took swift action to hustle the class out.

(more…)

Whitby student suspended for jaywalking

Kelly Simo, a 17 year-old student at Anderson Collegiate, had a rude welcoming when she got to school on February 5. Vice principal Pauline Langmaid handed her a one day suspension for jaywalking on her way home the previous day. Kelly claims the light turned red while she was in the intersection, the vice principal says it was red and that Kelly must be punished for this ’safety issue’ as an example to underclassmen.

I say that’s a load of bull and Kelly’s mother Jackie feels the same way. It does not matter whether Kelly jaywalked or not. The incident was not on school property and was not during school hours. Jackie Simo confronted the school on precisely this issue.
(more…)

‘Zero tolerance’ gets a second look

Toronto public schools hand out 24,200 suspensions a year. Under the new Safe Schools Act they are up 40 percent. That means there will be suspensions for roughly 11% of the student body this year.

“We might as well open up a police precinct in some high schools in my ward, they call police so often,” Toronto Trustee Stephnie Payne has complained since the law was brought in. Payne represents schools in the Jane-Finch neighbourhood.

In response, at a series of public meetings beginning tonight, the Toronto District School Board is asking the public how the law should be applied.

…
[Trustee Chris Bolton, co-chair of the board’s Task Force on Safe and Compassionate Schools] says he has heard of “suspensions of children as young as kindergarten for fighting, and also suspensions of students who are new to Canada who may not understand the rules, or children with mild intellectual delays � all of whom have lost supports in the last few years because of budget cuts.

“We need everyone following the spirit � not the letter � of the law, which is to keep schools safe with the kids in them, not by keeping them empty.”

(more…)

Schools’ zero-tolerance policy ’shortsighted,’ Miller says

Mr. Miller told reporters this week that the zero-tolerance Safe Schools Act in both public and Catholic schools, under which students are immediately expelled or suspended for violent acts, will be looked at as part of the broader issue of community safety.

“I have spoken out on a number of occasions on the zero-tolerance policy. It’s counterproductive,” Mr. Miller said.

Miller points out that these policies throw out the students who need the most help and are “astonishingly shortsighted”. The Safe Schools Act is a national zero tolerance policy requiring expulsion for certain violent offenses but even at its worst it does allow some discretion at the local level.
(more…)