A Time Honored, Classroom Tradition Meets The Absurdity Of Zero Tolerance

I don't really think there is such thing as zero tolerance -- just stupid decisions by people in charge.

Few laws are enforced strictly as written. Otherwise, your neighbor would be obliged to call the cops every time your kid strolls across his yard.

 

"You could put out somebody's eye!"

 

unbefuckinglievable...

 

Kudos to the reporter for getting the score high up in the story.

 

People need to get a life.

I forget what state it was in, but last summer there was the story about the boy being arrested for sexual assault for snapping a girl's bra.

 

I like the part about the charges being dropped if he participates in a "year-long diversion program." A year? For a fucking spitball. What a massive leap it is conclude that kids who "flinched" and "looked annoyed" were somehow at the mercy of a "weapon" "used to intimidate, threaten or harm others."

Andrew Mikel II, meanwhile, claims not to have been anywhere near Bemidji, Minn.

 

Utterly ridiculous.

If the kid is a chronic troublemaker, suspend his ass for a couple of weeks, and have a tutor come to his home to work with him. If he's basically a good kid, a few nights detention should suffice.

 

They have to do something. But there's a long list of more appropriate responses before you ratchet all the way to explusion. Zero tolerance = zero thought.

When my son was in the ninth grade, he was minding his own business on the bleachers in the gym before school when he was hit by a book bag, the result of some other kids horsing around. He tossed the bookbag over the edge of the bleachers out of annoyance and one of the other kids shoved him. From what I was told, he didn't retaliate. Teachers intervened. My son was given three days of in-school suspension for fighting. Personally, I thought it was excessive. He was 14 years old and of all the behavioral responses he could have taken, tossing the bag was among the most benign. Not sure I wouldn't have thrown a punch when I was 14.

 

If your son got a raw deal like that you should have told the administrators you would pull him and your other children out of school for every count day for the rest of their education at said school. I'm sure the suspension would have been lifted.