yes, and tylenol and asprin are a hot moving drug right now also.
Lyllyan, if nothing else, make sure that you have, IN WRITING, your school district’s policy and procedures for weapons violations in hand, and read them thoroughly. School boards can make some wacky rules and if you don’t know them, they may be used against you and your daughter. Understand every step of what happens before, during, and after the hearing, know who will be there, what you need to do, any outside agencies (law enforcement, counselling services) that may become involved, and know what the appeals process is should you lose. In short, know your rights and your daughter’s before you need to invoke them.
The scary thing about ZT rules is that often there are no mitigating circumstances, no testimonies are taken into account, no previous clean record gets a lesser punishment. It is straight yes/no to “Did you have a weapon?”, with no chance to explain yourself. Things can get out of control pretty quick with the hearings if you don’t know what you’re in for, and once it’s decided, the appeals process is complicated and time-consuming, if there is one at all.
I cannot stress enough that you must go to the principle, superintendant, or whomever, and get the policy in writing before any steps are taken.
Man, you guys should see the market on Ibuprofin! Hell, I could pay my way through college on that stuff!!
:rolleyes:
You’d think that a girl with cramps could get a little relief, but no, because if her best friend gives her some Tylenol suddenly she’s distributing an illegal substance. Good lord, people are going crazy.
The worst thing about it, is that you know there’s some kook on the PTA who reccomended this. Now you get a stonewall refusal of any sort of Asprin in school without a parent’s permission slip, proof of identification, note from a lawyer, that’s been notarized by the state, and an appearance, fax, and phone call from a licensed doctor.
Geez.
I go to a small high school, in a rural city, and there are guys who walk around with 6 inch blades all the time. My English teacher, who is a hippie at heart, just told one guy to keep it in his pocket so nobody got in trouble, so he put it in his pocket and nothing else was said about it. I took my backpack hiking with me, and my dad encourages me to keep some sort of protection and/or utility tool with me whenever I do stuff like that, so I took my 4" SAK with me. It wasn’t until school the next day that I noticed I still had it with me, so I stuck it at the bottom of my backpack all day, just to be safe.
I think this is a huge overreaction. This is the problem with zero-tolerance. I totally agree with the statement about “zero tolerance requires zero thought, and that’s why the weak-minded like it.”
If anything like that happened to me or my sister, I would fight it to the death. IMHO, a simple mistake should not be punished with the same severity as malicious intent.
Yes, a school is responsible for the safety of all it’s students, but how can you protect them from a serious offender when you can’t even protect an innocent student from your own stupidity? Is that supposed to inspire confidence in their public school system? I doubt it.
As much as many parents and adults don’t like to believe it, all high schoolers really aren’t out to harm one another. We don’t spend our nights thinking about the perfect plan to blow up the school or maim our classmates, we stay up at night listening to music and thinking of ways we can impress so-and-so. Nobody I know really wants to bring harm to our friends. Anybody who did wouldn’t try to do it with an innocent 2 1/2 inch multi-purpose utility knife. Think rationally, school administrators. For the benefit of your students. If you inspire confidence in your students, and make them believe that you really aren’t out to get them, they just might react accordingly.
Treat them like criminals and look for breaches of the code of conduct, and you will find a group of angry, rebellious kids who will just push your buttons because they know how to push you just far enough to escape punishment.
Just food for thought.
I guess I’m a little mystified by the reaction members of this board are having to this incident. I mean, I know y’all are reasonably smart individuals.
But don’t you read here in MPSIMS? Have you had your head stuck in a hole somewhere? I can’t for the life of me imagine why anyone is surprised by this. I can’t imagine why Lyllyan would be surprised if her daughter was expelled from school.
Have you not been paying attention? Everyone seems to have heard the phrase “zero tolerance”. But hasn’t anyone here comprehended what it means?
I’m sorry, I don’t read. What did you say? :rolleyes:
I don’t think anybody’s really that surprised, because we know this kind of thing is happening as part of the post-Columbine kneejerk. But that doesn’t prevent me from being upset at a apparent miscarriage of justice, nor should it.
I have two kids in elementary school and nothing surprises me anymore, when it comes to stupidity in the system. No cough drops, no pocket knives and Columbine/mad killer drills are all standard here. A child in my son’s 4th grade asked the teacher, when the students were told to hide under their desks and turn out the lights in case of attack, what would happen if a shooter came into the classroom. Mrs. M. (teacher extrordinaire and with a wicked sense of humor) said “Then we would all be killed,” That was the one rational moment in the whole exercise.
This year, if I visit my son during class, I have to stop in the office and get a visitor badge, even though everyone there knows who I am, and could spot a non-parent without looking for a name badge.
I make sure my kids know the rules before going to school every year, and remind them that, unfortunately, the rules don’t have to make sense, anymore. It may be possible to change the bad ones, but you have to try to change them before you’re caught doing something harmless but illegal, not afterwards.
mrblue92, if you’re not surprised, you’re at least displaying a large amount of innocence when you say things like
This is not the way things work any more. And you’re not even talking about expulsion. You’re talking about suspension. Questioning whether a suspension is harsh shows a complete lack of understanding about the present-day realities about bringing weapons to school.
Sure, I’m totally with your point of view. Zero tolerance sucks. It’s bad. But there’s a difference between the way things should be, and the way things are. This is what I’m talking about. To seemingly expect a punishment of less than suspension is, IMHO, incredibly unrealistic.
Weapon? A tiny pocket knife? oooo-kaaaay…
I’ll spare you my diatribe on why suspensions and explusions are, for the most part, an incredibly stupid form of punishment, and move right along…
You’re going to accept that because it’s “the way things are”? A lovely philosophy. Why bother with making any changes, ever?
Allow me to clarify. Where I come from, in the environment I was raised in, a suspension was not a light punishment. I don’t know of anyone who got expelled when I went to school, though it may have been threatened on a few occasions. Obviously your school, your experience was/is different.
In any event, AFAIC punishing a child in any significant fashion for what certainly appears to have been an honest mistake is, IMHO, an injustice. Sure, they’re going to experience injustices in their lives, isn’t it our duty to minimize them?
Precisely how I feel about the rules that are apparently over the edge of reason. We must adhere to them while we petition for change. Well stated kaiju.
That sums up one of the major problems with zero-tolerance. An accident receives as much punishment as deliberate defiance of the rules. Lillyan’s child wants to follow the rules, but the rules are almost impossible to follow 100%.
mrblue92: Am I upset when noncombatants are killed in warfare? Yes. Am I surprised? No. Am I upset when I see exhibitions of racism? Yes. Am I surprised? No.
I think we may be talking past each other here. We’re both against this sort of behavior from school administrators. Neither of us like injustice. Both of us would love for it to change. But there’s a difference between wanting something to change, and expecting it to. You must be one of those “optimists” I keep reading about. 
I’m not saying we should accept these things. But you’ll probably go through life a little less horrified if you understand that they do happen, and they do happen to people we know, and just because someone posts on a message boards that something happened to them doesn’t make it any worse than it happening to other people.
Umm. . .no. The rules are most certainly NOT “almost impossible to follow 100%.” Unless the rules are contradictory, or something, I highly doubt it is IMPOSSIBLE to follow the rules.
Really, it’s not that difficult. Don’t take knives, guns, things like that to school for any reason. Don’t use anything else (anything that is NOT a knife, gun, etc.) that is normally allowed with intent to hurt. That should just about take care of the weapons rules. No knives. Period. THAT’s impossible?
I suppose if there’s a knife irretrievably jammed up your anus or something…
Rules that are impossible to follow 100%: Hijack.
My high school rules book included the following:
(Second sentence went on to list things that can’t be on clothes, like things promoting violence, hatred or drug use.) Note the punctuation. Students shall not wear clothes.
Neither kaiju nor I stated or implied support of zero-tolerance. Nor did we imply that Lyllyan’s daughter intentional broke a rule. Please don’t use my word’s as evidence to “argue” a point with which I already agree.
It’s clear from the OP that the young lady did not take the knife to school out of malicious intent. It appears that she exercised immature judgement in allowing it to be seen by other children and even that may have been an accident. I don’t think what’s happening to her is fair to her. It is however fair to everyone else who does their best to adhere to the rules.
Zero-tolerance is here already in many districts. We MUST teach our children to adhere to the rules and then work within the system to change them. Disregarding the rules, or treating them lightly because they are over the edge or we disagree with the idea of zero-tolerance is not going to get the rules changed.
Having knives at school breaks the rules and was clearly outlined in the schools handbook including the consequences for breaking the rules. Unfortunately, Lyllyan’s daughter is now bearing the consequences. She’s already serving her suspension and will be until the meeting on the 21st. To insist that she shouldn’t have to endure the the suspension is a moot point. Regrettably, it’s already in effect.
The school districts do not make up and enforce these rules to entertain themselves. Strange or silly as it may seem to some, the rules are there to protect children and staff.
It is not a bad idea for all adults coming onto campus to stop and get a badge, because there are still sicko-s out there who like to hang around schools. It doesn’t take that long to modify your routine a bit, and it helps the school staff know that you are a parent. When you think about it, it also shows your kid that you respect and follow rules, which is a great lesson. There are specific district rules about bringing even the smallest knife onto school grounds, every parent should ask for a copy of the rules prior to the beginning of school. That way, there’s no confusion and
everyone can be held accountable for their actions. Sadly, children see and hear things that confuse them and leave a lasting impression. Soon after the OJ Simpson case, my friend, who teaches 4th grade, was approached by a student with a knife who claimed it was “the one OJ used”. It was a BIG knife. And who knows, maybe a child who was upset or disturbed could cause great damage with a little Swiss Army Knife. So, teach your children well, listen to them and pay
attention to their questions and worries. Kids are scared of being hurt at school, how incredibly sad is that. Educators work their asses off, but they can’t do it alone.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Garfield226 *
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I was speaking of zero-tolerance rules in general. They are extremely difficult to follow.
Take a look at these sites.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/groups/civilrights/conferences/zero/zt_report2.html
http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kski9901.htm
Kids are getting suspended/expelled for reasons that are anything but clear. Who would consider a Certs Mint or a lemon drop a drug? Who would consider toenail clippers or a butter knife with lunch a weapon? How can kids and parents follow rules that make no sense? You try to figure out everything that might be called a drug if lemon drops count.
If we were in public high school writing a remark like that would probably get you expelled. It sounds way to much like a threat. Plus, I don’t think that it is in keeping with the forum. Try to follow the rules 100% please.
http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010408zerotolerance3.asp
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I agree with you that zero-tolerance rules are ineffective and not a good thing. However, I do not believe they are difficult to follow. Misinterpretation of a rule by an administrator is not the same as a student breaking the rule (re: lemon drops and mints). The wording of the rule makes a difference. I don’t know the specific cases you mentioned here (the websites aren’t particularly clear or in-depth on the incidents themselves), so I don’t know if the rules would cover Midol and asprin and things like that. My guess is that they do.
If we were, you are probably right. Not that I’d agree with a rule like that either. And hey, I’ve got less than a week until I go back. I’m enjoying my freedom while I’ve got it. My point was that unless you have some physical condition which prevents you from following the rules, then it (again, IMO) isn’t hard. The statement was not meant as a threat, but I do realize that it may not have been appropriate. My apologies.
Just an update. One of the ass. pricipals (punctuation mine)called yesterday. I put Mr. L on the phone, because, as I stated before, he can talk you to death. She (ass. principal) stated that they no longer have “Zero Tolerance” in the school as it just wasn’t working. She seemed much more sympathetic than she did on her initial call. She went throught the procedures again, stressed that LittleB was not being punished without trial, that’s just how the system works. She also agreed that this type of thing should be handled in the school, but that’s the laws. Then Mr. L started talking about how great LittleB is and got all choked up, and the principal is gushing assurances that everything will be just fine. We shall see.
phhsssshhh…
Carrying a pacifier in High School doesn’t mean you have a problem. It’s part of an image/personality thing, and it’s completely regular. And the girl that told on her for having the knife should be hiked up the flagpole by her underwear.
I just thought I’d say that it seems weird to me that in a country where it is encouraged by many to always carry a gun as some kind of ‘protection’, that it is so intolerant of a situation where a practical tool could possibly be used as a dangerous weapon.
Just an idle thought. Carry on.