I think zero tolerance policies are totally stupid: in grade school, high school, or when law enforcement agencies adopt them.
Every now and then, some blatent miscarriage of justice in the name of zero tolerance is reported by the news media. I always wonder if how the people to perpetrate these things can fail to percieve how idiotic they look.
A group of friends and I were at a high-school football game, enjoying the action…
One of us had some Vaseline, for some odd reason. Another one of us had a lighter. (No cigarettes, mind you. Just a lighter.)
Having a lapse of intelligence, we decided to see if the Vaseline would burn. Hey, it’s “petroleum” jelly! Why not?
We smeared it on the metal bleacher, and as soon as the lighter flicked, a security guard came up and chewed us all out, all seven of us.
The guy with the lighter got SUSPENDED for a few days! Each of us got some form or another of punishment.
I thought the lighter ban was to stop underage smoking…
BTW: We never actually did it. Does anyone know if Vaseline burns?
Are you sure you aren’t me? GOD, that sounds familiar.
ZT on drugs leads to things like this: Huffers who buy plastic gloves (at a dollar a glove) that has had been spray painted inside. Easy to hide and NOT a drug, so they can’t be suspended. Plus most parents are clueless enough that they don’t realize what they are looking at when they see it. This has been happening in one of our Junior High Schools. (They were being sold on the school bus.)
Well said. And of course there is the fact that any pill a teacher is likely to see is probably not an illegal drug. If they want to pop illegal pharmies (can’t see why anyone would bother doing that in school), they’d just do it in the bathroom, or palm the pill, cover their mouth to “cough” and swallow it. If a kid is passing a pill to another kid in the middle of class, I’m willing to bet it’s not ecstacy.
And the policy of having to bring all medicine to the office and having to ask permission to leave class to take it is asinine. This is giving the schools the power of life and death over students. Of course, I’m sure a lot of schools think they should have that power. Imagine this, little Johnny feels that he needs to take his medication, for whatever reason, raises his hand and asks to go. Teacher rolls eyes, “Can’t it wait. There’s only five minutes left in class.” I know teachers that would have responded in such a way. Some kids even have to leave their asthma inhalers in the office and hike all the way back there just to get a puff so they can breathe.
Soup_du_jour: I think I might side with the school on your case. Starting a fire on a bleacher is not exactly the safest thing you could possibly have done. There doesn’t need to be a ZT policy on lighters to warrant punishment in that case, just a need for safety.