My gosh! Can you believe this? These people are full-grown, responsible
adults, and yet, they apparently have very little common sense. As the old
saying goes, one thing about common sense is that it is not very common --
at least not in the US public school system!


It's a Fork, It's a Spoon, It's a ... Weapon?

By IAN URBINA - NYT

October 11, 2009


NEWARK, Del. -- Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not
easy. But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary
committee hearing with his karate instructor and his mother's fiance by his
side to vouch for him.

Zachary's offense? Taking a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork
and spoon to school. He was so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts
that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had
violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary now faces 45
days in the district's reform school.

"It just seems unfair," Zachary said, pausing as he practiced writing
lower-case letters with his mother, who is home-schooling him while the
family tries to overturn his punishment.

Spurred in part by the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings, many school
districts around the country adopted zero-tolerance policies on the
possession of weapons on school grounds. More recently, there has been
growing debate over whether the policies have gone too far.

But, based on the code of conduct for the Christina School District, where
Zachary is a first grader, school officials had no choice. They had to
suspend him because, "regardless of possessor's intent," knives are banned.

But the question on the minds of residents here is: Why do school officials
not have more discretion in such cases?

"Zachary wears a suit and tie some days to school by his own choice because
he takes school so seriously," said Debbie Christie, Zachary's mother, who
started a Web site, helpzachary.com, in hopes of recruiting supporters to
pressure the local school board at its next open meeting on Tuesday. "He is
not some sort of threat to his classmates."

Still, some school administrators argue that it is difficult to distinguish
innocent pranks and mistakes from more serious threats, and that the
policies must be strict to protect students.

"There is no parent who wants to get a phone call where they hear that their
child no longer has two good seeing eyes because there was a scuffle and
someone pulled out a knife," said George Evans, the president of the
Christina district's school board. He defended the decision, but added that
the board might adjust the rules when it comes to younger children like
Zachary.

Critics contend that zero-tolerance policies like those in the Christina
district have led to sharp increases in suspensions and expulsions, often
putting children on the streets or in other places where their behavior only
worsens, and that the policies undermine the ability of school officials to
use common sense in handling minor infractions.

For Delaware, Zachary's case is especially frustrating because last year
state lawmakers tried to make disciplinary rules more flexible by giving
local boards authority to, "on a case-by-case basis, modify the terms of the
expulsion."

The law was introduced after a third-grade girl was expelled for a year
because her grandmother had sent a birthday cake to school, along with a
knife to cut it. The teacher called the principal -- but not before using
the knife to cut and serve the cake.

In Zachary's case, the state's new law did not help because it mentions only
expulsion and does not explicitly address suspensions. A revised law is
being drafted to include suspensions.

"We didn't want our son becoming the poster child for this," Ms. Christie
said, "but this is out of control."

In a letter to the district's disciplinary committee, State Representative
Teresa L. Schooley, Democrat of Newark, wrote, "I am asking each of you to
consider the situation, get all the facts, find out about Zach and his
family and then act with common sense for the well-being of this child."

Education experts say that zero-tolerance policies initially allowed
authorities more leeway in punishing students, but were applied in a
discriminatory fashion. Many studies indicate that African-Americans were
several times more likely to be suspended or expelled than other students
for the same offenses.

"The result of those studies is that more school districts have removed
discretion in applying the disciplinary policies to avoid criticism of being
biased," said Ronnie Casella, an associate professor of education at Central
Connecticut State University who has written about school violence. He added
that there is no evidence that zero-tolerance policies make schools safer.

Other school districts are also trying to address problems they say have
stemmed in part from overly strict zero-tolerance policies.

In Baltimore, around 10,000 students, about 12 percent of the city's
enrollment, were suspended during the 2006-7 school year, mostly for
disruption and insubordination, according to a report by the Open Society
Institute-Baltimore. School officials there are rewriting the disciplinary
code, to route students to counseling rather than suspension.

In Milwaukee, where school officials reported that 40 percent of ninth
graders had been suspended at least once in the 2006-7 school year, the
superintendent has encouraged teachers not to overreact to student
misconduct.

"Something has to change," said Dodi Herbert, whose 13-year old son, Kyle,
was suspended in May and ordered to attend the Christina district's reform
school for 45 days after another student dropped a pocket knife in his lap.
School officials declined to comment on the case for reasons of privacy.

Ms. Herbert, who said her son was a straight-A student, has since been
home-schooling him instead of sending him to the reform school.

The Christina school district attracted similar controversy in 2007 when it
expelled a seventh-grade girl who had used a utility knife to cut windows
out of a paper house for a class project.

Charles P. Ewing, a professor of law and psychology at the University at
Buffalo Law School who has written about school safety issues, said he
favored a strict zero-tolerance approach.

"There are still serious threats every day in schools," Dr. Ewing said,
adding that giving school officials discretion holds the potential for
discrimination and requires the kind of threat assessments that only law
enforcement is equipped to make.

In the 2005-6 school year, 86 percent of public schools reported at least
one violent crime, theft or other crime, according to the most recent
federal survey.

And yet, federal studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
and another by the Department of Justice show that the rate of
school-related homicides and nonfatal violence has fallen over most of the
past decade.

Educational experts say the decline is less a result of zero-tolerance
policies than of other programs like peer mediation, student support groups
and adult mentorships, as well as an overall decrease in all forms of crime.

For Zachary, it is not school violence that has left him reluctant to return
to classes.

"I just think the other kids may tease me for being in trouble," he said,
pausing before adding, "but I think the rules are what is wrong, not me."



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