Is zero tolerance a good idea for school discipline and safety

NEA Today, Feb 2002 by Banks, Ann, Ehret, Richard Sr

DEBATE

YES

A few years ago, a senior in our district was caught in the school parking lot with beer in the back of his pickup. The punishment for possession of alcohol on campus was expulsion. His parents hired an attorney and appealed to our school board. Their argument, of course, was that the beer was not his. Instead of accepting the reality that their child had an alcohol problem, they made excuses. They spent over $1,000, and they won. Our trustees ruled in favor of the student, and he was reinstated.

Six weeks later, he went on a band trip and was caught with alcohol. He was sent home and expelled from school. His parents finally had to face facts and could begin to help their child.

Things were different when I started teaching in the 1970s. Today, many students and their parents blame everyone else for what happens. Very few accept responsibility for their actions.

Over the years, I have seen a major shift in the way our administration deals with students. The push is toward treating parents and children as clients of the school district, and the client is to be pleased. Parents are appeased to keep complaints from reaching a higher level.

Parents want order in the schools as long as their child is not the one punished. A previous principal used to insist that there is an exception to every rule. In that case, there are no rules.

An important part of my job as a social studies teacher is to instill responsibility and citizenship in my students. Citizens should be responsible for their actions. Society has made laws to ensure that the government treats all people equally. When the government does not apply the laws equally, that is discrimination. When we make exceptions to school rules, that is unfair.

Our state recently revised our juvenile justice system by separating disruptive students from the rest of the population.

We have in-building suspension for minor infractions (language, tardies). We have an alternative campus for major violations (alcohol, drugs, fighting), and a countywide facility for students who have been found guilty of felonies. If our minor rules were enforced consistently, fewer students would break the major ones, because more students would realize that there are consequences to their actions.

The school should maintain zero tolerance for serious infractions. Children need to learn that rules are to be followed.

No

It has been said that "zero tolerance" policies teach our students that school rules must be followed or the consequences must be faced. We are told that this helps prepare them for the "world out there," which has no tolerance for those who break its rules.

Let's examine the world. If a person gets in trouble with the law and is brought to court, the judge usually is not restricted to a mandatory sentence. The judge can consider mitigating circumstances. We have all read about cases where mandatory sentencing brought about a miscarriage of justice. I don't think we want to bring injustice into our schools.

School officials, like judges, must be free to judge students by their motives, mitigating circumstances, and other factors that influenced the behavior. In a critical decision about a student's future, no pertinent information should be excluded from consideration. But under zero tolerance, if you violate the policy, you are out. How is anyone supposed to get a fair hearing in such a case?

Zero tolerance also sends a message to our students that it is okay to be intolerant for a good cause. As a government teacher, I have come to abhor the attitude of some groups in our society that it's their way or no way. Whether it is religious righteousness, political fanaticism, or even fanaticism about some idea that is "The Answer" to all the problems in education, it scares me to death. I see countries torn apart and people killed or turned into refugees by other people who refuse to tolerate opposing beliefs. This is why my morning prayer is "God save us from the righteous."

Zero tolerance, like mandatory sentencing, is a knee-jerk reaction to fear spawned by events such as the Columbine school shootings or September 11. We got hit, we got scared, and we're not gonna take it anymore. In the case of September 11, we are so intent on getting the terrorists that we are even willing to legislate away the Bill of Rights and its guarantee of due process of law for everyone including foreigners. What good is our nation to us without our freedoms?

It is true that schools sometimes violate their own policies just to get parents "off their backs." I don't like to see this kind of bowing and scraping. But I wouldn't want to remove the right of school officials to bend rules when doing so is in the best interests of the student. Sometimes it isn't enough just to be right. We need to be "right on" in our decisions about the lives of our students.