Reader's Digest: Zero Tolerence

Just an interesting story

Interesting is one word for it.

My personal experience with incompetent school administrators is one of the many reasons I hesitate about having kids. I don't know that I could trust my children with the kinds of people that I should never have been entrusted to.

mcdonalk said:

Interesting is one word for it.

My personal experience with incompetent school administrators is one of the many reasons I hesitate about having kids. I don't know that I could trust my children with the kinds of people that I should never have been entrusted to.

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What you have to be prepared to do is fight like the very devil for your children and not let the idiots stonewall you. Your best weapons are the threat of adverse publicity and legal action.

The alternative is to be prepared to home school any children you have. As a proud father of two fine adult children, I will tell you that, had I to do it over again, they would both be home schooled.

mcdonalk said:

Interesting is one word for it.

My personal experience with incompetent school administrators is one of the many reasons I hesitate about having kids. I don't know that I could trust my children with the kinds of people that I should never have been entrusted to.

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homeschool... or consider it good practice for yer kids to get used to avoiding and thwarting tyrants.

Zero tolerance = Zero common sense
= Zero accountability
= Zero responsibility

Why is it that a 16 year old girl can walk into an abortion clinic and get an abortion without parental knowledge or consent; yet, can be expelled for bringing "drugs" to school for bringing Midol for her cramps? Like I said, zero common sense.

One thing I learned from zero tolerance policies were how to hide things from school administrators. I had a knife in the glove box of my Jeep for 2 years in high school. I occasionally carried a very small pocket knife in my backpack as well. You just have to have enough judgement to not tell anyone you have these things and not to take them out near others. However, I was very careful to not have any firearms or ammo or firearm paraphernalia in my backpack, pockets, or vehicle.

Heck, in high school I regularly carried a pocket knife. Nowdays I'm sure I'd be suspended or sent to reform school or something like that, but I liked apples & had braces, so I'd cut up my apple to eat at lunch. (It gets brown if you cut it up hours ahead of time.)

Actually, part of that year I took a math class instead of lunch, so the teacher let me eat in class. Imagine that - a weapon being used around other students! No blood was shed, not even mine.

I'd never let my son go to school any place that had metal detectors or security guards. Waaay too dangerous. And I'd teach him to clam up & ask for his parents if anyone in authority ever asked if he had (a knife, a picture of a gun, a gun at home, medicine in his backpack), or if he'd done anything that could even vaguely be considered against any rule. Sad that it's come to this.

I graduated in 2006 and took my pocketknife to school every day. Half the time I wore it with the clip showing-no one really cared, if they noticed. Only time I almost had a problem was when I along with some other students were eating in a back room one day, and someone needed to cut something (steak, pork, I don't remember) and the teacher walked in while I was using my pocketknife to cut it. She turned around, walked out saying "I did not see that".

Funny, considering there were exacto knives laying all over the place.

There was a kid in middle school up in Chandler (AZ) who was suspended for 'drawing' a doodle of a 'raygun' on the margin of his notepaper. Not even a very good drawing of a non-existant gun either. That is NOT a gun.... it's a doodle. (That one prompted me to fire off an e-mail to the principal suggesting that the educators needed more educating than the students.) 'Nuther 6 or 7 yr old kid was suspended for having a GI Joe sized toy pistol... a plastic molding actually, w/no moving parts about an inch long. 'Bringing a 'gun' to school was the reason. No you idiots... it's not a gun, it's a toy rendering. Guns fire bullets. Guns are mechanical devices. Guns are weapons... toys are not.

Penknives are tools... Bowies and KA-Bars are potential weapons. (hint... they're MUCH BIGGER) I dunno what the mentality is behind all of this... It's hysterical nonsense taken to the nth degree. I'd have been suspended on a daily basis... or in a reformatory by todays standards for the stuff I'd bring to school... not counting what I'd draw. The bedwetters are out of control.

Me too

The alternative is to be prepared to home school any children you have. As a proud father of two fine adult children, I will tell you that, had I to do it over again, they would both be home schooled.

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What he said. me too

I don't get it. Along with many of the kids, my grandfather carried his .410 shotgun to public school every day, beginning when he was in the third grade. No one was ever shot at school...

I've usually enjoyed Jonathan Turley's take on events, and this is no exception. When teachers and administrators no longer remember how to think and use sound judgement, they're teaching our children from their horrible example. A child might have to follow the policies, but that doesn't mean they have to buy into it hook, line, and sinker.

I recall my son's third-grade teaching expressing her "grave concern" that I'd actually allowed him to handle a firearm, not to mention shoot it. Naturally, he shared that fact in show and tell, and was forced to shut up and sit down. I expressed my own "grave concern" that such a reaction was teaching our children to disrespect our U.S. Constitution. That shut her up, although since she was on the phone, I don't know if she sat down or not.

Just a thought

You know, I've noticed that every time some kid gets suspended under the 'zero tolerance' policy, it's always some pointless blathering case. This kid got suspended for a 1 inch plastic toy gun. A boy scout was kicked out a few months back for having a small pocket knife in the trunk of his car along with MRE's and blankets. Elementary school kids get expelled for having fingernail clippers or a picture of a gun doodled on their binders.

I have never heard of ONE single case of a kid with an ACTUAL GUN being suspended.

Is it perhaps that the school faculty is just too afraid to apply these rules to the gangbangers that they KNOW are armed, and so they decide to engage in this nonsense to make it seem like they are really doing something?

frommycolddeadhands said:

I have never heard of ONE single case of a kid with an ACTUAL GUN being suspended.

Is it perhaps that the school faculty is just too afraid to apply these rules to the gangbangers that they KNOW are armed, and so they decide to engage in this nonsense to make it seem like they are really doing something?

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Here in the Greater Ashburn Area we've had three suspensions in the past four years. In every case the incident was over before it began. The kid was bragging the night before that he was going to "blow away" some teacher. The LEOs were alerted and waiting for him. As soon as the student stepped on to the bus/out of car/onto school grounds he was pounced & processed.

Having said that, a previous poster said it perfectly; to exercise thought is to take respnsibility. It sickens me to think that **ANYONE** can be labelled a criminal for practicing basic self preservation on public school grounds. How many of us have "survival kits" in the trunk that contain a knife? What about the off-roaders with a five gallon jerry can full of gas? Or, heck, when will it become illeage to park your 2000+ pound weapon on grounds?

And yet, the cafeteria issues knives to students every day. Yep, common sense just oosing out of the place.

fully_armed_biker said:

Zero tolerance = Zero common sense
= Zero accountability
= Zero responsibility

Why is it that a 16 year old girl can walk into an abortion clinic and get an abortion without parental knowledge or consent; yet, can be expelled for bringing "drugs" to school for bringing Midol for her cramps? Like I said, zero common sense.

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"A woman has the right to control her body." But prostitution is illegal? INSANITY!

sonoran_Tj said:

One thing I learned from zero tolerance policies were how to hide things from school administrators. I had a knife in the glove box of my Jeep for 2 years in high school. I occasionally carried a very small pocket knife in my backpack as well. You just have to have enough judgement to not tell anyone you have these things and not to take them out near others. However, I was very careful to not have any firearms or ammo or firearm paraphernalia in my backpack, pockets, or vehicle.

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When I was in school, zero tolerance policies were seen for what they were, idiotic.

If you check pockets on HS and JHS boys in my school approximately 9/10 would have had a pocket knife in it, mine included.

During hunting season about 1/2 of the vehicles, including staff vehicles, would have had at least one firearm in them.

I have been witness to a teacher telling someone to bring their "new rifle" in to let the teacher have a look at it.

To this day that school district has had no one harmed by a knife or a firearm on school property or at any school event in its' 100+ years of existence.

That is common sense, not Idiots "No Tolerance".

:cuss:

fully_armed_biker said:

Why is it that a 16 year old girl can walk into an abortion clinic and get an abortion without parental knowledge or consent; yet, can be expelled for bringing "drugs" to school for bringing Midol for her cramps? Like I said, zero common sense.

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In a prison that would be grounds for cruel and unusual punishment.

riverrat10k said:

"A woman has the right to control her body." But prostitution is illegal? INSANITY!

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Hey now, let's keep it on topic. We're talking about dangerous weapons here -- not weapons of mass destruction. :lol:

frommycolddeadhands said:

You know, I've noticed that every time some kid gets suspended under the 'zero tolerance' policy, it's always some pointless blathering case. This kid got suspended for a 1 inch plastic toy gun. A boy scout was kicked out a few months back for having a small pocket knife in the trunk of his car along with MRE's and blankets. Elementary school kids get expelled for having fingernail clippers or a picture of a gun doodled on their binders.

I have never heard of ONE single case of a kid with an ACTUAL GUN being suspended.

Is it perhaps that the school faculty is just too afraid to apply these rules to the gangbangers that they KNOW are armed, and so they decide to engage in this nonsense to make it seem like they are really doing something?

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I could point you to probably at least a dozen different cases in this area where they did bring a gun to school and were suspended. One was a fourth grader that not only brought the loaded gun but had his clothes packed in his bookbag to hitchhike to FL after he shot the principle. Another was a senior football player that had already comitted to play football for a major college program. His gun went off in his back pocket while standing in the lunch line. At another school, it wasn't a gun, but a student stabbed the school resource officer 5 times befor the SRO shot and killed him. The SRO almost died from his stab wounds. In another case the son of a friend of mine carried a gun to school and decided to cut school and play with it and wound up shooting himself. However I don't remember anyone around here being suspended for pictures of guns.

My wife did have one 2nd grade student that they discovered both he and his brother had severe hearing loss in one ear. Finally it was determined that the hearing loss in that ear was due to not wearing hearing protection while shooting guns and hunting.

OldCurlyWolf said:

When I was in school, zero tolerance policies were seen for what they were, idiotic.

If you check pockets on HS and JHS boys in my school approximately 9/10 would have had a pocket knife in it, mine included.

During hunting season about 1/2 of the vehicles, including staff vehicles, would have had at least one firearm in them.

I have been witness to a teacher telling someone to bring their "new rifle" in to let the teacher have a look at it.

To this day that school district has had no one harmed by a knife or a firearm on school property or at any school event in its' 100+ years of existence.

That is common sense, not Idiots "No Tolerance".

:cuss:

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DANG!

And I agree you on the mad/cuss issue.

Teachers, adminstrators, principles, and other supervising agencies within our schools have SCREWED UP SIX WAYS TO SUNDAY.

I'm sorry, but they're proven themselves so, and until they've proven themselves otherwise, they'll be held accountable to their mental gyrations.