Ninth grader Andrew Mikel is merely the latest in a long line of victims whose educations have been senselessly derailed by school administrators lacking in both common sense and compassion. A freshman at Spotsylvania High School in Virginia, Andrew was expelled in December 2010 for shooting a handful of small pellets akin to plastic spit wads at fellow students in the school hallway during lunch period. Although the initial punishment was only for 10 days, the school board later extended it to the rest of the school year. School officials also referred the matter to local law enforcement, which initiated juvenile proceedings for criminal assault against young Andrew.

Andrew is not alone. Nine-year-old Patrick Timoney was sent to the principal’s office and threatened with suspension after school officials discovered that one of his LEGOs was holding a 2-inch toy gun. That particular LEGO, a policeman, was Patrick’s favorite because his father is a retired police officer. David Morales, an 8-year-old Rhode Island student, ran afoul of his school’s zero tolerance policies after he wore a hat to school decorated with an American flag and tiny plastic Army figures in honor of American troops. School officials declared the hat out of bounds because the toy soldiers were carrying miniature guns. A 7-year-old New Jersey boy, described by school officials as “a nice kid” and “a good student,” was reported to the police and charged with possessing an imitation firearm after he brought a toy Nerf-style gun to school. The gun shoots soft ping pong-type balls.

Things have gotten so bad that it doesn’t even take a toy gun to raise the ire of school officials. A high school sophomore was suspended for violating the school’s no-cell-phone policy after he took a call from his father, a master sergeant in the U.S. Army who was serving in Iraq at the time. A 12-year-old New York student was hauled out of school in handcuffs for doodling on her desk with an erasable marker. In Houston, an 8th grader was suspended for wearing rosary beads to school in memory of her grandmother (the school has a zero tolerance policy against the rosary, which the school insists can be interpreted as a sign of gang involvement). Six-year-old Cub Scout Zachary Christie was sentenced to 45 days in reform school after bringing a camping utensil to school that can serve as a fork, knife or spoon. And in Oklahoma, school officials suspended a first grader simply for using his hand to simulate a gun.

What these incidents, all the result of overzealous school officials and inflexible zero tolerance policies, make clear is that we have moved into a new paradigm in America where young people are increasingly viewed as suspects and treated as criminals by school officials and law enforcement alike.

Adopted in the wake of Congress’ passage of the 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act, which required a one-year expulsion for any child bringing a firearm or bomb to school, school zero tolerance policies were initially intended to address and prevent serious problems involving weapons, violence and drug and alcohol use in the schools. However, since the Columbine school shootings, nervous legislators and school boards have tightened their zero tolerance policies to such an extent that school officials are now empowered to punish all offenses severely, no matter how minor. Hence, an elementary school student is punished in the same way that an adult high school senior is punished. And a student who actually intends to harm others is treated the same as one who breaks the rules accidentally—or is perceived as breaking the rules.

For instance, after students at a Texas school were assigned to write a “scary” Halloween story, one 13-year-old chose to write about shooting up a school. Although he received a passing grade on the story, school officials reported him to the police, resulting in his spending six days in jail before it was determined that no crime had been committed. Equally outrageous was the case in New Jersey where several kindergartners were suspended from school for three days for playing a make-believe game of “cops and robbers” during recess and using their fingers as guns.

With the distinctions between student offenses erased, and all offenses expellable, we now find ourselves in the midst of what Time magazine described as a “national crackdown on Alka-Seltzer.” Indeed, at least 20 children in four states have been suspended from school for possession of the fizzy tablets in violation of zero tolerance drug policies. In some jurisdictions, carrying cough drops, wearing black lipstick or dying your hair blue are actually expellable offenses. Students have also been penalized for such inane “crimes” as bringing nail clippers to school, using Listerine or Scope, and carrying fold-out combs that resemble switchblades. A 13-year-old boy in Manassas, Virginia, who accepted a Certs breath mint from a classmate, was actually suspended and required to attend drug-awareness classes, while a 12-year-old boy who said he brought powdered sugar to school for a science project was charged with a felony for possessing a look-alike drug. Another 12-year-old was handcuffed and jailed after he stomped in a puddle, splashing classmates.

The American Bar Association has rightly condemned these zero tolerance policies as being “a one-size-fits-all solution to all the problems that schools confront.” Unfortunately, when challenged about the fact that under these draconian policies, a kid who shoots a spitball is punished the same as the kid who brings a gun to school, school officials often insist that their hands are tied. That rationale, however, falls apart on several counts.

First, such policies completely fail to take into account the student’s intentions, nor do they take into account the long-term damage inflicted on school children. For example, as a result of the criminal charges against him, Andrew Mikel, an honor student active in Junior ROTC and in his church who had hoped to attend the U.S. Naval Academy, can no longer be considered as an applicant.

Second, these one-strike-and-you’re-out policies have proven to be largely unsuccessful and been heavily criticized by such professional organizations as the National Association of School Psychologists: “[R]esearch indicates that, as implemented, zero tolerance policies are ineffective in the long run and are related to a number of negative consequences, including increased rates of school drop out and discriminatory application of school discipline practices.”

Third, with the emergence of zero tolerance policies, school officials have forsaken the time-honored distinction between punishment and discipline. Namely, that schools exist to educate students about their rights and the law and discipline those who need it, while prisons exist to punish criminals who have been tried and found guilty of breaking the law. And, as a result, many American schools now resemble prisons with both barbed wire perimeters and police walking the halls.

Fourth, such policies criminalize childish, otherwise innocent behavior and in many cases create a permanent record that will haunt that child into adulthood. Moreover, by involving the police in incidents that should never leave the environs of the school, it turns the schools into little more than a police state. For example, 9-year-old Michael Parson was suspended from school for a day and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation after mentioning to a classmate his intent to “shoot” a fellow classmate with a wad of paper. Despite the fact that the “weapon” considered suspect consisted of a wadded-up piece of moistened paper and a rubber band with which to launch it, district officials notified local police, suspended Michael under the school’s zero tolerance policy, and required him to undergo a psychological evaluation before returning to class. Incredibly, local police also went to Michael’s home after midnight in order to question the fourth grader about the so-called “shooting” incident.

Finally, these policies, and the school administrators who relentlessly enforce them, render young people woefully ignorant of the rights they intrinsically possess as American citizens. What’s more, having failed to learn much in the way of civic education while in school, young people are being browbeaten into believing that they have no true rights and government authorities have total power and can violate constitutional rights whenever they see fit.

There’s an old axiom that what children learn in school today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow. As surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs and strip searches become the norm in elementary, middle and high schools across the nation, America is on a fast track to raising up an Orwellian generation—one populated by compliant citizens accustomed to living in a police state and who march in lockstep to the dictates of the government. In other words, the schools are teaching our young people how to be obedient subjects in a totalitarian society.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book The Freedom Wars (TRI Press) is available online at www.amazon.com.
He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org

http://njtoday.net/2011/02/14/zero-tolerance-policies-are-the-schools-becoming-police-states/

***************************************

Might as well add mine...a vice principal suspended my nephew for 4 days for updating his status from home on facebook that a teacher (he did not identify the teacher by name or class) couldn't take a joke. It was overturned but not until after he served the suspension.
The school board had just recently adopted a bullying and harassing
policy. The above examples and mine clearly show what will happen
when schools stop teaching and start policing. I am sensitive of the need to stop bullying and harassment but speech off campus is protected by the 1st amendemnt and until vice principals and principals are required to have law degrees I am not willing to support any such policies in fear of destroying constitutional rights and due process that the civil and criminal justice system affords. Maybe we just need to educate people how they should use those systems to stop the bullying and harassment. And also require students to take more stop bullying education courses at school.
Having to deal with that one instance was enough for my nephew's Mom.
The child is now home schooled.

this shows how liberalism and political Correctness are running amok with our country. These people want to make everyone total conformists and will do so by singling out non conformists or people who challenge conformity. This is akin to when religion ruled society. Now every over zealous liberal pansy with a cause can jump on the "No minority voice left behind" bus and ride our azzes! Islam has Fatwas where any cleric can issue one well, here we got liberals gone safety crazy and want to save us from ourselves since "we don't know any better." I could remember when there were no cops on schools. Now all High Schools here have them. Liberals want to make us think we are failures when it is failed policies that are the failures. Taking a parents right to punish their children with corporal punishment is part of the problem. Not all parents who used it were abusive. Not all man kind is created equal although Liberals and religious alike want to think that is so. We need to be crammed into a homogeneous system that offers no challenges or incentives, one that offends no one's sensativites, and steals us of our creativity and free will. Schools are failing due to ill thought out policies and programs, and likewise cowards with no spine to not freak out at the sight of even little spiders let alone GREEN ARMY MEN! Many of these parents should lawyer up and drag these schools to task and challenge the policies with the legal system. Normally I would say law suits are weak but in this case they are not! Schools need to be held responsible for bogus decisions that are so harshly imposed over trivial and stupid stuff! Worst is how these pathetic bureaucrats want to make themselves feel important in their unimportant jobs so when they get their teeth into a "Violator" they bite down hard since Children cannot put up much of a fight anyways!

What is even more sad about this is that Schools claim to be there to protect our children yet they cannot do that too well either. Guns still find their way into classrooms and some of these teachers are just paranoid sissies! Hell, every once in a while a pedophile slips in under their radar. But when that happens "Oh my goodness, we are so sorry!" to freak out over a lego police officer with a lego gun is over the top. That is taking Zero Tolerance way too far and way past good taste or common sense. I would love to listen to these same officials whine when they get a speeding ticket when they know they were speeding and got caught.

Wimpy
Wimpy
Wimpy!

I would bet many of these policy makers and enforcers got bullied and now want to use the system to bully others!

Just sad!

http://mingle2.com/topic/show/299206

more insanity by schools

While I agree that the punishments were a bit much, we are living in a day and age where children are bringing real guns to schools and really shooting people. Also, "toy" guns are looking more and more like the real thing. Personally, I'm against students coming into schools and even carrying cell-phones. They are there to learn, not play. Save the cap guns and crap for out of school hours. What the government needs to do is stop with this children's rights ******** and start forcing schools to do what they are intended to do, and teach our children. If parents have a problem with their kids going to school to learn, or the environment they are learning in (once schools actually go back to teaching rather than coddeling*(spelling)) then take them out of school and either pay the money to send them to a private or charter school, or home school them.

Schools = Learning environment. Start making it so.


***The above are my views and are not intended to reflect any political agenda. Any views or opinions stated above are my own intellectual property and may not be used without my express written consent, which I won't grant so don't bother asking.***

a bit much...there shouldn't have been any at all..next time an officer of the law stops u for anything he should take your license and your car...that's just how schools discipline...zero tolerance policies...there is no recourse except to sue...and the punishment is already served...
We got to stop treating children as suspects. and yeah, you can have your car back after u sue. It not like that in the real world outside of school.

This is just my opinion BUT we need to be strict with our children in school. They are there to learn and not to do such silly things that you are talking about. In these times you can not trust our young people any more...they do carry guns. Not all young kids are bad but IF parents were there more for their children and knew exactly what they were doing and who they were with, maybe things wouldn't be so tough.
Hey I am all for adults being able to have guns to protect their homes but when they get into the hands of our children...forget it!! Have you seen some of these toys guns? They look real. A child actually got shot by a police officer because they thought this little boy had a real gun....it was a toy gun. No toy guns should ever be taken into the school. NEVER!!!!
All I know is that I am glad that I only have 1 son left in school. 1 down and 1 to go. You think things are bad now, just wait...its going to be twice as bad in a few years!!!

excuse me...the right to express your opinion, even of a teacher, is a protected 1st amendment right of all citizens. There is nothing
"silly" about violating someones rights. For the school to reach into a home and discipline is serious to me.

"can't trust young people anymore" u say

I don't expect most adults feel even close to that one. I know I don't. Young people should not be thought of as being suspects or criminals.

Young people make mistakes.

Punishment should be at appropriate levels to harm or damages caused. Zero tolerance policies should be called zero intelligence policies. For example, a student if attacked can't even defend themselves anymore at school without fear of being suspended. There is no recourse in schools - u r guilty until proven innocent. U serve the time before being declared innocent. That is so wrong. That is not the way to prevent tragedies you speak of.

It could be just plain laziness. The tough-talk, hang-em-high attitude we have toward children makes it politically acceptable for these draconian policies. Suspension and expulsion are just a quick, easy and convenient way to get rid of a problem.

It really disturb me that a lot of people think most kids are bad nowadays. And that parents don't care.

That's partly because of tragedies that ocurr and the sensationalized reporting of them. I admit such tragedies get my emotions boiling too but I try to look at the whole picture.

Schools used to work very well with parents. That in my opinion has changed. Parents have been alienated because of the punish first attitudes of schools. In many cases, parents aren't even given the opportunity to be parents. The best policy for many of the examples given would be to address it first with the parents. Also, a theme in the articles was that these kids were good students.

School is not like it was a generation ago. When the most that happened was a fist fight or pulled hair. Now days the threat of real violence seems to hit every where.
My daughter teaches in a very small rural school that just went through a lock down last week and police escorts at the school this Monday because of a shooting threat that was found in the restroom. Although the day passed without any sign of violence it makes a person stop and think what the hell is going on?

I have to ask some questions about all this. Is it that the psycological functioning of these trouble-makers has become more virulent, or is it just that the weaponry has become more deadly? Are we producing more sociopaths or more narcissists? Ha the culture changed? Are we a more mean society?

This can get to be an awfully big topic, but it's probably worth some effort and deep thougt to examine the prospects for the next generation. I don't profess to have any answer. I only feel strongly that draconian punishment doesn't hold any answers.

Sounds like the school should be complimented based on that information. All threats should be handled by the police - and that's just what they did.

I don't think so - some of it is that people are just made more aware of the bad stuff because of the ease of access to info through the internet and expanded tv.

making sure the parents are involved is key for the schools - and not alienating parents by discipling children in a way diffent than what parents or the law would do. I don't think anyone at say the mall would feel overly threatened by the kids of most of the examples given in the article if say they observed that behavior at the mall. Not saying children should bring toys to school butjust about how it is dealt with.

The thing is that for the most part things at school are EXACTLY like they always were. Most kids go to school ready to learn, make friends, and carry on. I understand that we can never underestimate the effects of Columbine, but it doesn't mean that we should abandon all sense of reason either.

Disturbs me also...there are some great kids out there,
and we do care.
For those who complain about how rotton the kids are....
well, you raised them!!

All three of my sons went to alternative schools,
public mainstream school is a joke, glad I'm done with it all.

It isn't parents don't care. Sometimes Kids need to get the taste slapped out of their mouths! Not all kids deserve to get spanked but I have seen kids who well deserved a good crack in the rear acre! The real problem is CHILD SOCIAL SERVICES! Punish your child, hell, yell at them too loudly and they are making the parents miserable.

Too much Dr. Spock and his bleeding heart!

Spare the rod, spoil the child!