I'd be willing to take my changes with six year olds who brought eating utensils to school, including six-year-old "gang bangers."

Zero tolerance regardless of circumstances is an irrational policy. His "weapon" was no more dangerous that scissors and likely little more dangerous than a pencil or pen. He didn't use it as a weapon, so referring to cutlery as weapons is a little goofy.

Having discretion doesn't have to equal racial discrimination. It's a possibility sure, but it's a possibility almost always.

I think we'd be better off allowing the people entrusted with the job of school level discipline handling these cases, especially at the elementary school level. If they racial discriminate, they face the consequences for that.

Exactly.

The good thing is that overreacting isn't standard protocol across school systems and schools. There are schools that still call the parents FIRST whether the kid is 6 or 16.

LOL. This is what happens when a nation becomes chicken shit and scary.

Columbine happened. White upper middle class kids killed white upper middle class kids and all of a sudden, zero tolerance everywhere.

O God no...please don't tell me that the race card was played EVEN in this thread..

**Throwing his hands up....**

....done.

It was going on before Columbine...Columbine just magnified the problem.

but your point is understood all the same...

Did you actually SEE what he took to school? it was more than a piece of "cutlery." What's goofy is a bunch of folks acting like a knife is acceptable at school. So I guess had you been a parent whose child got cut accidentally with that knife, you would not have been ready to blame the school system and the teacher.

And you say we would be better off allowing the people entrusted with the job of school discipline...? what exactly are you talking about? And are you not aware that charges of racial discrimination in this context can be very hard to combat? This is so incredibly naive I can't even believe it.

I wonder how much of this is due to the fact that people really think this was okay, or how much was due to the way the media portrayed him. The media certainly didn't help things by putting up the little cutesy photographs of him with the puppy dog eyes. I'm inclined to believe that the public reaction is really based more or that than anything else. After everything that has occurred in schools in this country, it baffles me that more people would not want strict weapons policies. I worked at an elementary school where first graders were in gangs and would bring things to school. Their butts were sent to the alternative school and no one raised hell about it. people realized that you can't play around with that sort of thing.

Oh STFU
Honestly. No "race card" was "played." The points made about the possibility of discrimination in the article were valid. Only an idiot would think otherwise.

Yeah, the point is that mainstream America didn't care until it was middle class white kids. The nonwhite and/or poor kids can kill themselves all they want to. :)

Shut up, deepimpact2.

OK...so it' shut the fuck up now huh?

Try taking your own advice and try debating a subject without

A) trying to find a way to work the racial angle into EACH topic you commenton....really, it's tired.

or

B) thinking that 'they' are talking about 'you' or 'you people'.


That's tired too and speaking of...DS is out.

Good night


Pretty much...

Normally, I would agree that showing a "cute" white kid who was excited about just joining the Cub Scouts would get people's hearts flowing and activate the "poor little white kid" syndrome. That's both a race and age (and possibly social class, assuming he was middle to upper class) dynamic.

But, here is another instance where context matters. Context involves speaking with parents and checking the student's records to see what was going on here. Zero tolerance policies are there to protect the student body and to relieve the administrators from guilt or perceived responsibility. Treat them all like potential delinquents just in case. Better safe than sorry. I understand it but disagree with it as a fool proof way of dealing with everything.

If deepimpact2 taught at a school where 6 year olds were known to be in gangs then...NO SHIT...what they bring from their gang interactions won't be received as just a spoon-knife-fork camping device. Context.

Actually, your thought process might be "brilliant" except for one tiny issue: IT IS STILL A KNIFE!!!!!!! Context doesn't have a thing to do with it. :rolleyes: Try that context argument with a parent whose child just got sliced by a knife. See exactly how far you get with it.

Some of you need to stop trying to be so contrary and look at it from the angle of parents whose children are injured because of other kids bringing weapons to school. It is quite easy to get on a high horse until it happens to your own child. Then? Not so much.

First of all, every subject that has been debated has not involved race. Don't take a few instances and try to apply it across the board.

Second, as I said, the ARTICLE STATED THE VERY SAME THING THAT I SAID ABOUT AVOIDING DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICES. And since this article is referring to the incident we are discussing, naturally this aspect would be discussed as well. :rolleyes:

At this point, for you or anyone else to blatantly ignore that issue is just an attempt to be contrary for the heck of it. Try operating in the real world and real life for once instead of operating in fairy tale land. Amusing to me how a majority of people who want to tell the school system how to handle discipline tend to have no real experience with such matters and speak out of some ridiculous notions of context. Work as a teacher in a "bad" area for a WEEK. See how bad you think the zero tolerance policy is at that point. :rolleyes:

I hate to tell you this but at one (13 years ago really but that's here nor there) time I taught what some people considered to be the worst bunch of
5th graders a first year teacher could have and it was far from.

Give them some structure, make a good rapport with the parents and the classes I had were some of the best behaved students...oh yeah and SMART TOO.

Taught at that school for a few years.

Most of these kids lived in MY OWN area of East Baltimore.

So I think I know what the hell I am talking about.

so...why don't you STFU, watch your step coming off of your soapbox and don't trip ofver that bag of 'wrong' you're smoking.

lmao 13 years ago? Really? vast difference between kids then and kids now.

But here are some things you should recognize if you have experience in a school system. . .and a few other things you should realize:
1. the school system has to make sure that they are covered with respect to liability. So whether someone thinks the policy is too rigid or not, they have to do what is going to protect them from a lawsuit.
2. i think everyone recognizes that those kinds of kids need structure, and no one is questioning their intellectual prowess. However, that is irrelevant on the subject of whether there should be a zero tolerance weapons policy.
3. situations like this are why the school systems are steadily declining. From here on out parents really don't need to complain about school violence because when the school authorities try to really crack down and create policies to help combat such issues, the parents want to raise hell. Schools are just too political now. Often public outcry manages to force school officials to override doing the RIGHT thing. In this instance, the RIGHT thing was to punish him in accordance with the policy. And the fact that his mother is justifying his behavior is absolutely absurd. More evidence of what is going wrong with children and schools today.
4. while they are promoting the fact that he is a cub scout so heavily, perhaps they should question why someone in his cub scout group didn't advise him NOT to take the utensil to school. furthermore, why didn't his MOTHER advise him not to take the utensil to school and check to make sure he didn't?
5. i would also like to know why the media is publishing his name and his picture. don't they usually avoid doing that for minors? i suspect the goal was to get more people to rally against the school system by tugging at heartstrings. Realistically speaking, had the article simply stated that a 6yr old had taken a knife, spoon, fork utensil to school and left out the picture and cub scout references, there would not have been as much outcry.

There really isn't that much of a difference. What matters really is the school system.

I love how you JUST KEEP telling me that these are thing "I should realize" when what I realize is that these are some things that YOU should realize is simply "out of your control".

This is the media we are talking about. An entity that THRIVES off of bad news if they made things 'simple', they wouldn't stay in business.

And to answer your number 5, I think the picture in the article and this passage:

“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.

”Uhhhh...COMMON SENSE to me sounds like the parents (which is what's needed for the news to print that info in the first place) gave PERMISSION for the media TO USE his likeness...but, hey...what do I know?


and to your number 3, I think we have expressed that one already since the beginning of the thread and THAT was simple in case you missed it: LACK OF COMMON SENSE.



That sums this WHOLE ENTIRE thread up nicely.

Oh and I am sorry...but what do you mean by "Those Kinds of Kids"? exactly to whom are you referring to? What is the difference between those kids and "other" kids? How do you quantify such an empirical and wide sweeping statement? How many different school systems in how many years have you taught to know the difference?

I am really hoping you aren't referring to the type of kids I taught.


...hypocrite.

I can't help but sit here and think, IF this kid had cut another kid with this knife, then the news media and bulletin boards all over the country would be lamenting over the fact that someone knew this kid had a knife at school and nobody did anything about it. This is one of those issues where I can kind of see both sides and I'm totally on the fence about just what schools should do. Sure, the National Honor Society kid who took a knife to school to cut a cake and got suspended seems silly. Yes, it seems silly to take an eating utensil away from a 6 year old Cub Scout. But, NHS kids and Cub Scouts are not exempt from being emotionally disturbed or from an impulsive violent act. They are also not exempt from having that knife taken from them by another kid who might be more prone to using it in a violent manner. I worked in child and adolescent psych for years and I definitely saw 6 year olds who were highly aggressive and at risk for harming someone else. I also saw teenagers in the NHS who were the same. Sometimes you don't know what a kid is thinking until they act.

Schools have to manage their risk somehow. They have chosen to use zero tolerance to avoid it altogether. I'm not sure I blame them, even though it seems ridiculous in certain situations. Similarly to how GLOs have banned things completely rather than trying to manage them (like scavenger hunts).

So, does one instance seem silly? Sure, absolutely. Does the rule seem inflexible? Absolutely. But, it's the easy way out for the schools. As long as there is some sort of appeal process (our district does have one), I really can't argue too strongly against their choice. Case by case seems more logical, yes. But schools certainly aren't the only entity to avoid risk by banning something rather than using careful evaluation of each case.

That is very well put AGDee... I still can't help to think that there were many other ways that this could have been dealt with without the shcool system going so far.

Something to think about.... the waning popularity of the scouting movement among parents, school systems, and communities?

My point was that people tend to make that argument when their favored politician is in office - when the other party is in office, it then tends to be ok to criticize the President. As an example, under that logic, no one could criticize Bush's policy choices, as he had intelligence available to him that wasn't available to the general public.

As to this particular story: I don't have a problem with "a" punishment for the kid bringing a knife to school, but I think that the punishment in question was a bit out of line. If you have a kid bringing a gun to school, then fine, I think that raises things to another level.

But there, with the tool involved, I wonder why they don't have this policy: take away the item, bring the kid to the principal's office, and call the parents. I feel like in situations like this, a procedure like that would suffice.

Is popularity really waning? I'd agree, in that my perception is that it seemed like a lot more kids were in the scouting program when I was a little kid, but I also haven't worked in early childhood education for a few years. I also haven't seen any stats that speak to that issue.

Well said, AGDee. I particularly agree with the bolded (my emphasis). My only concern with the appeal process is what happens to the student while the appeal is under consideration? In this student's case, his mom was able to home school him. Most/many students would not have that option available to them. It seems unfair (yes, I know, who said life was fair) for the student to be penalized while the appeal is underway. Kinda tosses out the innocent until proven guilty theory (then again, I recognize the importance of keeping all students safe while determining innocence/guilt).

I'm still on the fence, too. I truly can see both sides. Unfortunately, either side seems like an extreme (way too strict vs. extremely naive). I'm having a hard time finding a way to identify the median. So far, strict policy with an appeal process seems to be the best option.

[QUOTE=deepimpact2;1857620]4. while they are promoting the fact that he is a cub scout so heavily, perhaps they should question why someone in his cub scout group didn't advise him NOT to take the utensil to school. furthermore, why didn't his MOTHER advise him not to take the utensil to school and check to make sure he didn't?
QUOTE]

I must say that while I do go through my 7 yr old's backpack every evening, he has put things in there and taken them to school without me knowing (so far it's just been a bakugan and a lego magazine). So his mother might not have known that he took this to school.

Also, I know of several cub scout dens that meet at my son's school. And the pocket mess set (the fork, spoon, knife set) is something that they use in some of their activities AT THE SCHOOL. While an adult or older child might be able to separate out a scout meeting from school- smaller children have more trouble seeing the line. So if the boy used/recieved the utensil set at a scout meeting at school, it might be hard for him to process that taking it to school for actual school is wrong.

COMMON SENSE AT WORK!


http://www.knifecenter.com/knifecent...mages/8029.jpg

That's not a knife.

http://www.stellarrigs.com/images/ho...dundeestag.jpg


Now THAT'S a KNIFE.

What should happen (in my view):

Teacher sees kid with knife. Teacher asks him about it. He tells her he just joined Cub Scouts and it's his new knife from his mess kit. Teacher says, "I know you're excited and I'm glad for you, but you know it's against the rules to bring a knife to school. I'm going to need to take it for now; it will be in the office. Your parents can pick it up there. Please remember not to bring knives to school again. Thanks." (Can't give it back to him in case he rides a bus or something.) When the parents pick it up, they are reminded, nicely, that son can't be bringing knives to school. Done.

But thanks to a variety of occurences, many school boards have decided that, for the kids' safety and because of liability concerns, they have to demonstrate ZERO TOLERANCE. The something comes along to show how ZERO TOLERANCE is an over-reaction, and how one size doesn't fit all, and we hope some common sense creeps in.

I haven't seen anyone acting like a knife is acceptable at school. People have been saying that there are better ways to handle a situation like this.

I don't really think so. That's not at all a universal phenomenon. It's waning in some places but not in others, and even where school systems are not supportive, per se, they're not necessarily antagonistic -- they just don't let recruiting or meetings happen on school property. (Or they let it happen on school property as long as it's the PTA and not the school itself in charge.) Many school systems are quite supportive of Scouting. (And in my experience, at least, most teachers are.) Some systems that aren't as supportive aren't because of the things that gather media support, while others have reached the decision that even though they'd have no problem letting the Scouts (Boy and Girl) in, they can't because then they might not be able to say "no" to a group they don't like.

^^^Common sense AT WORK!

Seeing as how you and others felt I was wrong for taking offense to the term "you," YOU are the hypocrite if you get upset at my usage of the phrase "those kinds of kids."

And while I notice yu want to put common sense in bold and all caps, the fact remains that YOU aren't using common sense in analysing the situation. Rules are in place to be followed. If they wanted to have a process where the weapon was confiscated first, then that is what they would have put in place. They didn't. I can't blame them.

Also, to reiterate a point I made earlier, there is something WRONG with a parent who is going to act as though her child did nothing wrong. This woman has GOT to be crazy. And I'm pretty sure had her son been at school and gotten cut with another child's knife, she would have been on the other side of the fence.

School systems need to stop being so political and allowing parents to run over them. Many parents are just NOT going to accept or admit that their child is wrong in certain instances...especially when doing so means their child will be suspended or sent to an alternative school. That is when officials have to be firm. That is one thing I will say about my school system (the one I attended and last worked in). The superintendent was very supportive of the principals in these types of situations and the board always backed him. They didn't let the parents try to tell them how to run the schools when it came to things like this. If there was a policy in place, that was it. No allowances were going to be made for one child as opposed to another.

ETA: This does not mean that every policy in place is a good one. In one school system where I worked, water guns were treated the same as real guns. Therefore if a child brought a water gun to school, they would be suspended for 365 days. I do think that is too stringent and should be changed, but luckily that policy only came into play once.

A knife is a knife. Either one can inflict injury. It is a slippery slope indeed to try and have different ways of handling a weapon based whether a person thinks one weapon is not as big as the other or some other such foolishness.

Ok...exactly how thick headed and blind are you?

I'm not upset over 'those kind of kids' I actually find it funny that you had the STONES to even post that little ditty after the bullshyte you put KSig and Kevin through last weekend over that post you knee jerked over and everyone and their gran'ma had to explain the context TO YOU.

Having a hard time now trying to explain 'those types of children' hmm?

Doesn't feel so good now does it?

Any ol' ways...moving from your irrelevant rants to another.


Yes. Rules are in place to be followed...rules are also in place to be interpreted which is WHY rules tend to CHANGE.


and this...

School systems need to stop being so political and allowing parents to run over them. Many parents are just NOT going to accept or admit that their child is wrong in certain instances...

Just as some schools need to be fair and not think that every little child that walks in the door and makes ONE mistake (that can easily corrected by education and not punishment) will make that child a hardened criminal.

Read the article.

He. Did. Not. Know.

He is SIX.

I would posit that the best way to avoid racial discrimination is to not discriminate on the basis of race, rather than enacting a crappy policy that "eliminates" it from a liability perspective but not at all from a pragmatic perspective.

^^^But... that makes too much sense. ;)

Seems to be the theme of this thread.

There's one other thing that I think we always need to remember with these cases. While the parent and kid (or disgruntled employee, or whoever) is always free to speak out loudly about the issue. The school or employer isn't allowed to say a word. We really have no way of knowing that this wasn't the 57th time this kid brought this thing to school and was told he couldn't. I mean, it seems unlikely in this case, but we honestly don't know and the school is bound by confidentiality laws to not say a word about his past record. Sure, Cub Scout who wears suits to school sometimes sounds like a good kid, but I was Cub Scout leader, they are NOT all model citizens. We don't know the history and can't know the history.

True...but the school still could have and should have done a better job of formulating the policy.

Going along with what RC said, they still could have avoided the racial issues by 1) having a better written policy and 2) being mindful of enforcement of the policy.

It seems to me that making a "no tolerance" policy along these lines shows a pretty significant lack of trust in the staff and administration's ability to make decisions.

The Scouter in me feels constrained to point out that, as excited as this kid was, he wouldn't (or shouldn't) have been allowed to carry that or any other knife at any Scout functions. Before a knife can be carried, the Scout must earn his whittling chip, which is typically earned as a Bear Scout (third grade) and which demonstrates that he knows how to use a knife safely.

Speaking as a Den Leader, I understand that feeling, but the Whittling Chip can be earned at any CS Rank. It just happens to be a requirement of one of 24 Bear Achievements and Bears don't even have to earn it to achieve Rank because they only need to earn 12.

But you are right, a CS cannot carry a pocketknife, including one in a multi-tool, to a designated Scout event without first earning Whittling Chip.

Speaking as a mom, I was a Nervous Nelly when my Den worked on Whittling Chip and never would have attempted it with my Tigers. The first thing my son did when he opened his knife was to cut himself. A bandaid took care of it. :o

Right. That's why I said "typically." though perhaps I could have chosen a better word. In my experience, Bear is when a den will do it -- often as the first step toward Bear ("yay, we're old enough to use knives now"). But you're right, it can be earned at any stage.

I'm pretty sure that since this guy had just joined, though, he hadn't earned it yet. Yours too, huh? :D

Really? It's still a knife? You mean, it didn't magically transform into a unicorn because of the context? That sucks.

Years ago, my friend mistakenly left her butter knife that she uses to slice bagels at work in her bag as she went to the airport. It was detected by the powers that be. Instead of detaining her as a potential terrorist and damning her to hell, the airport authorities used their discretion. They took the object and gave her a stern talking to/warning that scared the shit out of her. Then sent her on her way. Message.

Incorrect.

No one is advocating that the school does nothing about it. Kids shouldn't have potential weapons in school, even if it is unintentionally a potential weapon.

It's a difference in opinion over what the school should've done.

I say the school should've taken the knife (duh), called the parents, talked to the kid and the parents, and given the kid a warning with the next offense being suspension (or whatever).