Zero Tolerance in Schools

ASTalumna06 · #1 03-09-2014, 05:48 PM

Ridiculous.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/educatio...er-fire-n41431

Quote:

IVE BRANCH, Miss. — On the last Friday in January, 15-year-old Dontadrian Bruce was finishing up his biology project at Olive Branch High School. He and his group had constructed a double helix out of Legos, and his teacher asked them to pose for a picture with their project. Bruce smiled and held up three fingers—his thumb, forefinger, and middle finger, palm facing outward. The teacher snapped a photo on her phone and went onto the next group.

On Monday morning, Bruce was summoned out of first-period English by assistant principal Todd Nichols, who showed him the photo. “You’re suspended because you’re holding up gang signs in this picture,” said Nichols, according to Bruce.

Bruce explained that he was simply representing the number on his football jersey, “3,” and that all the kids did it in football practice. He also said he had no idea the gesture was known to signal affiliation with the Vice Lords, a Chicago-based gang with a strong presence in Memphis, Tenn., 20 miles north of Olive Branch.
……...
When the evidence is so subjective—when a supposed moment of pride in a football jersey can become grounds for expulsion—it has the potential to inflame an entire community. Within a week of Bruce’s indefinite suspension, a Facebook page cropped up calling for Bruce to return to school; it eventually got more than 2,300 “likes.” Bruce’s family contacted the ACLU and the DeSoto County branch of the NAACP. In solidarity, a racially diverse group of 21 other students, including Bruce’s older brother, posed with the same “3” hand gesture and subsequently got suspended, too.

ZetaPhi708 · #2 03-09-2014, 07:47 PM

Zero-Tolerance policies are highly illogical...and the rest of the article states some good facts and figures on how these policies are biased towards minorities.

The administration of this school would be "clutching their pearls" if they could see all of the awesome hand signs we Greeks throw up. LOL.

SWTXBelle · #3 03-09-2014, 08:39 PM

In prepping my middle schoolers to write their book reports I used a "hand sign" - 3 fingers in one hand (the three elements to be discussed) with the other hand on top (adj. used to describe the book) to remind them the elements need to support the evaluation. GRAMMAR GANG SIGN. Beware the Grammar Gang . . .

SoCalGirl · #4 03-10-2014, 02:34 AM

A few months ago there was a article on Yahoo homepage about some high school athletes (girls) who posed with "the shocker" in the yearbook. They were suspended.

UCSD uses "the shocker" to represent a trident. Which is dumb since our mascot is Triton and not his trident.

Kevin · #5 03-10-2014, 09:01 AM

Zero tolerance was invented because higher-up administrators think lower-level administrators are morons who are not to be trusted to use discretion. If they think the lower-level administrators are really that dumb, the lower-level folks need to be replaced ASAP.

DubaiSis · #6 03-10-2014, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SoCalGirl

A few months ago there was a article on Yahoo homepage about some high school athletes (girls) who posed with "the shocker" in the yearbook. They were suspended.

UCSD uses "the shocker" to represent a trident. Which is dumb since our mascot is Triton and not his trident.

there is going to be significant pearl clutching at the NCAAs. Wichita State is The Shockers.

maconmagnolia · #7 03-10-2014, 09:24 PM

Zero tolerance policies are never a good thing. Nothing is black and white. There needs to be some gray area.

SoCalGirl · #8 03-10-2014, 09:31 PM

I believe zero tolerance developed because one person's gray area is another's "OMG My OPPRESSED Snowflake!"

aephi alum · #9 03-10-2014, 09:59 PM

It is ridiculous.

I just recently read a story where an elementary school student was suspended because he formed his fingers into the shape of a gun (vertical thumb, horizontal index finger, other 3 fingers curled into his palm), pointed his index finger at another student, and said "BANG!" The other student didn't notice, nor did any of his other classmates ... but the teacher noticed. He was sent to the principal's office, his parents were called, and he was suspended for three days.

Were the administrators so stupid as to think his hand was an actual gun? He's a 10-year-old boy, not Robocop. (And even Robocop had a separate firearm - it wasn't built into his hand.)

Guns are no joking matter, but what led the administrators to think the kid needed to miss three days of education for pointing a finger and saying "BANG"? They could have just sat down with him and his parents and explained that the gesture was inappropriate.

ASTalumna06 · #10 03-10-2014, 10:18 PM

These kinds of stories present two problems:

1) An overreaction to a minor "infraction"
2) The punishment used in response to the infraction

In the example aephi alum presents above, the irrational, overblown assumption/concern is that this child wants to kill his classmate. Schools claim they need to come down hard on these students and show them that there's "no tolerance" for such behavior. However, if you were really concerned that this child wanted to harm another student (or students), do you really think that suspending him for three days is the solution?

Regarding the story that I initially posted - if there was actually a concern that this student was throwing up a gang sign, where is the concern for the student's well-being? Who is there to help him? Where are the adults asking, "What went wrong?" or "Is he ok?" or "Maybe we should sit down and talk with him and figure out how things are at school/home." If he was really part of a gang, do you think suspending him indefinitely, to possibly socialize with this gang more, is going to solve the problem?

While schools overreacting is a concern, I don't think this bothers me as much as the way they're punishing these students. If a student wanted to harm someone else, or if a student was in a gang, shouldn't someone want to help them?

ASTalumna06 · #11 03-21-2014, 12:20 PM

http://wavy.com/2014/03/19/student-s...ing-classmate/

Quote:

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — A Virginia Beach sixth grader who came to the aid of a classmate who was cutting his arm returned to school Friday with a clean record after initially facing expulsion for her actions.

Last Thursday at Bayside Middle School, Adrionna Harris took a razor from the student, threw it away and convinced him what he was doing wasn’t right.

She thought she was doing the right thing, so Friday she told the school administration what happened. The way school officials responded led to a question of if the school’s zero tolerance policy went too far.

Instead of getting praise from the school administration, Adrionna got a 10 day suspension with recommendation for expulsion.

badgeguy · #12 03-21-2014, 02:01 PM

So what will it truly take for public schools, and maybe private schools to start changing their policies? How many more stories will we see in the news?

I can understand the necessity for having some policy in place to try and stop a mass event from happening....but it seems now the whole idea oz "zero tolerance" is going from one extreme to the other....

Dnpgopenguins · #13 03-21-2014, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

These kinds of stories present two problems:

1) An overreaction to a minor "infraction"
2) The punishment used in response to the infraction

In the example aephi alum presents above, the irrational, overblown assumption/concern is that this child wants to kill his classmate. Schools claim they need to come down hard on these students and show them that there's "no tolerance" for such behavior. However, if you were really concerned that this child wanted to harm another student (or students), do you really think that suspending him for three days is the solution?

Regarding the story that I initially posted - if there was actually a concern that this student was throwing up a gang sign, where is the concern for the student's well-being? Who is there to help him? Where are the adults asking, "What went wrong?" or "Is he ok?" or "Maybe we should sit down and talk with him and figure out how things are at school/home." If he was really part of a gang, do you think suspending him indefinitely, to possibly socialize with this gang more, is going to solve the problem?

While schools overreacting is a concern, I don't think this bothers me as much as the way they're punishing these students. If a student wanted to harm someone else, or if a student was in a gang, shouldn't someone want to help them?

The problem that I have seen is that people, administrators, ect. Don't seem to care once the kids are out of the school,or building, ie public library, ect. They only care about what affects them directly and when the library closes for the day or the kids get sent home there is little to no concern for what happens to the kid. I think this is how people can justify zero tolerance.

I think that legally this is the case as well. For example, I use to volunteer at the public library with the teen program and was told by one of the women working there that they have a responsibility to protect the kids while the kids are in the library. But that same woman seemed to not care at all if the library was closing and its dark outside and a kid(s) parent isn't there to pick the kid up. Well, I often would wait outside in the parking lot with the kid(s), sometimes other parents would wait with me and the kid. But I was told that If a kid accused me of doing something inappropriate, then I could get in a lot of trouble and that is why at 8pm the kids are no longer a concern. Wow, I really couldn't do that. Really, I'm more concerned about the kids safety than being sued.
Idk, this world is just screwed up!
DNP

badgeguy · #14 03-21-2014, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkman

We had great schools before diversity.

huh?

badgeguy · #15 03-21-2014, 03:10 PM

ah. gothca.

do you think that going back to a separated school system would make things better?

I personally had no problems at my high school which had over 1000 students from 9-12 grades. Everyone seemed to "play nice" and yes, there was the occasional fight or incidence, but nothing like whats happening now..... and I was there from 1987-1991.

My only issue with high school was that I got a three day INschool suspension, for being late to school three times without a valid excuse!! I can only imagine what happens now....

Ive always felt that school punishments never worked right......Keep kids IN school...if you have to separate them because of behavior thats fine, but do NOT kick them out! To me THAT causes more issues.......

JMHO......