Zero Tolerance: Turning Schools Into Fortresses

[DudeAsInCool]

As part of Beatking's continued series on our troubled youth, we thought we'd take a look at our troubled system. Previously we posted a story about the Principal who brought a swat team to a high school to stop drug use. Here's an intersting article from Salon.com on the current educational and cultural crisis:

One strike and you're out of school

Youthful suicides, financial ruin, families torn apart for minor infractions: How post-Columbine hysteria is wrecking lives.

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By Whitney Joiner

Feb. 2, 2004  |  In November 1996, Dustin Seal, then a high school senior, was expelled after authorities at his Knoxville, Tenn., high school found a 3-inch knife in his car. Even though the knife wasn't Dustin's, and even though the friend who'd left the knife in Dustin's car claimed responsibility for it, the administration didn't budge: Under the school's "zero tolerance" policy, every student found with a weapon on campus had to be expelled.

Dustin became depressed and withdrawn after his expulsion, says his father, Dennis, a 58-year-old retired commercial contractor. "He would ask me constantly: When are they going to let me back in school with my friends? How can they take everything away from me when I've done nothing wrong?"

The Seals sued the school district and took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, winning at every step. But by the time the court sent the case back to the local level for Dustin to claim damages, he was too exhausted to continue fighting. He settled for $30,000 in December of 2001.

Six months later, Dustin spent a June day with his father shooting pool. He went home that night and repeatedly left messages on Dennis' answering machine while Dennis, sick in bed, slept in the next room: "It doesn't look like we're going to the bike show tomorrow, Dad, but I love you." "Dad -- goodbye."

Then he drew a bath, got in the bathtub, stuck a pistol under his chin and pulled the trigger. He was 22 years old.

Almost two years after his son's suicide, Dennis Seal is suing the Knox County school board for wrongful death, claiming that Dustin's suicide was a direct result of his expulsion. "It broke his spirit and he never got over it," says Seal. School district spokesman Russ Oaks wouldn't comment on Seal's case, but, he says, "Zero tolerance has helped to ensure a safer school environment." The case goes to trial this October.

Clearing his son's name has consumed Dennis Seal's life. "That's all I've done for two years," he says. He's spent well over $30,000 in legal fees, and is planning to try the case himself, after unsatisfactory experiences with lawyers spurred him to study for a law degree online through a local community college. He says he never received a letter of condolence from the school district.

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Dennis Seal's story is perhaps the most harrowing example of a zero tolerance policy gone awry -- but it's not the only one. A growing number of parents across the country are struggling to deal with their children's expulsions, for what they claim are minor infractions blown out of proportion. According to theNational Center for Education Statistics, a zero tolerance policy is a "school or district policy that mandates predetermined consequences or punishments for specific offenses" -- which has all too often come to mean that whether the drug is cocaine or cold medicine, whether the weapon is a butter knife or a shotgun, the penalty will be the same. Like the mandatory sentencing laws of the early '90s, which have overcrowded prisons with felons convicted of relatively low-level crimes forced to serve long sentences, zero tolerance is a one-size-fits-all policy, critics say -- and treating every offense the same, regardless of the context, just doesn't work.

School officials across the country say that after school shootings at Paducah and Jonesboro, Springfield and Columbine, they can't afford to take chances. And just as no one wants to repeal crime laws for fear of seeming soft on crime, school districts are reluctant to change zero tolerance policies for fear of sending the message that discipline in schools is no longer a priority. About 79 percent of public schools have zero tolerance policies for violence and tobacco and 94 percent for firearms, reports NCES.

News stories of children expelled under zero tolerance abound (the girl who was kicked out of school for writing a violent story in her diary; the boy expelled for lending hisasthma inhaler to his asthmatic girlfriend), but what goes unreported is the private suffering endured by families of accused kids: the financial devastation from legal costs and private school tuition; the social isolation, as many must dedicate their time to defending their child; the shame of being seen by the community as a "bad" parent. Worst of all is the emotional toll on the children, who are left with few educational alternatives and deep feelings of anger and betrayal toward a system they've been raised to trust.

Parents affected by zero tolerance are networking through the Web, thanks to sites likeEndZeroTolerance.com and e-mail groups like Parents Against Zero Tolerance. Some, like Dennis Seal, have been inspired to take political action -- he's running for a school board seat in November -- but most depend on the other parents they meet via the Web for legal advice and, especially, emotional support.

"I feel really close to a number of [the parents]," says Mary LeBlanc, a 51-year-old Louisiana receptionist whose 17-year-old son Adam was expelled, arrested, chained to the wall of a police station by his ankles and thrown in jail after his younger brother's school bus driver found a drawing in a sketch pad that depicted Adam and his friends attacking the high school with ICBM missiles. "They know exactly where you're coming from and they're very encouraging. It's very difficult to find someone in this community who can sympathize and understand. You find the most comfort from parents who've been through similar things. If I didn't have that, I would've been lost."

The Gun-Free Schools Act, passed by President Clinton in 1994, mandates a one-year expulsion for any student found with drugs or weapons on campus. The law was designed to protect students from serious dangers, but school boards -- the interpreters of the law, since public schools are run at the local level -- began to tighten their policies after the mid-'90s spate of school shootings, ushering in the era of zero tolerance. Immediately, suspension and expulsion rates zoomed nationwide. According to the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, the total number of suspensions and expulsions for both elementary and secondary schools rose from 1,977,862 in 1990 to 3,150,626 in 2000.

The continuing rapid rise of these numbers prove that zero tolerance doesn't really work, says Russell Skiba, an associate professor in educational psychology at Indiana University and the director of the Safe and Responsive Schools Project, who has just completed two major studies on zero tolerance. "Schools will say, 'We need these policies to keep these schools safe, and if we make any exceptions it'll reduce safety.' The important piece is whether it really is making a contribution to our schools. The best data says it isn't."

Even those charged with carrying out the policies don't necessarily agree with them. "I dislike lumping every single case into one category," says Curt Lavarello, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. ("Resource officer" is the official term for school police officers.) "We know the difference between a kid who has a knife because he's a fisherman and a kid who's going to use the knife to stab his classmates. But when you institute a zero tolerance policy, you have no choice: You become more of a robot in your police work."

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/02/02/zero_tolerance/

[Kooperman]

The problem with the entire educational system is that those who make the decisions are anal reactionaries who wouldn't know compassion or common sense if it fell into their lap. There seems to be a fast track to the top for "decision makers" who have no insight, depth of expertise or interpersonal skills. I always wanted to become an educator, but once I got a small taste of the educational beurocracy and the fearful, leaden suits who control it, it was adios for me and countless others who actually cared about the students. In far too many school districts there's no room for that kind of thinking. It's more important to just shut up and do all the paperwork.

[DudeAsInCool]

Sad but inherently true