Texas honor student Taylor Hess has been expelled for bringing a knife to school.
A bread knife.
A bread knife that inadvertantly found its way into the bed of his pickup truck:
Taylor and his dad said they were cleaning out the garage, and that the knife likely fell out of a box during a delivery to Goodwill.
‘I guess if you wanted to capsulize it… an act of being a Good Samaritan has this fine young man expelled from school,’ Taylor
4 Replies to “Zero Common Sense Policy”
I was once scolded by the school administration for, in an elaborate sixth grade joke over a teacher love affair for Star Trek, brining a toy ray gun to school. Mr friend was suspended for threatening the teacher with a Vulcan death grip at the same time. Both of these were a joke on our teacher, but both were not allowed under the zero tolerance policy. Zero Tolerance simply equals Zero Brains…
I once had to report a student for bringning a knife to school. He brought it for lunch but I had to turn him in. Why would anybody bring a role to butter to school anyway?
My child was expelled for one year. We appealed through the grievance process at the ISD and won. His crime? A kid asked him if he’d sell them his Ritalin. He said NO, but………..he did not report the student to the authorities.
He was expelled for “Conversation in regard to selling drugs”
We need to protest not only “zero tolerance” but the WIDE discretion of the school administrators and make sure that the concept of DUE PROCESS is put back into the SCHOOL process for all discipline that carries consequence to future college and job applications.
Is my kids a drug dealer? NO
His “crime”? not ratting out someone who was seeking to buy drugs. (BTW he did give the student a talking to about the dangers of the medication and offered to bring him the material from the pharmacy that outlined the dangers and side effects)
I agree, Anna.
Every week I watch “Boston Public,” and I’m disturbed by the way teacher / administrator dilemmas are portroyed. The show never asks, <i>should</i> a teacher get involved in a situation by ignoring the rights of students; only, how involved, and with what degree of sanctimony.
Because more often than not the sanctimony is accompanied by a blase attitude toward the facts, and a laziness toward investigating them…