[davesimondotcom]

After Columbine, there were all sorts of bomb threats called into the local high school/junior high here.

Mostly they were just kids trying to get out of school for the day. But because of the fact the cops found marijuana after a locker to locker search, kids lost priveleges.

They had to use book straps (belts) instead of bags for the rest of the year. Couldn't bring gym clothes in gym bags, had to carry them seperate.

Oh, and the cops did find something "suspicious and bomb like" - it took them 3 days of analysis to figure out what it was:

A broken shot put from the track team.



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Dave Simon
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Windows are easily broken.

[Scott_H]

That web site wrote a summary page of all the "Zero-Tolerance Watch" reports. Here's a good one.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95000486

In Jonesboro, Ark., eight-year-old Christopher Kissinger has been suspended from South Elementary School for three days. Christopher's crime: pointing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher and saying "Pow, pow, pow." The Associated Press reports that "the incident apparently violated the Jonesboro School District's zero-tolerance policy against weapons."

[Demonhood]

Chicken fingers, the weapon that really does taste like chicken.
So they were afraid the student would shoot beaks from his processed chicken piece? Nothing makes me sigh and shake my head more than pondering the state of this country.


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We have a Graphics & Illustration Forum. Visit it.

[Xeo]

What happened to all the teachers you could joke around with? Was I the only one who made fun of my teachers to their face, only to have them laugh and do it right back? (OK, some teachers were just mean, and you couldn't go to the bathroom unless it was halfway down your leg, but you know what I'm talking about, right?)

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[etphonehome]

I am currently a sophomore at a suburban high school. My school doesn't go as far as some other schools by requiring clear backpacks, metal detectors, ID cards worn around the neck, etc. However, I know of one case where a student was expelled from school for a knofe that he kept in his car.

He was suspected to have drugs or something on his person, and the administration decided to search his car. This apparently was legal since the fine print at the bottom of the parking contract gives the school permission to search cars at any time for any reason. Anyway, he had been hunting the previous weekend and he had a knife in his trunk since he hadn't cleaned out his trunk yet. The car was parked 100 yards from the school, and to get there, you have to pass by a person guarding the door, both on the way out and on the way back in. In other words, there was almost absolutely no danger of him using the knife to threaten or hurt somebody, even if he knew it was in his car and wanted to use it.

This is something that to me is intolerable. The Bill of Rights gives people the right to avoid unreasonable searches and seizures, which that in my opinion was. Of course, the Supreme Court has previously ruled that schools can do anything short of strip-searching students in order to maintain a safe educational environment.

Here's another story:

Last fall, someone wrote that there was a bomb in the school on a note in the bathroom. At the end of 2nd hour, the principal told everyone to leave the building because there was a bomb threat. We ended up sitting outside on a nice sunny fall day for about an hour, while they "searched" the school. My school is very large, with over 2000 people attending it. My friends and I believe that it's impossible to thouroughly search a building that size in only an hour, because there are so many lockers, classrooms, bathroom stalls, stairwells, etc. where a bomb could be placed. Instead of making a good search, they simply brought in one police officer, poked around the school for a while, and let us resume our day.

These two stories that my school at least is approaching the so-called problem all wrong. When someone has a knife in their car, with no knowledge of its presence in the car, much less an intent to use it, they are expelled. However, when someone makes a threat to blow up the school, it is largely ignored, because 99% of bomb threats are fake. The phrase "zero tolerance" means that the people who innocently leave a knife in their car or draw pictures of guns get expelled, but the people who threaten to blow up a school get ignored.

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"It will be a great day when schools get all the money they need and the air force has to have a bake sale to buy a bomber."

[etphonehome]

Here's another story of a school system gone horribly wrong:

A girl I know was wearing a bandana on her head (to keep her hair back or something). Anyway, she was asked to take it off because bandanas have been known to be gang symbols. There are two things funny about this:

1)This girl was about the last person anyone would suspect to be in a gang.

2)There are no gangs in the Eagan/Apple Valley area, where I live!!!! (at least as far as I know)

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"It will be a great day when schools get all the money they need and the air force has to have a bake sale to buy a bomber."

[Demonhood]

School administrators aren't exactly the most "hip" when it comes to what is gang affiliated, the current slang, or even the state of today's youth culture. It doesn't suprise me in the least that they over react on a daily basis.

At my high school, we weren't allowed to wear hats (unless it was school related, like if you were on the baseball team). This was a fair amount of years ago, and I think their explanation was more an issue of respect than gangs. Sure, we had wannabe gangs that liked to pretend to be hardcore, but most of the students at my school were far too apathetic to carry anything violent out.

[sek929]

This all seems like the communism scare too me. Am I alone?

In the words of Jim Carrey "If we all just spend some time with our kids I think we'll be alright"



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[finboy]

Originally posted by BRussell:
Good point. More respect and freedom would make kids take more responsibility than more restrictions do. But most people don't see it that way - they think kids are out of control, disobedient, disrespectful, etc.

B, I basically agree that we NEED to give kids the opportunity to earn respect and earn freedoms and earn trust, but so many of today's kids have no moral rudder and no sense of values. That isn't harmful in and of itself, but if we start giving THOSE kids more latitude then we're liable to see more problems.

That's the difference between today and 20 years ago. Sure, we had kids in school who had never been disciplined (or had to feel consequences for their actions) and who'd never developed any sense of right and wrong. But we had FAR FEWER in number than some of the schools today would see. How do I know? I see them when they get to college. I wouldn't trust some of these kids to wash my car! Some are great, but far more are VERY SCARY. Let's hold off on the idea of greater freedoms until we qualify the population a little bit better.

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Shop smart, shop S-Mart! You got that!!?!!

[zverushka]

I am in elementary school.
I have detailed drawings of AN-94s, AK-47s, M-4A2s, Beretta 96Gs, AK108s, SVG-98s, Smith and Wesson .45s, Glocks, and Enfield Mark IIIs.
I put them in the very back of my binder, no teacher sees 'em. I draw them outside.
No problem.
I talk to my friends about guns outside.
No problem. You don't need to draw them at math concealed in the Alg. II book so everyone sees your nice 7,62 AK bullet ripping through Bill Gates.

Its that simple, you don't bother them, they dont bother you.

[Demonhood]

you really wanna know what your kid is doing RIGHT NOW??

[Scott_H]

Originally posted by Demonhood:
you really wanna know what your kid is doing RIGHT NOW??

Glad to see the shinks of America will have plenty of work over the next 20 years or more

[Scott_H]

It's at Slashdot.
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/05/22/1549203.shtml

[HAL9000]

I am all for zero-tolerance against these effing signatures here.

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Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult.

[t6hawk]

Originally posted by fisherKing:
i agree w/the above.
but it's easy to see what's happening:
EVERYONE'S TERRIFIED.
parents, adults everywhere don't have a clue, and are grabbing at straws.

what else can they do? (i'm posing the question, not being abstract...)

Terrified? I think the word people are looking for is Paranoid.

I think the best way to keep people in schools from shooting up the place is to change the school systems country wide. Institute a strict zero tolerance policy to bullying and fighting. I personally think that if every student was wearing a school uniform, they would all look the same. Granted it may limit their personal expression in the way they dress but in the schools I know of that have done it, there are a lot fewer complaints about bullying. The jocks are the one biggest problem for bullying too. The schools should penalize the jocks if they are found bullying. Kick them off the team perhaps? Or maybe just suspend them from sports for a period.

There is no easy answer to this problem. I think everyone has to work together to help solve it including the students. But I feel that dragging a child away for drawing a PICTURE of a weapon is completely insane. Most of the people I went to school with drew pictures of weapons for one reason or another, including myself. No one I know has shot up the school when we were there or afterwards.

That's my $0.02.

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I have 6 Macs. How many do you have?

Speak your Mind: Mac-Stuff Forums

[MikeM32]

Great Let's throw the artists in Jail while the Kids with actual problems run free

Let's scapegoat everything we possibly can and just start salem style witch hunts again

The stupidity of mankind sometimes amazes me

Mike

[macvillage.net]

I have heard so many stories like this in my school.... Here is a crazy story I think you may enjoy:

I am really bad at spanish, I just don't have a good grip for world languages, that's all... But I do have a good sence of humor about it. I know that it is not my thing. Once last year, the teacher asked us to write one sentence about ourselves... we were learning descriptive words about people... one of the words was estupido (translates to stupid). As a joke one of my friends said "Roberto es muy estupido en espanol". We all laughed, and it became a joke, since I agreed 100%. One time I didn't know the answer to a question and replied "Roberto es muy estupido".

This year, I had a different Spanish teacher in Spanish III. One day I wrote on the top of my paper "Roberto es muy estupido" as a joke, since a few of my friends from last year were in my class in Spanish III. My teacher read it and reported it. I was then told that this was against school policy.... I asked them to show me that in writing. Since it wasn't in writing, I was then sent to social workers to "discuss problems" they thought this was rediculous that I was being sent for something like an inside joke. All my teachers have been notified about this incident as well (I was snooping arround some mail and I discovered this one). Now I have found out that the Board of Ed. will be discussing new rules for next year, and will be voting on "Self Desecration". Punishment is supposed to be 1 day In School Suspension, and anger management... and it gets more severe from there.

It sounds like a joke but it really isn't. They actually want the ability to suspend some for saying "I was a real idiot to get that question wrong on the test".


Go figure.

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Robert Accettura
Owner/Webmaster of

[apple4ever]

Originally posted by BRussell:

quote:


Originally posted by tie:
Well, gun control violates our Constitutional rights, so I guess the only solution is to kick these kids out of school.

The Supreme Court has held again and again that gun control does not violate the Constitution. And it IS against the law for a kid to have a gun in school.
Wrong. The Supreme Court has never held that. In fact they have held the opposite(go here for a list: http://www.2ndlawlib.com/court/fed/sc/ ). And even if they did, not only would it be contrary to what the founders said( go here for a list of anti-gun control statements by the founders: http://www.matthewbutch.com/docs/quotes2nd.txt ), and to the plain language of the 2nd itself("...the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms.")

I think zero-tolerance is the right idea. There shouldn't be any exceptions, or any discretion on the part of the teacher or administrator about whether having a weapon is OK.

It's just that they're applying it to more than just weapons.

And there in lies the problem

[This message has been edited by apple4ever (edited 05-22-2001).]

[Scott_H]

You all ready. Hold your eyes in because they are going to try to pop out.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95000534

Zero-Tolerance Watch Bold are the quotes from the Washington Post story.


The strip-search story we noted yesterday turns out to be worse than originally reported. Today's Washington Post follows up with the following report:

The strip-searches of middle school boys during a tour at the D.C. jail last week involved more children and were more intrusive than previously suspected, school officials and students said yesterday, and one student has told investigators that he was subjected to the same procedure during an earlier visit.

Twelve boys from Evans Middle School who had received "in-school suspensions for misconduct" were taken on the trip, and nine of them were strip-searched. The Post report adds:

A seventh-grader interviewed by a reporter said that after they were made to take off their clothes, he and his classmates were told to open their mouths and to bend over. . . . "I felt scared," said the student, 13-year-old Domonique Whittaker. "They were cussing and hollering at us. They said if we don't take off our clothes, they were going to beat us and make us take them off."

Another student on the tour, Jose Ross, 13, said he was not forced to strip because the group ran out of time and had to leave. But he said he "felt dirty" having to watch his friends take off their clothes.

"While they were telling us to strip, inmates were looking at us," Jose said.


Jose described how one of his friends, a fellow eighth-grader, resisted taking off his clothes and was forced to remove them. He said the in-school suspension coordinator told jail officers that this was one of the boys who had been "acting up."

[This message has been edited by Scott_H (edited 05-25-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Scott_H (edited 05-25-2001).]

[davesimondotcom]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,25641,00.html

This Zero Tolerance stuff has gone beyond bizarre.

A knife in the back seat of your car is only dangerous if your friends are piling in and sit on it! It's a TOOL. It only becomes a weapon when someone has INTENT to use it as such.



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Dave Simon
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Windows are easily broken.

[Scott_H]

Originally posted by davesimondotcom:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,25641,00.html

This Zero Tolerance stuff has gone beyond bizarre.

A knife in the back seat of your car is only dangerous if your friends are piling in and sit on it! It's a TOOL. It only becomes a weapon when someone has INTENT to use it as such.

Yea. ZTW did that one here. http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95000514

An 18-year-old high school senior spent nine hours in jail yesterday, charged with felony possession of a weapon on school property--because a sheriff's deputy found a kitchen knife in her car.

At least they didn't strip search her like those little kids above. Mind you the little kids above were charged with nothing.

[This message has been edited by Scott_H (edited 05-25-2001).]

[TheJoshu]

I have never felt more lucky.. I am facing a few of the effects of zero-tolerance, but it is not very bad where I am at all. I am a sophomore in a Brooklyn public high school, and as of now we don't have metal detectors or rules about backpacks... but on the other hand, on the first day of school we were told that a pencil could be considered a weapon if used in a violent way. I carry an awl in my backpack, for no particular reason, and I assume they could expel me for that. Last year, a group was selling balloons to raise money to send to AIDS charities; the principal told the teacher responsible for the group to stop, because the sound of the balloons popping sounded like a gunshot. How pathetic.

Cheerios - last month, something was written on one of the girls' bathroom stalls: "Columbine coming to Murrow (the name of our school), April ___." (I've forgotten exactly what day the person wrote). They handed out letters telling us that the rumors were false, they brought us all into the auditorium and the principal told us that we have nothing to be worried about, and most of us came to school as normal. That response rather upset me..

I also have a butane lighter, which I carry just because it's fun to melt pennies. If they knew about any of this, I'd likely be sent out in handcuffs.

For the record, I and 99% of the other students in the US would never kill another student, and most of us would never even consider it. Or think about it even jokingly... we have had so few cases of this; why is it assumed that every student is horrible and by nature a gun-wielding killer? It remains paramount among the things that annoy me...

What is the world coming to?

Edit: Yesterday's Zero-Tolerance Watch says what I said above: "Principal Kenneth B. Poole said just about anything can be considered a weapon according to [Indianapolis public schools] policy--'even a pencil.'" How disgusting.

Second Edit: Clarified "April ___".
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www.thejoshu.com
www.netstudio.nu

[This message has been edited by TheJoshu (edited 05-26-2001).]

[This message has been edited by TheJoshu (edited 05-26-2001).]

[macvillage.net]

Guess what, I got written up yesterday for writing the medical term for the male genitalia. We were watching Antz in class (yes in High School) and were looking at the school paper. There was a section for "things I learned in high school" so joking arround I put a few things down, and one thing involved the word It was just between myself and one other person, it's not like we were making a big deal out of it, it's not like we were using it as a form of sexual harassment, nobody of the opposite sex (except the teacher, if she is is really a she) saw it. It wasn't insulting or degrading to anyone. She just ran over and decided to see what we were writing.

So I will most likely be suspended due to what the vice principal refers to "Zero Tolerance towards this intolerable act" Rules violated:

Insubordination

Disrespect to Staff (even though I didn't put up an arguement or anything)

Unacceptable Language

Sexual Harrassment (even though it isn't harrassment since nobody was bothered by it)


Punishment

Insubordination - 1 day In-School Suspension

Disrespect to staff - 1 after school detention

Unacceptable Language - 1 day In-School Suspension

Sexual Harassment - 2 days OSS with work on bias reduction or training in gender issues; police notification as required

Yea, go figure. Anyway, here is something else I found out that my school calls part of zero tollerance:

If I were to go into the hallway and punch a random student, they would be in the same ammount of trouble as I am. You would think they would be inocent since they did nothing, but they are just as guilty. Go figure!


I would post the school district, but so that I don't get in trouble for that also, I guess I will leave it here.

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Robert Accettura
Owner/Webmaster of

[Amorph]

Damn.

I remember this exchange from my high school days (this would have been in 1985 ):

Student: "Mr. Gougeon, I have a question."

Mr. Gougeon: "Shoot."

Me: (moves to make a finger gun and "shoot" Mr. Gougeon)

Mr. Gougeon: (knowing me well, turns and draws, beating me to the joke) "Bang."

Lord only knows what would happen now.

My brother's getting into teaching now , and here's another goodie: Most of the troubled kids are troubled because their parents are in jail. No, really. So he's having lunch with a substitute teacher, and one of these poor kids walks into the same restaurant they're in, and walks over when my brother greets him. The other teacher says, to a sixth grader: "Why don't you fall into a gutter and die." And then people wonder what drives some kids to extreme violence. (My brother, bless his soul, called the guy down right then and there for it.)

Gil Scott-Heron said it best: "For my protection? Who's gonna protect me from you?"


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James

"I grew up. Then I got better." - Sea Wasp

[ctt1wbw]

We should turn the Zero Tolerance standards on the teachers and principals. Maybe Congress. Do something we don't tolerate and you are out on your ass. Immediately.

[macvillage.net]

It's amazing how the BOE in my community is actually wasting time debating on the punishment for "self descecration" (calling yourself an idiot) when the budget is in deep trouble. Go figure.

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Robert Accettura
Owner/Webmaster of