QKShooter

Oct. 12) -- Zachary Christie, 6, was happy about joining the Cub Scouts and was excited about a new camping utensil that functions as a spoon, fork and knife -- so excited that he took the tool to school to use it at lunch.

But the Newark, Del., boy's enthusiasm got him kicked out of school for violating a zero-tolerance policy on weapons,

The first-grader faces 45 days in reform school after officials determined the camping utensil violated the Christina School District's ban on knives.

His mother is home-schooling him while his family appeals the punishment.

"It just seems unfair," Zachary told The Times.


Some people say school officials should be able to exercise discretion in such cases, but others argue that zero-tolerance policies are necessary to prevent discrimination.

Delaware lawmakers gave school officials more flexibility on weapons last year after a third-grader was kicked out of school for a year because her grandmother sent her to class with a birthday cake and a knife to cut it.

But the change dealt only with expulsions, not suspensions like Zachary's.

"We didn't want our son becoming the poster child for this, but this is out of control," Debbie Christie told The Times.

The Christina school board president defended Zachary's suspension but said the rules may need to be changed for younger children.

HotGuns

Zero Tolerance equals ZERO common sense.

Its all part of the weenification of America.

Any teacher that falls for that line of bull aint fit to teach.

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Rugergirl

Honestly I think there are times when the students are smarter than the teachers and the administrators put together.

A Boy Scout camping utensil?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

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nova83tx

Sucks for the kid, he did nothing wrong and he is being punished. I hope his parents and community rally around the school district meetings and get them to lessen the 45 days down to 0!

Unfortunately this school district has it in their Code of Conduct in Black & White:

I think this is a lesson to Parents out their who need to be responsible for children too young to know policies like these. The parents should have known the code, and made sure he didn't take the boy scout tool to school.

The same falls to parents who give Advil to their kids to take in their backpack. It isn't the kids fault that he violated the Zero Tolerance Drug Policy, it is the Parent's.

Is the school Policy ridiculous in that it is Zero Tolerance, and their is no room for leniency as in this case, Absolutely Yes.

Was this Policy made available to Parents ahead of time, and are the administrators following through with well establish rules, Absolutely Yes.

Keep your finger's crossed that school administrators may (but doubtful) make a rare exception in this case and let this kid off light. Let's hope this kid bounces back and this doesn't bother him anymore than I am sure that it already has.

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ccw9mm

It's the difference between tools and weapons.

It's the difference between common sense and stupidity.

One would think it should come down to threats made, or nothing of the sort. One would think. If one could think, or was allowed to think, that is.

"Weenie-fication" is it, exactly.

The 11th Commandment (America): Thou shalt not think.

It's becoming more true every day that they're allowed to get away with it.

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Thoughts: Justifiable self defense.
Explain: How does disarming victims reduce the number of victims?
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chrise2004

I just saw this on the news. It's sad the school board won't evaluate the situation instead they just fall back on "zero tolerance". but we all know that if this was a teacher's kid or a school board's kid it would be a different story.

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greenLED

Let me rephrase that: ...zero-tolerance policies are necessary to continue nurturing WIDESPREAD STUPIDITY!!

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automatic slim

This is what happens when the NEA zealots are allowed to take over. Too bad there isn't zero tolerance for stupid teachers and administrators.

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"First gallant South Carolina nobly made the stand."
Edge of Darkness

jdsumner

By IAN URBINA
Published: October 11, 2009

NEWARK, Del. — Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not easy. But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary committee hearing with his karate instructor and his mother’s fiancé by his side to vouch for him.
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Zachary’s offense? Taking a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary was suspended and now faces 45 days in the district’s reform school.

“It just seems unfair,” Zachary said, pausing as he practiced writing lower-case letters with his mother, who is home-schooling him while the family tries to overturn his punishment.

Spurred in part by the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings, many school districts around the country adopted zero-tolerance policies on the possession of weapons on school grounds. More recently, there has been growing debate over whether the policies have gone too far.

But, based on the code of conduct for the Christina School District, where Zachary is a first grader, school officials had no choice. They had to suspend him because, “regardless of possessor’s intent,” knives are banned.

But the question on the minds of residents here is: Why do school officials not have more discretion in such cases?

“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.”

Still, some school administrators argue that it is difficult to distinguish innocent pranks and mistakes from more serious threats, and that the policies must be strict to protect students.

“There is no parent who wants to get a phone call where they hear that their child no longer has two good seeing eyes because there was a scuffle and someone pulled out a knife,” said George Evans, the president of the Christina district’s school board. He defended the decision, but added that the board might adjust the rules when it comes to younger children like Zachary.

Critics contend that zero-tolerance policies like those in the Christina district have led to sharp increases in suspensions and expulsions, often putting children on the streets or in other places where their behavior only worsens, and that the policies undermine the ability of school officials to use common sense in handling minor infractions.

For Delaware, Zachary’s case is especially frustrating because last year state lawmakers tried to make disciplinary rules more flexible by giving local boards authority to, “on a case-by-case basis, modify the terms of the expulsion.”

The law was introduced after a third-grade girl was expelled for a year because her grandmother had sent a birthday cake to school, along with a knife to cut it. The teacher called the principal — but not before using the knife to cut and serve the cake.

In Zachary’s case, the state’s new law did not help because it mentions only expulsion and does not explicitly address suspensions. A revised law is being drafted to include suspensions.

“We didn’t want our son becoming the poster child for this,” Ms. Christie said, “but this is out of control.”

In a letter to the district’s disciplinary committee, State Representative Teresa L. Schooley, Democrat of Newark, wrote, “I am asking each of you to consider the situation, get all the facts, find out about Zach and his family and then act with common sense for the well-being of this child.”

Education experts say that zero-tolerance policies initially allowed authorities more leeway in punishing students, but were applied in a discriminatory fashion. Many studies indicate that African-Americans were several times more likely to be suspended or expelled than other students for the same offenses.

“The result of those studies is that more school districts have removed discretion in applying the disciplinary policies to avoid criticism of being biased,” said Ronnie Casella, an associate professor of education at Central Connecticut State University who has written about school violence. He added that there is no evidence that zero-tolerance policies make schools safer.

Other school districts are also trying to address problems they say have stemmed in part from overly strict zero-tolerance policies.

In Baltimore, around 10,000 students, about 12 percent of the city’s enrollment, were suspended during the 2006-7 school year, mostly for disruption and insubordination, according to a report by the Open Society Institute-Baltimore. School officials there are rewriting the disciplinary code, to route students to counseling rather than suspension.

In Milwaukee, where school officials reported that 40 percent of ninth graders had been suspended at least once in the 2006-7 school year, the superintendent has encouraged teachers not to overreact to student misconduct.

“Something has to change,” said Dodi Herbert, whose 13-year old son, Kyle, was suspended in May and ordered to attend the Christina district’s reform school for 45 days after another student dropped a pocket knife in his lap. School officials declined to comment on the case for reasons of privacy.

Ms. Herbert, who said her son was a straight-A student, has since been home-schooling him instead of sending him to the reform school.

The Christina school district attracted similar controversy in 2007 when it expelled a seventh-grade girl who had used a utility knife to cut windows out of a paper house for a class project.

Charles P. Ewing, a professor of law and psychology at the University at Buffalo Law School who has written about school safety issues, said he favored a strict zero-tolerance approach.

“There are still serious threats every day in schools,” Dr. Ewing said, adding that giving school officials discretion holds the potential for discrimination and requires the kind of threat assessments that only law enforcement is equipped to make.

In the 2005-6 school year, 86 percent of public schools reported at least one violent crime, theft or other crime, according to the most recent federal survey.

And yet, federal studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and another by the Department of Justice show that the rate of school-related homicides and nonfatal violence has fallen over most of the past decade.

Educational experts say the decline is less a result of zero-tolerance policies than of other programs like peer mediation, student support groups and adult mentorships, as well as an overall decrease in all forms of crime.

For Zachary, it is not school violence that has left him reluctant to return to classes.

“I just think the other kids may tease me for being in trouble,” he said, pausing before adding, “but I think the rules are what is wrong, not me.”

RMS

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