Should we do away with 'zero tolerance' in schools and replace it with common sense?

[Clementine]

Finally, something has happened that actually has people on the left upset. This time the school's zero tolerance regarding students bringing anything to school that even remotely looks like a weapon has gotten a young Muslim boy in trouble. While there was little outrage over the dozens of other students suspended for toys, people are now crying discrimination. It doesn't fit considering the latest student is in good company for bullshit suspensions, but we've come to expect Obama and the Dems to cry discrimination whenever the person is anything other than white.

Some kids have been suspended for toys or innocent gestures that violate the school's draconian policy on weapons and drugs. Whether it's a toy bubble gun or an aspirin, students have found themselves in serious trouble for violating the zero tolerance policy.

It's reasonable to expect that students shouldn't come to school packing guns, knives or any kind of illegal drugs, but to punish them for simply mentioning a weapon is stupid.

Don't the school officials understand the difference between a student making a real threat and a student talking about a hunting trip? Do they know the difference between a teen girl taking Midol and a criminal selling crack? Allowing a student to carry their own asthma inhaler will not encourage drug use. Why must some treat every person like they are total idiots in need of being dictated to for their own good? Some parents actually raise their children and don't need schools to treat them like a group of mindless sheep.

Judging from the way they've conducted themselves these last years, I'd say they don't see any difference between criminals and average kids.

Average kids play pretend and sometimes that involves guns. Get over it. The student most likely to pose a danger won't be talking much. It will be some anti-social individual who was likely prescribed drugs for depression. It will be a student that has been suspended. Some shootings occurred while the student was on suspension. The schools have yet to spot a potential threat because they are too busy punishing innocent students over nothing.

They ban everything from toy guns to asthma inhalers because of insane policies. No drug dealer was ever stopped by zero tolerance, just as no shooter was ever stopped by a 'gun-free zone' sign. Yet, the schools and other places continue this insane practice of punishing political incorrectness. Talking about a gun is politically incorrect and highly discouraged. If the left can't outlaw them, plan B is to teach children that only evil people like guns. And they will show children how bad people get punished for even talking about guns.

It's also politically incorrect, in the current climate, to criticize Muslims so the left has come out to defend a Muslim student even though he clearly violated the stupid school rules.

Instead of selectively defending students, how about trade zero tolerance for something more sensible?

How did the last few generations do it? We all had guns, we took aspirin to school and yet there was no violence. Clamping down on toys and the asthmatic kid who has an inhaler in his pocket for emergencies will not make anyone safer. The real danger goes unnoticed while the reactionary schools focus on the wrong things. If it was about safety, I think they would have abandoned the rules regarding drawing pictures of guns. It's a gun control issue disguised as a safety issue and it's time to stop it.

 

[Disir]

I have always been against zero tolerance policies and I am very outspoken about it. So are many people on the Left. Incidentally, there was a report that came out about a decade called the School to Prison pipeline (NAACP). I am also very vocal against uniforms because those are 1) easy violations that wind up in suspensions and 2) make the adults feel better about themselves. It isn't from the left. It's from the right.

 

[depotoo]

Yes!!!

 

[depotoo]

Wrong. I know many on the right that hate zero tolerance and uniforms. I also know it was liberals on the school board that voted in uniforms here. Even for pre-k.

I have always been against zero tolerance policies and I am very outspoken about it. So, are many people on the Left. Incidentally, there was a report that came out about a decade called the School to Prison pipeline (NAACP). I am also very vocal against uniforms because those are 1) easy violations that wind up in suspensions and 2) make the adults feel better about themselves. It isn't from the left. It's from the right.

 

[Missourian]

Judging from 21st century America, we could justifiably rename it "uncommon sense".

 

[Disir]

Wrong. I know many on the right that hate zero tolerance and uniforms. I also know it was liberals on the school board that voted in uniforms here. Even for pre-k.

I have always been against zero tolerance policies and I am very outspoken about it. So, are many people on the Left. Incidentally, there was a report that came out about a decade called the School to Prison pipeline (NAACP). I am also very vocal against uniforms because those are 1) easy violations that wind up in suspensions and 2) make the adults feel better about themselves. It isn't from the left. It's from the right.

I don't know any liberals that are ok with it.

 

[daws101]

define common sense

5 Ways 'Common Sense' Lies To You Everyday

Albert Einstein said common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by the age of 18. It is also a result of some pervasive and extremely stupid logical fallacies that have become embedded in the human brain over generations, for one reason or another. These malfunctioning thoughts--several of which you've had already today--are a major cause of everything that's wrong with the world.

#5. The Historian's Fallacy

You'll Hear it As:

"Hey I heard Lisa tried to stab you! You should have known that ho was crazy!"

How It Screws Us:

Remember that time you decided to jump off your roof and do a back flip into your little brother's kiddie pool? Remember how all your friends thought it was a great idea and it was going to be so cool? And do you remember when you regained consciousness three months later in the hospital, how suddenly they all laughed at you and said you should have known better? Congratulations, you were bitch-slapped by the Historian's Fallacy.

 

[Clementine]

I don't know any liberals that are ok with it.

Enjoy reading. I didn't get through all the threads, but this subject has been bought up. See who is most against it and which side tends to turn it into a discussion on gun control.


http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/nevada-republicans-have-introduced-a-bill-that-would-legalize-pop-tart-guns.405811/


Read through the above thread regarding a bill introduced to legalize pop tart guns. There were no liberals chiming in against zero tolerance and they simply talked about gun control. Clearly, there are some who see the students getting suspended for pretend guns as some sort of preventative measure to stop shootings with real guns.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/attorney-girl-5-in-trouble-for-chatting-about-shooting-bubble-gun.273521/


Again, not seeing liberals chime in to disagree with the school's decision. Got off topic about when these rules started, but didn't condemn them.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/2014s-most-hilarious-leftwat-zero-tolerance-stories.394068/


Another thread where the libs came to bash those who were critical of zero tolerance.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/search/4190569/?q=zero+tolerance&o=relevance&c[title_only]=1


Search results for 'zero tolerance' threads.

I have to say that few libs tend to bash the zero tolerance. Most change the subject and bring up gun control or bash posters, but hard to find ones that actually say that zero tolerance needs to go. (That will change now that a Muslim was punished for breaking the ridiculous rules and Obama chimed in) Going by threads, waaay more Repubs bash zero tolerance than Dems. Refreshing that a few libs agree it's nonsense, but not enough speak out against it.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

It's reasonable to expect that students shouldn't come to school packing guns, knives or any kind of illegal drugs, but to punish them for simply mentioning a weapon is stupid.

When I was a young boy, all boys carried pocketknives. From about the age of eight or nine, I've rarely left home without at least one pocketknife on my person. I've always seen it as an essential and indispensable tool that every boy, and every man, needed to have; and I cannot imagine trying to function without it.

How did we get to be so cowardly and pussified as a nation that there is now any question about allowing boys to carry pocketknives, and so many places now, where even as a grown man, I am not allowed to enter if I am carrying a knife of any kind? At whatever point we foolishly crossed that line, for whatever reason, we had already gone wrong. And, of course, as more recent stories demonstrate, we didn't stop there. Most recently, of course, the kid who got arrested for bringing a clock to school, but before that, there've been no deart of equally-idiotic stories about kids getting in trouble for drawing pictures of weapons, or chewing a pastry into a gun-like shape, or even a deaf kid who was told he had to change his name because the sign-language form of his name included a hand position that resembled the classic “gun gesture”.

 

[Mr. H.]

The Left is "upset" only because this kid is dark-skinned and is named Mohamed.

If he were a lily-white corn-fed christian cracker named Joe-Bob, the Libtardos would have had him hung by now.

 

[Clementine]

When I was a young boy, all boys carried pocketknives. From about the age of eight or nine, I've rarely left home without at least one pocketknife on my person. I've always seen it as an essential and indispensable tool that every boy, and every man, needed to have; and I cannot imagine trying to function without it.

How did we get to be so cowardly and pussified as a nation that there is now any question about allowing boys to carry pocketknives, and so many places now, where even as a grown man, I am not allowed to enter if I am carrying a knife of any kind? At whatever point we foolishly crossed that line, for whatever reason, we had already gone wrong. And, of course, as more recent stories demonstrate, we didn't stop there. Most recently, of course, the kid who got arrested for bringing a clock to school, but before that, there've been no deart of equally-idiotic stories about kids getting in trouble for drawing pictures of weapons, or chewing a pastry into a gun-like shape, or even a deaf kid who was told he had to change his name because the sign-language form of his name included a hand position that resembled the classic “gun gesture”.

It's because some thugs have no regard for life so authorities assume that anyone with any kind of weapon is as dangerous as the worst scum.

 

[my2¢]

The high school principal looked the other way when my step-son absent mindlessly left his hunting rife hanging in the back of the pickup after returning from a weekend hunting trip. So I vote "yes" and would do so even if not feeling so obligated.

 

[Disir]

I don't know any liberals that are ok with it.

Enjoy reading. I didn't get through all the threads, but this subject has been bought up. See who is most against it and which side tends to turn it into a discussion on gun control.


http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/nevada-republicans-have-introduced-a-bill-that-would-legalize-pop-tart-guns.405811/


Read through the above thread regarding a bill introduced to legalize pop tart guns. There were no liberals chiming in against zero tolerance and they simply talked about gun control. Clearly, there are some who see the students getting suspended for pretend guns as some sort of preventative measure to stop shootings with real guns.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/attorney-girl-5-in-trouble-for-chatting-about-shooting-bubble-gun.273521/


Again, not seeing liberals chime in to disagree with the school's decision. Got off topic about when these rules started, but didn't condemn them.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/2014s-most-hilarious-leftwat-zero-tolerance-stories.394068/


Another thread where the libs came to bash those who were critical of zero tolerance.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/search/4190569/?q=zero+tolerance&o=relevance&c[title_only]=1


Search results for 'zero tolerance' threads.

I have to say that few libs tend to bash the zero tolerance. Most change the subject and bring up gun control or bash posters, but hard to find ones that actually say that zero tolerance needs to go. (That will change now that a Muslim was punished for breaking the ridiculous rules and Obama chimed in) Going by threads, waaay more Repubs bash zero tolerance than Dems. Refreshing that a few libs agree it's nonsense, but not enough speak out against it.

"Bullying" is to be a "Crime"... | US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

Suspensions Overuse in K-12 Schools | Page 2 | US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

Charter schools' expulsion rate vastly higher than rest of CPS | US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

 

[Disir]

If the right wing doesn't want it and the liberals don't want it, then why do we still have it?

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

Finally, something has happened that actually has people on the left upset. This time the school's zero tolerance regarding students bringing anything to school that even remotely looks like a weapon has gotten a young Muslim boy in trouble. While there was little outrage over the dozens of other students suspended for toys, people are now crying discrimination. It doesn't fit considering the latest student is in good company for bullshit suspensions, but we've come to expect Obama and the Dems to cry discrimination whenever the person is anything other than white.

Some kids have been suspended for toys or innocent gestures that violate the school's draconian policy on weapons and drugs. Whether it's a toy bubble gun or an aspirin, students have found themselves in serious trouble for violating the zero tolerance policy.

It's reasonable to expect that students shouldn't come to school packing guns, knives or any kind of illegal drugs, but to punish them for simply mentioning a weapon is stupid.

Don't the school officials understand the difference between a student making a real threat and a student talking about a hunting trip? Do they know the difference between a teen girl taking Midol and a criminal selling crack? Allowing a student to carry their own asthma inhaler will not encourage drug use. Why must some treat every person like they are total idiots in need of being dictated to for their own good? Some parents actually raise their children and don't need schools to treat them like a group of mindless sheep.

Judging from the way they've conducted themselves these last years, I'd say they don't see any difference between criminals and average kids.

Average kids play pretend and sometimes that involves guns. Get over it. The student most likely to pose a danger won't be talking much. It will be some anti-social individual who was likely prescribed drugs for depression. It will be a student that has been suspended. Some shootings occurred while the student was on suspension. The schools have yet to spot a potential threat because they are too busy punishing innocent students over nothing.

They ban everything from toy guns to asthma inhalers because of insane policies. No drug dealer was ever stopped by zero tolerance, just as no shooter was ever stopped by a 'gun-free zone' sign. Yet, the schools and other places continue this insane practice of punishing political incorrectness. Talking about a gun is politically incorrect and highly discouraged. If the left can't outlaw them, plan B is to teach children that only evil people like guns. And they will show children how bad people get punished for even talking about guns.

It's also politically incorrect, in the current climate, to criticize Muslims so the left has come out to defend a Muslim student even though he clearly violated the stupid school rules.

Instead of selectively defending students, how about trade zero tolerance for something more sensible?

How did the last few generations do it? We all had guns, we took aspirin to school and yet there was no violence. Clamping down on toys and the asthmatic kid who has an inhaler in his pocket for emergencies will not make anyone safer. The real danger goes unnoticed while the reactionary schools focus on the wrong things. If it was about safety, I think they would have abandoned the rules regarding drawing pictures of guns. It's a gun control issue disguised as a safety issue and it's time to stop it.

Who would teach it?

 

[Clementine]

What schools should be looking for instead of gun drawings and funny looking clocks-

Mass shooters generally have a lot in common. The students who went to schools and starting shooting were usually loners who were treated for depression and were suspended or expelled at the time of the shootings.

It's harder for teachers to spot potentially disturbed students now because of policies that force kids to interact. Used to be that some were always the odd man out. They didn't have playmates at recess, never got picked for teams and generally were rejected by other students. Most were probably just misunderstood, had problems at home or suffering from depression or a chemical imbalance. Many are introverts that have trouble relating to people. With schools banning the practice of students choosing team members and even forcing children to play with everyone on the playground, it just disguises the fact that a child is suffering and not being truly accepted by others. Even though it's not allowed to exclude others, that doesn't mean the troubled student is really making friends and they feel alone even though it might not appear that way. Psychiatrists have stated that having at least one true friend can make all the difference.

The portrait of a school shooter is a child that never fit in and likely got picked on a lot when teachers were not around. It's not unusual for them to one day lose it because they got picked on one too many times and their immediate reactions, like punching another student, gets them suspended. Once that happens, they are generally home alone and now resent school officials for joining the bullies and picking on them. This is often when they snap. If the child knows where to get a gun or other weapon, they might quickly become a killer. Of course, parents often claim they didn't know there was a problem and the school didn't see any signs. Yet, there were serious problems that ended horribly.

It has nothing at all to do with playing cops and robbers and everything to do with not fitting in. Add any mental illness to that, especially one that required medication, and you might have a recipe for disaster. So many young people have gone off the deep end after stopping medication. There are so many side effects while on the drugs and after they stop taking them. Read up on how many of the crazy shooters took meds at some point. It can't be ignored as a factor. And considering that there are dozens of lawsuits over bad drugs, doctors need to think twice before putting any young person on prescription drugs. Even drugs, like Chantix, meant to help people stop smoking have resulted in the patients going crazy and attacking people. Chantix was a common drug used to treat depression.

Best thing for teachers to do would be to watch for students who seem depressed, fail to interact or get rejected by other students and especially watch those who require medication. Bullies have been around forever and many survived being bullied. They never resorted to violence. The school shootings seem to have started after more and more undisciplined young people were diagnosed with ADHD. It seemed like an epidemic and I think the drugs were more about calming kids down so teachers didn't have to deal with their ill behavior than anything. I think some of the mass shootings are consequences of the rush to drug troubled kids.

We won't stop anything by suspending little children who naturally like to pretend. And we have to stop shoving drugs at those who don't conform to a structured environment. Often, it's a matter of not being disciplined at home and drugs don't fix a dyfunctional or ignorant parent.

There will still be bullies and victims and schools should always be watchful. Of course, some cities will still have violent students who grow up in neighborhoods (or homes) with gang members. Lack of morals in society and so much violence in movies and real life serve to desensitize young people. We'll never be 100% safe, but at least we can stop making life miserable for good kids with big imaginations. You don't have to be an expert to tell the different between a typical kid and a potential time bomb. Libs need to give up the gun control effort by teaching kids that the 2nd amendment is evil. That would really help. Teach you own kids the liberal way, but leave ours alone.

 

[Clementine]

If the right wing doesn't want it and the liberals don't want it, then why do we still have it?

Because some control freaks won't let go of it. Once implemented, it's so difficult to stop something no matter how much it fails.

Sorry, but I think liberal teachers against gun control enjoy punishing children whose parents buy them toy guns.

Some teachers add their own rules to the list. Students get in trouble for wearing patriotic shirts, saying 'Bless you' when someone sneezes and other equally ridiculous things. Colleges are worse when it comes to controlling speech and behavior.

 

[Disir]

If the right wing doesn't want it and the liberals don't want it, then why do we still have it?

Because some control freaks won't let go of it. Once implemented, it's so difficult to stop something no matter how much it fails.

Sorry, but I think liberal teachers against gun control enjoy punishing children whose parents buy them toy guns.

Some teachers add their own rules to the list. Students get in trouble for wearing patriotic shirts, saying 'Bless you' when someone sneezes and other equally ridiculous things. Colleges are worse when it comes to controlling speech and behavior.

It's listed in the school handbooks. It's not arbitrary. It's usually not in control of the principal but the school board.

 

[OKTexas]

It's reasonable to expect that students shouldn't come to school packing guns, knives or any kind of illegal drugs, but to punish them for simply mentioning a weapon is stupid.

When I was a young boy, all boys carried pocketknives. From about the age of eight or nine, I've rarely left home without at least one pocketknife on my person. I've always seen it as an essential and indispensable tool that every boy, and every man, needed to have; and I cannot imagine trying to function without it.

How did we get to be so cowardly and pussified as a nation that there is now any question about allowing boys to carry pocketknives, and so many places now, where even as a grown man, I am not allowed to enter if I am carrying a knife of any kind? At whatever point we foolishly crossed that line, for whatever reason, we had already gone wrong. And, of course, as more recent stories demonstrate, we didn't stop there. Most recently, of course, the kid who got arrested for bringing a clock to school, but before that, there've been no deart of equally-idiotic stories about kids getting in trouble for drawing pictures of weapons, or chewing a pastry into a gun-like shape, or even a deaf kid who was told he had to change his name because the sign-language form of his name included a hand position that resembled the classic “gun gesture”.

You have to remember that this is about indoctrination into obedience to the government, not safety. It's being done by academics that see individualism as a threat to the ordered society they seek.

 

[blackhawk]

Finally, something has happened that actually has people on the left upset. This time the school's zero tolerance regarding students bringing anything to school that even remotely looks like a weapon has gotten a young Muslim boy in trouble. While there was little outrage over the dozens of other students suspended for toys, people are now crying discrimination. It doesn't fit considering the latest student is in good company for bullshit suspensions, but we've come to expect Obama and the Dems to cry discrimination whenever the person is anything other than white.

Some kids have been suspended for toys or innocent gestures that violate the school's draconian policy on weapons and drugs. Whether it's a toy bubble gun or an aspirin, students have found themselves in serious trouble for violating the zero tolerance policy.

It's reasonable to expect that students shouldn't come to school packing guns, knives or any kind of illegal drugs, but to punish them for simply mentioning a weapon is stupid.

Don't the school officials understand the difference between a student making a real threat and a student talking about a hunting trip? Do they know the difference between a teen girl taking Midol and a criminal selling crack? Allowing a student to carry their own asthma inhaler will not encourage drug use. Why must some treat every person like they are total idiots in need of being dictated to for their own good? Some parents actually raise their children and don't need schools to treat them like a group of mindless sheep.

Judging from the way they've conducted themselves these last years, I'd say they don't see any difference between criminals and average kids.

Average kids play pretend and sometimes that involves guns. Get over it. The student most likely to pose a danger won't be talking much. It will be some anti-social individual who was likely prescribed drugs for depression. It will be a student that has been suspended. Some shootings occurred while the student was on suspension. The schools have yet to spot a potential threat because they are too busy punishing innocent students over nothing.

They ban everything from toy guns to asthma inhalers because of insane policies. No drug dealer was ever stopped by zero tolerance, just as no shooter was ever stopped by a 'gun-free zone' sign. Yet, the schools and other places continue this insane practice of punishing political incorrectness. Talking about a gun is politically incorrect and highly discouraged. If the left can't outlaw them, plan B is to teach children that only evil people like guns. And they will show children how bad people get punished for even talking about guns.

It's also politically incorrect, in the current climate, to criticize Muslims so the left has come out to defend a Muslim student even though he clearly violated the stupid school rules.

Instead of selectively defending students, how about trade zero tolerance for something more sensible?

How did the last few generations do it? We all had guns, we took aspirin to school and yet there was no violence. Clamping down on toys and the asthmatic kid who has an inhaler in his pocket for emergencies will not make anyone safer. The real danger goes unnoticed while the reactionary schools focus on the wrong things. If it was about safety, I think they would have abandoned the rules regarding drawing pictures of guns. It's a gun control issue disguised as a safety issue and it's time to stop it.

Your proposal is very sound but it has one problem where are you going to find people with common sense? With each passing year the number who have this are becoming fewer and fewer.