Annie
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- Nov 22, 2003
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Zero tolerance strikes again...
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/heyl/s_453040.html
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/heyl/s_453040.html
Student weapons policy backfires
By Eric Heyl
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, May 12, 2006
At least they didn't call in the SWAT team.
Penn Hills School District officials, however, did react swiftly and harshly when Jokari Becker triggered a crisis of near-Columbine proportions by bringing a toy gun to school for a class project.
First, they suspended the Dible Elementary School fifth-grader for three days. Then they decided that wasn't punishment enough. So they suspended him for an additional seven days.
They decided that wasn't quite punishment enough, either. So on Tuesday, they expelled Jokari. He won't be allowed back in school until January -- at the earliest.
At the rate the penalties keep increasing, Jokari soon might find himself strapped on a gurney while Superintendent Patricia Gennari administers a lethal injection.
Gennari did not return calls Thursday, but Melissa Becker, 32, Jokari's mother, was available. She remains dumbfounded over the disciplinary action.
"This whole thing is absurd," she said.
It's difficult to dispute her assertion.
Few would confuse the fluorescent, oversized, green-and-orange plastic toy with a Glock.
Jokari brought the gun to school for inclusion in a memory box he was making. He kept it in his book bag until it was time to work on the project.
Jokari never pointed the unloaded gun at a student or teacher. Even if it had been loaded, even if he had aimed it at a classmate, no one would have been in jeopardy.
"It says 'paintball' on the gun, but it doesn't shoot paintball pellets," Melissa Becker said. "It shoots water soluble paint. It's a kid's toy."
A kid's toy that wouldn't even have ruined anyone's clothes.
This might be mildly amusing if Melissa Becker wasn't a single mother trying to raise Jokari and his 12-year-old brother while completing her education at Point Park University.
Her major: Criminal justice.
While an appeal of the expulsion is being prepared, Melissa Becker wonders how she is going to juggle her family and occupational obligations.
Her son is barred from school, and she is scheduled to begin training next week to become an Allegheny County 911 emergency dispatcher.
"I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but of course I'm not going to leave my child home alone," she said.
Meanwhile, Penn Hills residents -- who are facing a significant 4.48-mill school tax increase -- will pay to have Jokari tutored because he apparently is too much of a menace to mingle with other students.
The district student discipline code bars students from bringing to school weapons, replicas of weapons or any instrument capable of inflicting serious bodily injury.
It's difficult to find any evidence of misconduct by Jokari. Unloaded squirt guns don't cause serious bodily injury.
The code also states, "No disciplinary action should exceed in degree the seriousness of the offense."
District officials need to re-familiarize themselves with that portion of the code. They have violated their policies far more egregiously than the student they expelled.