Ten Ridiculous Instances of Zero Tolerance in Schools

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While some might argue that zero tolerance policies in schools are necessary, over the years these narrow rules have put many kids in hot water for fairly innocent, kidlike behaviors. 

Take the 2014 case of 13-year-old Ethan Chaplin. The New Jersey middle schooler was being bullied, like just about every middle schooler at some point. During a class Chaplin shared with his bully, he was twirling a pencil capped with a pen cap as he listened to the lecture. The bully was watching and called out to the teacher, 

“He’s making gun motions, send him to juvie.”

Instead of recognizing that the troublemaker was the bully for speaking out of turn in the classroom, the teacher took his words seriously. As a result, Chaplin was suspended from school for two days and had to undergo a mandatory five-hour psychological assessment at Riverview Medical Center. Chaplin was barred from returning to school until the results of the testing were returned to school officials.

In defense of the school's disciplinary actions, the superintendent said,

“If a student demonstrates odd behaviors, non-conforming behaviors, it causes us to take a closer look, if a student gestures or demonstrates behavior that could be construed as a threat to others in a classroom . . . then that’s also a trigger for us.”

Read about more cases of questionable applications of zero tolerance policies in schools here.


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The other thing worth bearing in mind is that these are a very small number of incidents taken across the whole of the US. Now, there are obviously a lot that go unnoticed/unreported, but even so, it's easy these days to get a false idea of the scale of a problem because of the way we have access to so much information about it so easily.
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Two days away from a bully and uncaring teachers. Five hours with a councilor. Sounds like the kid made out. Zero tolerance is what you make of it. A guy in my high school picked a fight with the star running back in order to get them both suspended. Reverse bullying is what he called it.
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Zero tolerance is never necessary. Zero tolerance removes judgment, and therefore accountability, from bureaucrats to absolve them from liability from bad decisions. It is classic CYA tactic.
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