Zero Tolerance Has Zero Brains

Posted Thursday, September 11, 2003 - 9:39 pm

A get-tough policy in Greenville schools is worthwhile only if it's coupled with fair and thoughtful judgment.

The Greenville school district earned a deserved comeuppance for wrongfully expelling an honor student who used a knife to cut out name tags for a student club. Judge Charles Simmons Jr. of the Court of Common Pleas reversed the expulsion.

Simmons' decision shines a harsh light on the district's zero-tolerance policy on potential weapons in school. The policy may sound good in theory but can be pernicious if it's not tempered by good judgment and common sense. An overly broad policy that does not distinguish between innocent and truly dangerous incidents in schools makes a mockery of justice and can create lifelong troubles for a student who is wrongfully expelled.

Little common sense appeared to be applied by the district in the case of honor student Alison Strother. The former Eastside High School student used a knife with a four-inch blade to cut out name tags from a piece of foam last school year. Strother had brought the knife into the library to make the IDs for a club called Youth in Government, according to court records.

The student was spotted by a media assistant who reported her to the principal. The principal appeared to recognize that the matter was a minor one that should be handled internally, but she felt her hands were tied by the district's zero-tolerance policy. The student, now a senior, was expelled and attends a private school.

But Judge Simmons said the school district failed to produce any evidence of how long the blade was — nor was there any evidence the junior "possessed or used (the knife) with the intention of inflicting bodily harm or death."

Reasonable people probably would agree that the student made a bad decision in bringing the knife inside the school, but she certainly did not pose a threat to her fellow students. Even her father believes his daughter should have been briefly suspended or punished in some other way, but kicking her out of school clearly was going too far.

It's understandable, of course, that both educators and parents have been unnerved in recent years by the tragic violence in some public schools. Parents consistently rank discipline as their No. 1 school concern, placing it above academic achievement.

Certainly the district should deal harshly with any student who genuinely poses a threat to other students or teachers. But the district's zero tolerance policy risks seeming pointlessly punitive and grossly unfair if it doesn't take into account the individual circumstances of each case.

An irony in the Eastside High case was that the student was making tags for Youth in Government, which helps students learn about how government operates. In this case, students got a sharp lesson about the dangers of arbitrary school policies divorced from human judgment.