In an effort to maintain peace, safety and a disciplined environment conducive to effective teaching and learning, many schools have adopted the zero tolerance policy. This philosophy was originally created in the 1990’s as an approach towards drug enforcement to address the rampant use, possession and sales of drugs in schools (Jones, 2013). Today, this policy is used to mandate the application of pre-determined consequences of violation of stated rules. These rules may pertain to a number of issues; drugs, bullying, theft, and corporal punishment. This report will review and explore the various uses of the zero tolerance plan and its applications throughout schools in American society. There will be a study on the effectiveness of zero tolerance, an outline of the pros and cons of its usage, an evaluation of a case scenario as it pertains to the utilization of this policy, and a plan of action in formulating a sound disposition. The stakeholders’ perception will be reviewed and how they are impacted in these decisions will be demonstrated. The detailing of the pros and cons of a desired plan of action in response to the situation and the examination of the effectiveness of a zero tolerance policy, will allow for an investigation into the possible outcomes of court rulings in regards to the case. It will also allow for a deeper inspection into the research of the moral and ethical implications of an expulsion due to a violation of a zero tolerance policy. A Situation Regarding Zero Tolerance Administrators saw three students at the Union Colony Charter School in Greeley, Colorado, playing with a water gun. According to the school's interpretation of the state's zero tolerance weapons law, which mandates suspension of stu... ... middle of paper ... ...d689_1139. Mongan, P., & Walker, R. (2012). The road to hell is paved with good intentions: A historical, theoretical, and legal analysis of zero-tolerance weapons policies in American schools. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 56(4), doi: 10.1080/1045988X.2011.654366. Nelson, C. (2008). The impact of zero tolerance school discipline policies: Issues of exclusionary discipline. NASP Communiqué, 37(4). Retrieved from http://www.nasponline.org/publications/cq/mocq374impact_zero_tolerance.aspx. Pushed out. (2009). Teaching tolerance, 36. Retrieved from http://www.tolerance.org/pushed-out. Texas Education Agency (2014). Educator Code of Ethics. Retrieved on January, 19th, 2014 from http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4_wide.aspx?id=2147506337.
If you did not know, the zero tolerance policy is when students break school behavior rules and strict regulations created by the district or school and get severe consequences for it. Carla Amurao, the author of the article, “Fact Sheet: How Bad Is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?”, stated that “statistics reflect that these policies disproportionately target students of color”. Students of color are being affected so badly by this policy, that statistics show black students are 3 times more likely to get expelled than white students. Since these students are being expelled or arrested for breaking zero tolerance policy rules, they are missing valuable information in classes due to court hearings. But, some people argue that the zero tolerance policy is unfair to all students, making the education system equal for all to succeed. For example, a “2007 study by the Advancement Project and the Power U Center for Social Change says that for every 100 students who were suspended, 15 were Black, 7.9 were American Indian, 6.8 were Latino and 4.8 were white”. As you can see, the zero tolerance policy affects all races, making them miss their education because of certain consequences. Because the mindset of these people is that, if the zero-tolerance policy does not affect just one race or group of people, then the education system
A new policy is needed and most certainly should start out with holding schools to handle their own discipline situations, rather than relying on school security and police (Wilson, 2014). School administrators must be able to differentiate between what is a true discipline situation and when a student simply made a mistake. The rate of school suspensions have skyrocketed over the last thirty years from 1.7 million nationwide to 3.1 million and growing today (ACLU, n.d.). Each school needs to create policies of when to get school security involved and what the school’s security job involves. Unless there is a true threat to the safety of the school and/or its student’s law enforcement should never be called (Wison, 2014). The instinct to dial 911 at every infraction has to stop. Furthermore the schools must develop a gender and racial fairness; black children should not be receiving harsher punishments for similar infractions of white students (Wilson,
The intent of this argumentative research paper, is to take a close look at school systems disciplinary policies and the effect they have on students. While most school systems in the nation have adopted the zero tolerance policies, there are major concerns that specific students could be targeted, and introduced into the criminal justice system based on these disciplinary policies. This research paper is intended to focus on the reform of zero tolerance policies, and minimizing the school to prison pipeline.
Kafka, Judith. 2011. The history of "zero tolerance" in American public schooling. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. http://www.palgraveconnect.com/doifinder/10.1057/9781137001962.
Following the Columbine tragedy in 1999, “school systems across the nation introduced the zero-tolerance policies aimed at the curtailment of harmful student behaviors” (Noll, 2014, p. 295). The original focus of the policies was to eliminate the use/carrying of weapons but soon after spread to restricting drugs and medication (2014). By 2006 95% of the U.S. public schools had adopted the zero-tolerance policies and more than half of them reported taking significant action against students, many of which resulted in expulsion (2014). While the zero-tolerance polices were originally welcomed by all members of a community as a means of promoting and keeping a safer environment-- as of late many individuals are questioning the relevance of some actions and some school officials (2014).
The zero tolerance policy has become a national controversy in regards to the solid proven facts that it criminalizes children and seems to catch kids who have no intention of doing harm. Although, there has been substantial evidence to prove that the policies enforced in many schools have gone far beyond the extreme to convict children of their wrongdoing. The punishments for the act of misconduct have reached a devastating high, and have pointed students in the wrong direction. Despite the opinions of administrators and parents, as well as evidence that zero tolerance policies have deterred violence in many public and private schools, the rules of conviction and punishment are unreasonable and should be modified.
One such unlawful act came to be known as the Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1990” (Arnold 495). One must acknowledge that the Columbine shooting, and every other school shooting past 1990, took place after the Federal Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1990 was enacted. This law did nothing to prevent our children from being murdered, it merely established a framework by which one can be simply be prosecuted for violating the provisions contained within. Passing more laws aimed at prohibition are meaningless and ineffective. Unless the Colorado State Legislature provides each school district with the means to actually enforce the Federal provisions of the Gun-Free School Zone Act, beyond that of just prosecution when the law is breached, any individual is free to physically bring a firearm onto the campus. Compliance with this law, as any law is, is only applicable to those that voluntarily comply; prohibition of guns brought into K-12 campuses are an exercise in futility without the means, such as a metal detector, to enforce the federal
Schools inevitably must deal with disciplinary action when it comes to misconduct in students. However, at what point should the courts and law enforcement intervene? “Zero tolerance” policies started as a trend in the school setting during the 1990s in “response to the widespread perception that juvenile violence was increasing and school officials needed to take desperate measures to address the problem” (Aull 2012:182-183). However, national statistics indicated a decrease in juvenile’s share of crime during the influx of zero tolerance policies in schools (National Crime Justice Reference Service 2005).
Michigan schools have one of the highest rates of expulsion and suspension due to the zero tolerance law. However, come August 2017 this will be changing, and schools will need to accommodate to the new law. The new law that was passed unanimously by Michigan’s legislature modifies the zero tolerance law in schools state wide. Districts will be required to consider multiple factors before expelling or suspending a student. What this mean is that schools may have to change their school code of conducts.
There have been many cases where zero-tolerance has gray areas and can be too strict. In “Zero Tolerance for School Violence: Is Mandatory Punishment in Schools Unfair?” Kathy Koch, an assistant managing editor, specializing in education and social-policy issues writes:
Another major reason why juveniles are ending up in the juvenile justice system is because many schools have incorporate the zero tolerance policy and other extreme school disciplinary rules. In response to violent incidents in schools, such as the Columbine High School massacre, school disciplinary policies have become increasingly grave. These policies have been enacted at the school, district and state levels with the hopes of ensuring the safety of students and educators. These policies all rely on the zero tolerance policy. While it is understandable that protecting children and teachers is a priority, it is not clear that these strict policies are succeeding in improving the safety in schools.
As years passed, growing concern of violence, and crime in schools gave rise to the establishment of policies in order to combat the dangerous behavior among students. This led to schools having the necessity of adopting zero tolerance policies, such as the “Gun-Free Schools Act” passed in 1994. The cracking down on zero tolerance policies has been a major point of conflict, for the fact that schools have misinterpreted their limits when enforcing “zero tolerance”. A matter that is viewed improperly by schools, and one which is acted tough on is the term “weapon”. It is not harmful for a student to make a gun with their fingers, however; those are the type of acts that are now seen as major offenses in the eyes of the school system. While the use of zero tolerance policies intensified, it was also visible that the administrators started relying more heavily on actual police — in the form of School Resource Officers (SROs) stationed in schools. The presence of police officers in school and zero tolerance policies combined, have boosted the amounts of teens in juvenile detention, as a punishment for a minor offense. Now for students the fear of being arrested, and prosecuted while being in school is higher than it ever should be. The arrest can lead to suspension or expulsion, and here is where we see the real
Many schools around the country have been faced with violence and even actual deaths. Take the incident at Columbine, for example. Many schools for this very reason have proposed and in some cases even imposed a policy called, The Zero Tolerance Policy. The article, ”Taking Zero Tolerance to the Limit” by Jesse Katz, is about the absolute ban of drugs and weapons in schools. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because it punishes everyone for the problems of few, it’s too extreme and there is still no clear line between what is a drug and what is a weapon.
As mentioned previously, the school system has a perceived obligation to discipline students in an attempt to protect the safety of all staff and students, to preserve the decorum of the school, and also to develop character in students (Kajs, 2006). It is these three notions, along with the public’s perception of the rising issue of youth crime, and federal and provincial legislation that led to the implementation of zero tolerance polices. There are arguably three stages of the zero tolerance policies: there must be a perceived issue by the public, which creates a moral panic and leads to the government taking action to calm the situation by creating legislation and lastly, the school board implementing the regulations and
By definition, in school suspension is “a program to which a student is assigned because of disruptive behavior for a specific amount of time.” (Effective Program, 156) Many schools that have in school suspension programs have a zero-tolerance policy. This deters bad behavior by having swift and serious consequences for breaking school rules.