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Six year old sent to reform school for possession of spork
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King Kandy
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Six year old sent to reform school for possession of spork

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NEWARK, Del. — Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not easy. But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary committee hearing with his karate instructor and his mother’s fiancé by his side to vouch for him.
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Zachary’s offense? Taking a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary was suspended and now faces 45 days in the district’s reform school.

“It just seems unfair,” Zachary said, pausing as he practiced writing lower-case letters with his mother, who is home-schooling him while the family tries to overturn his punishment.

Spurred in part by the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings, many school districts around the country adopted zero-tolerance policies on the possession of weapons on school grounds. More recently, there has been growing debate over whether the policies have gone too far.

But, based on the code of conduct for the Christina School District, where Zachary is a first grader, school officials had no choice. They had to suspend him because, “regardless of possessor’s intent,” knives are banned.

But the question on the minds of residents here is: Why do school officials not have more discretion in such cases?

“Zachary wears a suit and tie some days to school by his own choice because he takes school so seriously,” said Debbie Christie, Zachary’s mother, who started a Web site, helpzachary.com, in hopes of recruiting supporters to pressure the local school board at its next open meeting on Tuesday. “He is not some sort of threat to his classmates.”

Still, some school administrators argue that it is difficult to distinguish innocent pranks and mistakes from more serious threats, and that the policies must be strict to protect students.

“There is no parent who wants to get a phone call where they hear that their child no longer has two good seeing eyes because there was a scuffle and someone pulled out a knife,” said George Evans, the president of the Christina district’s school board. He defended the decision, but added that the board might adjust the rules when it comes to younger children like Zachary.

Critics contend that zero-tolerance policies like those in the Christina district have led to sharp increases in suspensions and expulsions, often putting children on the streets or in other places where their behavior only worsens, and that the policies undermine the ability of school officials to use common sense in handling minor infractions.

For Delaware, Zachary’s case is especially frustrating because last year state lawmakers tried to make disciplinary rules more flexible by giving local boards authority to, “on a case-by-case basis, modify the terms of the expulsion.”

The law was introduced after a third-grade girl was expelled for a year because her grandmother had sent a birthday cake to school, along with a knife to cut it. The teacher called the principal — but not before using the knife to cut and serve the cake.

In Zachary’s case, the state’s new law did not help because it mentions only expulsion and does not explicitly address suspensions. A revised law is being drafted to include suspensions.

“We didn’t want our son becoming the poster child for this,” Ms. Christie said, “but this is out of control.”

In a letter to the district’s disciplinary committee, State Representative Teresa L. Schooley, Democrat of Newark, wrote, “I am asking each of you to consider the situation, get all the facts, find out about Zach and his family and then act with common sense for the well-being of this child.”

Education experts say that zero-tolerance policies initially allowed authorities more leeway in punishing students, but were applied in a discriminatory fashion. Many studies indicate that African-Americans were several times more likely to be suspended or expelled than other students for the same offenses.

“The result of those studies is that more school districts have removed discretion in applying the disciplinary policies to avoid criticism of being biased,” said Ronnie Casella, an associate professor of education at Central Connecticut State University who has written about school violence. He added that there is no evidence that zero-tolerance policies make schools safer.

Other school districts are also trying to address problems they say have stemmed in part from overly strict zero-tolerance policies.

In Baltimore, around 10,000 students, about 12 percent of the city’s enrollment, were suspended during the 2006-7 school year, mostly for disruption and insubordination, according to a report by the Open Society Institute-Baltimore. School officials there are rewriting the disciplinary code, to route students to counseling rather than suspension.

In Milwaukee, where school officials reported that 40 percent of ninth graders had been suspended at least once in the 2006-7 school year, the superintendent has encouraged teachers not to overreact to student misconduct.

“Something has to change,” said Dodi Herbert, whose 13-year old son, Kyle, was suspended in May and ordered to attend the Christina district’s reform school for 45 days after another student dropped a pocket knife in his lap. School officials declined to comment on the case for reasons of privacy.

Ms. Herbert, who said her son was a straight-A student, has since been home-schooling him instead of sending him to the reform school.

The Christina school district attracted similar controversy in 2007 when it expelled a seventh-grade girl who had used a utility knife to cut windows out of a paper house for a class project.

Charles P. Ewing, a professor of law and psychology at the University at Buffalo Law School who has written about school safety issues, said he favored a strict zero-tolerance approach.

“There are still serious threats every day in schools,” Dr. Ewing said, adding that giving school officials discretion holds the potential for discrimination and requires the kind of threat assessments that only law enforcement is equipped to make.

In the 2005-6 school year, 86 percent of public schools reported at least one violent crime, theft or other crime, according to the most recent federal survey.

And yet, federal studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and another by the Department of Justice show that the rate of school-related homicides and nonfatal violence has fallen over most of the past decade.

Educational experts say the decline is less a result of zero-tolerance policies than of other programs like peer mediation, student support groups and adult mentorships, as well as an overall decrease in all forms of crime.

For Zachary, it is not school violence that has left him reluctant to return to classes.

“I just think the other kids may tease me for being in trouble,” he said, pausing before adding, “but I think the rules are what is wrong, not me.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/e...ance&st=cse

I always knew those things were the WMDs of kitchen utensils.


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Old Post Oct 12th, 2009 03:35 PM
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Shakyamunison
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Zero-tolerance policy make people stupid.


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Old Post Oct 12th, 2009 03:52 PM
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Darth Jello
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Was this the indestructible plastic kind you get at military surplus? Cuz those are awesome. You can't cut anything with them, but they're still awesome.


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Old Post Oct 12th, 2009 04:43 PM
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Mindship
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Re: Six year old sent to reform school for possession of spork

quote: (post)
Originally posted by King Kandy
WMDs of kitchen utensils.

Wonderful Multitasking Devices?

So-called zero-tolerance should allow a case-by-case basis.


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Old Post Oct 12th, 2009 04:49 PM
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Darth Jello
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um, you do realize that under zero tolerance policies, schools have called the cops on kindergartners for "shooting" each other with vaguely gun-shaped chicken strips, right? The whole purpose is to make voters think they're actually doing something, get more tax revenue for supposed security measures, and enrich the private detention facilities and supposed "alternative education facilities" like Back In Control (if that still even exists).


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Old Post Oct 12th, 2009 05:00 PM
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you get thorns
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Yet they allow others to sharpen pencils?



Do they not know a real weapon when they see it?


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Old Post Oct 12th, 2009 05:06 PM
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Squirrel Fart
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Gotta love the US.

The same shit that a woman gets charged for 24 song and is ordered to pay 1.92 mil in music piracy case. Shes a single mother BTW.


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Old Post Oct 12th, 2009 05:22 PM
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Darth Jello
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Lets not forget drug policies where they weigh your paraphernalia along with your drugs instead of by dosage so that you can possession with intent to sell if you happen to have your acid in sugar cubes instead of stamps or should the cops decide to weigh your bong with your pot.


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Old Post Oct 12th, 2009 05:43 PM
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Mindship
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quote: (post)
Originally posted by Darth Jello
...schools have called the cops on kindergartners for "shooting" each other with vaguely gun-shaped chicken strips...
IIRC, there was an instance where a kindergartner or first-grader got in trouble for forming a gun with his fingers (y'know: thumb up, pointer out).


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Old Post Oct 12th, 2009 06:02 PM
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Darth Jello
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I think most of my generation would be in prison if Zero Tolerance laws were enacted or enforced the way they are now when we were kids. I mean when you expel a kid for ingesting tums your basically saying it's illegal to carry a flavored chunk of calcium carbonate to school.


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Old Post Oct 12th, 2009 06:12 PM
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Bicnarok
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Its the path to a police state, total control, care tactics. A gradual eating away at freedom, and down the steps to dictatorship.

Old Post Oct 12th, 2009 06:40 PM
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Dr. Leg Kick
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How is this even considered news?


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Old Post Oct 12th, 2009 06:46 PM
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Adam_PoE
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If you do not want to be suspended, do not bring a knife to school. How is this a controversy?


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Old Post Oct 13th, 2009 05:45 AM
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dadudemon
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quote: (post)
Originally posted by Mindship
IIRC, there was an instance where a kindergartner or first-grader got in trouble for forming a gun with his fingers (y'know: thumb up, pointer out).



Don't be a retard. THAT HAND GUN WAS LOADED! mad mad mad







As far as the story goes:

I'm with Adam. Zero tolerane is zero tolerance is zero tolerance. Don't bring a damn pocket knife to school. However, the punishment for children under 8 should be 1 day suspension or something. For older students like highschool students, it should be some big shit that goes on their record. What dumbass thinks it's okay to bring any sort of knife to school? (Again, referring to highschool.) This isn't Japan, idiots. laughing


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Last edited by dadudemon on Oct 13th, 2009 at 06:07 AM

Old Post Oct 13th, 2009 06:05 AM
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pollyanna03
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HI GLAD TO COME HERE

Old Post Oct 13th, 2009 07:10 AM
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Bardock42
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It's a stupid policy, though.

Though the title is misleading, he didn't have a spork, but a knifoon.


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Old Post Oct 13th, 2009 10:21 AM
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dadudemon
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quote: (post)
Originally posted by Bardock42
It's a stupid policy, though.

Though the title is misleading, he didn't have a spork, but a knifoon.


To me, I gathered it was a multi-function pocket knife.

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no expression


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Old Post Oct 13th, 2009 10:36 AM
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Bardock42
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quote: (post)
Originally posted by dadudemon
To me, I gathered it was a multi-function pocket knife.

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no expression

Holy shit, knifoon is an actual thing.

I guess what I meant is a kniforoon.


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Old Post Oct 13th, 2009 10:47 AM
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you get thorns
village idiot

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quote: (post)
Originally posted by Bardock42
Holy shit, knifoon is an actual thing.

I guess what I meant is a kniforoon.




You missed the bottle opener for the beer he was obviously going to share with his classmates.


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Old Post Oct 13th, 2009 12:03 PM
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SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!!!



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Old Post Oct 13th, 2009 01:18 PM
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