Let's Ruin A Kid's Life And Psyche Over A Fake, Malicious Marijuana Charge!

The kid didn't have pot, but
he was severely punished
anyway but dumb school.  

I've written about abusive so-called zero tolerance school punishments in the past, because I find them so fascinating in an awful way, like a tragic train wreck.

But the latest one takes the cake.

Some school administrators in Virginia suspended an 11-year-old kid from a school for gifted and talented students for a whole year.

Plus, they had criminal charges filed against him and sent him downward into a spiral of depression and anxiety which will take years of treatment.

Why? Because the kid had a lighter and a leaf in his backpack. The school said it was marijuana. Three separate field tests showed that the leaf was not marijuana. The school system basically tried to cover this fact up.

They also figured since the kids might or might not have told his friends the leaf was pot, that was also enough to justify punishing the boy as if he were a drug dealing street thug.

And with the truth out, school administrators still believe they did the right thing.

Here I was naive enough to think schools existed to educate children, but I guess they're there to ruin kids lives instead. At least at Bedford Middle School in Virginia.

The article about this idiocy, reported and written by Dan Casey in the Roanoke Times, is infuriating beyond belief.

It's murky as to whether the kid was pretend bragging that the leaf in his knapsake was marijuana, or whether it was planted there by bullies, or there was some other explanation.

However, even if this was marijuana, which it was not, the punishment meted out to this kid, and the obsfucation by school leaders and police, was itself bullying against the 11 year old. And like I said, these ostensible adults consider themselves fully justified about this.

Morons.

My guess is the kid probably did joke that the leaf was pot. If that's the case, the school would have been justified in giving the boy a good talking to. That drugs aren't to be taken lightly. Or at all, actually.

It could have been one of those zillions of teachable moments kids have. But nope. It's more fun to ruin a kid's life right?

The kid's parents, Bruce and Linda Bays, have understandably filed a lawsuit.

Casey's Roanoke Times article elaborates:

"It alleges Bedford Middle School Assistant Principal Brian Wilson and school operations chief Frederick 'Mac' Duis violated his due process rights under the U.S. Constitution.

It also accuses the Bedford County Sheriff's Office of malicious prosecution, because Deputy M.M. Calohan, a school resource officer, filed marijuana possession charges against the boy despite field tests that indicated otherwise.

'Essentially, they kicked him out of school for something they couldn't prove he did,' said Roanoke attorney Melvin Williams the Bays' lawyer.

'The field test came back not inconclusive, but negative,' Williams said. 'Yet she went to a magistrate and swore he possessed marijuana at school.'"

During a school hearing early on in this drama, the Bays asked to see the leaf, but the school wouldn't let them, saing it was evidence.

Again, from the Roanoke Times:

"Bruce Bays said, 'During the hearing, I asked Wilson, What about the field test on the marijuana leaf?'

The assistant principal hemmed and hawed and finally he got around to it and said 'I'm not qualified to interpret the results of the field test,' Bruce Bays said."

During a court hearing on the criminal charge, the sheriff's office asked for a continuance, claiming the leaf hadn't been to the state lab.

The Bays refused. Seeing a lame case, the judge dismissed the charges.

With the criminal charges gone, the Bays said they wanted another hearing at the school to clear their sons name and get him back into classes.

The school officials and the sheriff's office have dug in their heels.

The sheriff's attorney, Jim Guynn said they didn't pursue a malicious prosecution against the kid like his parents allege because the sheriff's deputy identified the leaf found in the boy's backpack as marijuana.

I guess to them it doesn't matter that the leaf wasn't marijuana. If the sheriff deputy decides it is, well, science and facts have nothing to do with anything.

The sheriff's office is also trying to claim the suit is filed in the wrong court, as if that would make it go away.

And under the school's silly zero tolerance policy, it doesn't matter if the leaf was marijuana or from some other plant, like a Japanese maple. If someone pretends it's pot, then it's pot, facts be damned.

I'm not sure why the lighter was in the backpack. Maybe the kid was pretending he had marijuana. Maybe he liked to play with fire like a lot of 11 year old kids do. Maybe some other student planted it there. But it seems the school isn't interested in getting to the bottom of that.

Because, DRUGS! DRUGS! DRUGS!  A Japanese maple leaf that looks vaguely like pot is DANGEROUS!!!!!!!!!!!

Under the school system's rules, the boy's parents were ordered to take the kid to a pediatric psychiatrist to be evaluated for substance abuse problems.

The psychiatrist found no such issues, but did find a lot of damage to the boy's mental health, and the school, and the sheriff's department are clearly to blame.

Writes Casey in the Roanoke Times:

"After the disciplinary hearing, 'he just broke down and said his life was over. He would never be able to get into college; he would never be able to get a job,' Linda Bays said. 

.....the events of the past six months have wreaked havoc on the formerly happy-go-lucky boy's psyche. His parents say he's withdrawn socially, and is now under the care for a pediatric psychiatrist for panic attacks and depression. "

Nice going, sheriff's department and Bedford Middle School administrators! You took what seemed to be a rather well adjusted kid and turned him into a wreck. You must be so proud!

You know what? There probably should have been a vigorous prosecution in this case. But not against the kid with the marijuana leaf that wasn't.

How about charging administrators at Bedford Middle School with child abuse and cruelty to a child?

Judging from the Roanoke Times article, if I was on a jury in such a case, I'd quickly vote to convict.

A New Zero Tolerance Low: Sixth Grader Threatened With Expulsion For Possibly Saving Classmate's Life

When I've complained about zero tolerance policies in the past, I've thought they could get no worse.

Most people would think 6th grader Adrionna Harris was heroic
for taking a razor blade away from a fellow student who
was harming himself. Her school, however, decided her actions
were criminal and tried to expel her, that is until the
media backlash set in.  

I was wrong.

According to television station WAVY, Adrionna Harris was suspended and threatened with expulsion for taking away a razor blade from a kid who was cutting himself, and immediately throwing the razer blade away.

Since she held the razor for an instant, in the stupid, ignorant dumb, shameful eyes of the Bayside Middle School in Virginia Beach  and their zero tolerance bullshit, she had a weapon in her hand. Time to get rid of her.

They suspended her for 10 days and were going to expel her permanently.

Of course, faced with an ENORMOUS backlash in social media after the WAVY report came out, the school is quickly backing down, and allowed Arionna to return to school Friday. But it's just a PR move. I'm betting Arionna's expulsion would have stuck had the media not gotten its hands on this news.

Almost all of the other zero tolerance overreaches I've complained about in the past involved students who actually didn't do things perfectly and might have actually deserved a minor punishment, like a lecture or even a half hour detention after school.

But here, Adrionna did everything right and was actually heroic.  She found a kid cutting himself with a razor. Really, the classmate was in immediate danger. Since nobody else was around at that moment, Adrionna had to think quickly on her feet.

She did and her parents are justifiably proud of her behavior. As would any parent or school. Except for the stupid people at Bayside Middle School, apparently.

To summarize Adrionna's actions:

1. She recognized a serious problem.
2. She took immediate action by taking the razor away.
3. She got rid of the razor immediately so it would not pose a continued danger
4. She quickly told an (allegedly) responsible adult what was going on, so everyone would be protected.

The only mistake Adrionna made wouldn't have been a mistake in a normal setting. Her "error" (read honesty)  was telling school administrators what happened. They would otherwise have never known she had that razor for a split second unless she'd told them.

Schools are supposed to places of learning. Here are the horrible lessons Bayside Middle School seems to be determined to teach students:

1. If you see somebody who needs help. Do nothing. It only causes trouble.
2. If you think somebody else could help a person in need, again, don't say anything. It's not worth the bother.
3. Rules are to be followed, even if it makes no sense to do so. For instance, if you're driving, we all know we should stay in our travel lane all the time. However, if there is a kid playing in the lane we're in, common sense is to swerve around the child if we can't stop. 
But the rules say we can't get out of our lane while driving so it's better just to run over the kid. But don't stop to help the kid once you've run him over. As I said that would only cause trouble. 
4. Lie to adults or at least withhold information from them to ensure you don't get in trouble. 
5. If people get wind of you following the rules no matter what and that you didn't help somebody in need, and these people criticize you, backtrack and pretend to be sorry or pretend to help, but only because that's good PR.  

I'm glad to report that these hideous, moronic lessons the school is trying to teach Adrionna are lost on her. The girl seems to be a bright, compassionate young woman.

A WAVY reporter asked Adrionna what she'd do if faced with the same situation.  She replied, "Even if I got in trouble, it' didn't matter because I was helping him...I would do it again even if I got suspended, yes."

But imagine the chilling effect this whole thing has on other students who might be faced with a dilemna on how or whether to help.

By the way, what about the boy who was cutting himself?  He needs help. But he was holding on to the razor, too. So instead of getting the kid counseling and medical help, I imagine the school will work really hard to get the boy in jail instead. That'll teach him!

School administrators said their hands were tied. The strict zero tolerance policy came down from the School Board, so the principal and others had no flexibility to consider the reality of Adrionna's situation without holding an expulsion hearing.

Yep, there we go again. Obey the rules even if it this case they cause much more harm than good.

A lot of people commenting on the WAVY article on their Web site want heads to roll at the school. Maybe they should hire people that have at least a hint of common sense.

But I bet that won't happen. They'll just let the bad PR wave wash past them, and go on with being stupid.

I hope most other schools aren't like Bayside. If any other school administrators act this moronically in any other school district, I fear for our nation's future.

Stupid "Zero Tolerance" Snags Two More Youths, Despite Waning Popularity Of Practice

There's still way too many adults in positions of authority, like at schools who have zero understanding of nuance and circumstances, so they cling to zero tolerance policies because they can't think for themselves.

If a kid doesn't realize his father left a knife
in his car, and his son drives the car to school not
knowing the knife is there, should we consider the
kid a criminal?  

The first in is Clarksville, Tenn., where David Duren-Sanner, 18, drove his father's car to school, and didn't realize a knife his father used was in there.

The school decided to randomly search the car and found it.  Sanner got in trouble.

And it would have been fine if he got in a little trouble. After all, he could have looked through the car to see if anything not allowed on school property was there.

Maybe give him a half hour of detention after school and a stern lecture, something like that, since he really didn't mean any harm.

But oh, no.  School district officials can't think for themselves, so they gave him a 10-day suspension, 90 days in so-called "alternative" school, and had police charge him with criminal possession of a prohibited weapon.

All that would probably have screwed up his chances for college, and by extention a good job and a successful life.

Because it's always important to ruin a kid's life for a minor, inconsequential infraction.  It would have been too much work to investigate and ask questions, to see whether this was a major school threat that warranted extreme action to protect students, or what turned out to be reality in this case, a very minor, dumb (maybe) mistake by an 18-year old.

I guess since the school administrators are as far as perfect as a human can possibly be, they expect the kids to be absolutely perfect, as sort of a counterweight.

Trying to demonstrate they do understand nuance, the school, in the face of an appeal and really bad local publicity, they reduced his time in alternative school to 30 days. Oh how big of them!

I've seen news stories in Google searches of backlashes to this kind of zero tolerance policy going back to at least the year 2000. But the practice remains entrenched in many school districts.

Many other school districts have plenty of smart, dedicated administrators and teachers who want the students to succeed. To me, the ones that cling to zero tolerance policies are just lazy, dumb and don't give a damn about the students. Which really sucks.

In another really stupid case, a 13 year old boy in the Chicago area is facing a felony charge of battery to a police officer.

If a 13-year old kid throws a snowball and it hits
 a cop in the arm, but doesn't injure him,
should that kid be considered a felon?  

So what did he do? Hit the officer? Try to grab his gun? Kick him?

Worse, at least in the eyes of police and the local school district. The kid threw a snowball, which hit the arm of a police officer who was sitting in a cruiser with an open window, according to the Chicago Tribune. 

Yes, yes, of course it's wrong to throw snowballs at police. The kid deserved a good talking to, and maybe some other in-school punishment?  But a felony?

A few people support this. One area resident was quoted as saying that if the kid got away with the snowball at age 13, he's shoot somebody with a gun at age 16 or 17.

If (the boy) had gotten away with it, who's to say what they'd do next," DNAinfo.com quoted local resident and educator Ray Fields.

Um, that's why you punish the kid now at a level that fits the crime. And if for some reason that didn't sink, punish him worse the next time he does something wrong.

If you wreck a kid's life at the very first, modest infraction, why would he stop doing worse things? If you take away his future, what's the point of following the rules and going for success using that route? He might as well just be a criminal,  as you labeled him when he was 13.

I'm sure society will thank you for that, Mr. Fields.

And you have to look at the kid's history. The boy supposedly had never gotten in trouble for anything until this.

Here's a message to Mr. Fields and any other educator who regards kids as a dangerous enemy, deserving to be locked up: You're harming this country and its future every bit as much as criminals who do use guns.

Will This Student's "Zero Tolerance" Case Finally Be The One That Ends the Insanity

A smart 16 year old girl in Bartow Florida named Kiera Wilmot did a dumb thing, as even the smartest teenagers sometimes do.

Kiera Wilmot's school is trying to ruin her
entire life because of her ill-conceived science
experiment which resulted in a tiny explosion and
no harm.  

Wilmot's a bit of a science geek so she mixed up some household chemicals in a bottle as a sort of ad hoc science experiment. It caused a really small explosion outside, away from everybody, and a little puff of smoke.

Nobody got hurt, and there was no property damage, and she didn't intend to cause any harm.

But, due to the school's zero tolerance laws,because of her actions, and she's as horrible a person as the Boston Marathon bomber, at least in the eyes of school administrators.

The promising student has been expelled, felony charges have been brought against her, which means Wilmot is probably going to basically lose her chance at a decent life if this sticks.

Yeah, go get her, school administrators. Kill that gnat with a nuclear bomb!

For its part, the Polk County School District is hiding behind the usual "rules are rules" line when zero tolerance punishments go over the top.

According to the Miami New Times:

"The letter of the law demanded the punishment, and school administrators believe kids should learn 'there are consequences to their actions.'

Yes, everybody should know there are consequences to their actions. But I suspect the school officials are too dumb to realize the consequences should match the crime. And if the school administration is dumb, I don't hold up much hope the students they are allegedly teaching are going to be that bright, either.

Following their reasoning to its logical conclusion, I guess I should get the death penalty if I get caught doing 80 mph in a 65 mph zone in my truck, rather than merely getting a ticket and paying a fine.

As Jesse Walker writes in Reason:

"No one was hurt. There's no sign that Wilmot was up to something malevolent. The kid's own principal thinks this wasn't anything more than an experiment, and he says she didn't try to cover up what she had done. What punishment do you think she received? A stern talking-to? A day or two of after-school detention? Maybe she'll have to help clean up the lab for a week?"

All of Walker's suggestions make sense. The girl broke the rules, and she does need to suffer some reasonable consequences.

But a felony, in which the intent of the school seems to be to ruin her life rather than guide her?  And exactly why is the school so intent on throwing this girl's life away?

This case might be an important step in finally eradicating the silliest, most stupid applications of zero tolerance that serves to ruin kids' lives rather than teach them the difference between right and wrong.

Why? Because scientists are pissed. 

Ashutosh Jogalekar, writing in Scientific American says:

When you arrest and expel students for slaking their scientific curiosity, whatever the other consequences of that action, be advised that you are almost certainly sacrificing a valuable scientist at the altar of arbitrarily wielded state and school power.

Jogelekar also says this, which makes total sense:

Yet we as a society are grabbing on to the Precautionary Principle at every opportunity. We seem to believe that ignorance is better than knowledge since ignorance involves doing nothing and always erring on the side of safety. We think this is ostensibly the safest state of affairs, but it is one which is very much illusory since it’s that same ignorance that unfavorably impacts our long-term security and progress. 

All this extreme discipline and extreme punishment is robbing our nation of future scientists. Here's another take on it, from Scientific American's Urban Scientist blog:

"I can't name a single scientist or engineer who hadn't blown up, ripped apart, disassembled something at home or otherwise cause a big ruckus at school all in the name of curiosity, myself included. Science is not clean. It is very messy and it is riddled with mistakes and mishaps.

I also love how a whole bunch of scientists are Tweeting about their youthful science mishaps, with the hashtag #KieraWilmot.

Let's hope she escapes this horrible school intact.

School Says Kids Who Cry Out For Help Should Just Shut Up Already

Hey kids, if you have a big problem and you can't get help at home and need a trusted adult  to help you out,  do not ask a teacher.

The teacher might be willing to help, but the school will probably expel you. And call the cops on you. So just suck it up and suffer in silence.

That's the hideous lesson a fifth grader in Virginia seems to have learned after he brought pot to school to take it away from his father because he was worried about dad's pot smoking habit.

It's those stupid zero tolerance rules again, which is the comfort zone of those few school administrators who can't think on their feet.

While most school teachers and administrators  seem to have no problem managing to mete out discipline and education in sensible doses, a few schools just don't get it.

And now I've got another example in this poor Virginia fifth grader.  There've been plenty of others, some of which I've written about   HERE,  HERE and HERE

The Virginia Pilot, in an editorial lambasting the school district that is torturing the fifh grader through their "rules," quotes some administrators who say they can't tailor their draconian rules to fit the situation. One size fits all, folks! Even if means killing a fly with a nuclear bomb.

Writes Kerry Dougherty in the Virginia Pilot column:

"There's really no wiggle room," Bethannne Bradshaw, Suffolk's schools public information officer, told me Wednesday.

Oh really, Bethanne? You can't tailor the consequences of the kid bringing the pot to school to the circumstances of the incident? You, or maybe more accurately the administrators at the school, can't think and just have to follow some sort of rote recipe? How the hell did YOU all get through school with such a mentaliity?

The unbelievable thing about cases like this one is the amazing fact that these school administrators have a fundamental misunderstanding of zero tolerance laws.

On their face, zero tolerance rules make sense. The rules send a strong message that bringing drugs or weapons to schools is strictly forbidden.

Even strong advocates of zero tolerance are appalled by this kind of case, since the ridiculousness of these punishments undermine the concept of zero tolerance.

According to USA Today, zero tolerance rules mean there are consequences for any instance of bringing drugs or weapons to school. But it doesn't necessarily mean automatic expulsion. That means the punishment fits the crime. The punishment can range from saying "don't do that again" to expulsion, depending upon the severity of the offense.

According to USA Today:

"I'm terribly embarrassed when I read about some of these cases," says Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's second largest teachers union, which has pushed hard for zero-tolerance policies. "These are examples of adults not exercising proper responsibility. I'm always in favor of just plain common sense."

By the way, the USA Today article I reference came out  in 1999. The need for flexibility within the confines of zero tolerance rules has been the subject of educational journals for two decades now. And some schools STILL don't get it?   What's going on?

The Virginia Pilot points out the school district is now the subject of a lot of embarassing, derisive news coverage of their handling of the poor kids.

"We were hearing from people telling us we were idiots. It's been disruptive," Bradshaw said, according to the Virginia Pilot.

Oh, you poor thing Bethanne. Victimized because people are calling idiots idiots

The bad publicity is a good thing. For a few school districts, not the many smart ones, but the dumb ones like this one in Virginia, the only thing that has a chance of making them use common sense for once is the toxic pain of bad publicity.

Little Terrorist in Pennsylvania Threatens Classmate with Bubbles

A terrible terrorist threat was exposed in Pennsylvania recently.

According to a report from ABC News, a girl threatened to shoot her friend. With a Hello Kitty bubble blower. The terrorist is a five year old kindergartener

Is this a dangerous, deadly weapon?

Because the girl and her friend discussed pointing the pink, somewhat gun shaped bubble blowers at each other after school, the the Mount Carmel Area Elementary School  declared the girl was a terrorist threat, suspended her and ordered her into counseling.

The Hello Kitty "weapon" wasn't even on school grounds at the time of the scary incident, according to the ABC report.

The Mount Carmel Area School District told ABC News, “We are confident that much of the information supplied to the media may not be consistent with the facts… The Mount Carmel Area School District takes the well-being and safety of students and staff very seriously.”

In my view, it would have helped the school's credibility if they gave us some hint as to how the information supplied to the media was wrong. Geez, they could have done it without disclosing the name of the kid, if they're worried about student privacy.

If more facts come out, I'll be happy to set the record straight.

But if girl's family's account is true, the school might have  made the girl hate school, distrust adults, confuse her and possibly damage future educational prospects.

I guess it would have been too much work to turn the Great Hello Kitty Bubble Blower Crisis of 2013 into a teachable moment. Something like this, maybe: "You know, toys are fun, bubbles are fun, but just so you know, guns are bad if you don't know how to use them, or use them in a mean way."

Imagine that scenario. A school actually teaching a kid something!

I've railed recently how a few schools let their zero tolerance policy get out of control.

Don't get me wrong: I recognize that most school administrators are pretty sane, level headed and want to educate kids, not be boneheaded scaremongers. And I understand the basic concept of zero tolerance policies often make complete sense.

Zero tolerance, done right, can make schools safer. And my guess is safe schools make a better learning environment. So my wrath is directed only at people who take what is often a good idea - zero tolerance - and act upon it without thinking, without a sense of proportion.  .

Because given the public discourse we witness day in and day out, a little thinking and a sense of proportion would go a long, long way toward making things better.