When two students marched into Columbine High School outside Denver, opening fire killing 13 and wounding 20 before committing suicide in April 1999, schools around the country reacted by instituting uncompromising zero-tolerance crackdowns on dangerous or potentially dangerous behaviors. Designed to keep dangerous or disturbed students from causing further calamities, zero-tolerance policies inarguably make schools more secure, but also ensure innocent students become ensnared in their institutions' disciplinary systems.
The latest example comes from Bedford, Texas, where Taylor Hess, a 16-year-old L. D. Bell High School student, was expelled after a security guard discovered a 10-inch bread knife in the back of his pickup truck. The knife fell into the truck after Hess and his father assisted moving some of his grandmother's belongings to a charity thrift shop. The district's superintendent pleaded helplessness in handing down the punishment because the state's education code mandated expulsion.
Hess' expulsion follows on the heels of students being punished for zero-tolerance violations such as possessing aspirin, giving mints to classmates, bringing nail clippers into the building and bringing a plastic ax to a class Halloween party. In Jonesboro, Ark., where two students shot and killed five classmates and wounded 10 in March 1998, an 8-year-old was suspended three days for using a chicken finger as a gun and making a "pow" noise.
After horrific incidents like the ones at Columbine, a crackdown against school violence is just one of a number appropriate responses to the terrible bloodshed. And it's encouraging that security at Hess' school actively patrols the parking lot looking for dangerous items. Bread knives and chicken fingers, however, are not the same as bombs and bullets. Zero tolerance reflects a knee-jerk fear of the unknown and bowing to the demand that officials "Do something." The difficulty arises when strict rules and regulations are codified in such a manner as to reduce school officials' abilities to exercise proper judgment and reason.
Mandating a one-size-fits-all punishment denies officials close to the situation the opportunity to use their knowledge and judgment in crafting a reasonable punishment. It's a ham-fisted, bludgeon response when a delicate scalpel is needed. It's also a process that does not recognize intent. No child who obviously intends to cause death or destruction should remain in school, but by the same token, punishing innocent students does its own damage to the academic environment.
Zero tolerance for an elevated blood alcohol count is logical because an impaired driver can harm others. But no student brings nail clippers to homeroom intending to kill somebody. Zero tolerance doesn't allow for that recognition. It's a silly notion that somehow punishing students for carrying items that could be weapons keeps schools safe. What about student athletes carrying baseball bats or lacrosse sticks? Would denying students nail files or scissors stop the gunman of Columbine? A "Boy Who Cried Wolf" effect reduces readiness. When everything is perceived to be a threat, the gravity of actual threats diminishes.
Young children faced with zero-tolerance policies learn keeping secrets is preferable to punishment for trivial, illogical reasons. No explanation for the punishments: merely an unthinking, mechanical action designed to satisfy the arbitrary punishment mandated by an arbitrary law.
Zero tolerance fails in the intended goal of making America's schools safer. Shoe horning students into a one-size-fits-all framework only punishes those guilty of harmless infractions. Swift action against dangerous students, and a lookout for warning signs about regarding potentially dangerous students, is how schools can prevent another tragedy.
