It appears the Delaware school district which threatened to commit six year-old Zachary Christie to 45 days of reform school for the mortal sin of bringing a Cub Scout utensil knife to school (with the heinous, premeditated intent to eat his lunch with it) has recanted, establishing a retroactive policy permitting teachers to exercise discretion in determining whether or not student conduct violates the district’s “zero tolerance for weapons” policy.
The modified policy also provides for reduced sentences for kindergarten and first-grade “offenders” – presumably due to a recognition that few kindergarteners end up incarcerated for shivving fellow finger-painters in the sandbox.
Countless jokes about the advisability of turning said school district loose with a dangerous weapon like discretion aside (along with other points I could-and-probably-will-make-later), this represents a victory for logic as well as Zachary’s family. The much-maligned but innocent Zachary “can go back to school [today], if he chooses.”
Here’s hoping Mom and Dad will make a better choice. I’d sooner turn send son into a pen of rabid wolverines carrying an open shoebox filled with bacon than return him to a district that displays such poor judgment in policymaking. Particularly in light of the fact that the revised “policy” does not also contain a public statement along the lines of “we sincerely apologize for our poor judgment in drafting the original policy,” or a direct apology to the children already expelled, suspended and forced to attend reform school because the district couldn’t tell the difference between the kind of knife that causes a tort(e) and the type that cuts one. (Yeah, statistically only 2 of you smiled, and I was one of them.)
Forgive the district’s error, absolutely. But forgiveness neither means nor requires placing yourself in a situation where you can be harmed again. My advice to Zach’s parents: find a school whose administration exercises better judgment, or keep him home and educate him yourselves. Maybe when enough parents pull the plug, and enough tax money disappears, the schools will have to sit up and take notice that alledgeducation just doesn’t cut it anymore. With or without the knives.
Well, win one (sorta), lose one:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,565520,00.html
Eagle Scout had a pocket knife. IN HIS CAR. Good grief!
(Heck, rifles in gun racks in the HS parking lot at the county HS here in America’s Third World County are a common event during deer season. Kids come in late from an early morning “walk in the deer woods” and make sure they’re off work–yeh, most of the upper class students have after school jobs–for their afternoon “walks in the deer woods” as well.)
Comment by David — October 14, 2009 @ 1:07 pm
BTW, *heh* I once had a troublemaker threaten to “turn [me] in” for having a knife on a “zero tolerance” campus. I told him to have at it. During a break, I gave the principal a heads up. “X has said he’s going to turn me in for having this knife on campus. I thought I’d let you know that all my double reed players have one in each of their cases as well. It’s a reed knife. They cannot maintain their reeds without it.”
Butch (the principal) just said, “X, again? Give him a pass to my office the next time you see him.” *heh* Butch was one of the very, very (VERY, as in one of two) few principals I’ve known who was worth his salt.
Comment by David — October 14, 2009 @ 1:44 pm