Schools’ Zero Tolerance Policies Tested

Ashley Villanueva
Blog Post #5

This article was taken from www.usatoday.com. Schools have adopted the zero tolerance policy in order to reduce violence. Many parents in the country as well as elected officials want this policy to lighten up because children have been thrown out of school for bringing items such as an eyebrow trimmer to campus. In a recent case Zachary Christie, who is only 6 years old, brought a camping utensil to school that had a knife, fork and spoon. Once the school officials found this out, he was suspended for five days and could not go back until he completed 45 days at an alternative school. Many people were outraged by this and didn’t agree with the schools decision. The zero tolerance policies came from the Gun Free Act passed by Congress in 1994. This said that any student who brought a firearm to school was to be expelled for one year. These policies got even stricter after the Columbine shootings in 1999. Ronnie Casella who studies school violence says the zero tolerance policy shows no evidence of making the schools safer.

I believe the case with Zachary Christie is a bit extreme. He is only 6 years old and I’m sure he didn’t even know that this camping utensil could harm anyone. I believe if the school used common sense they would have seen that Zachary was not a threat to other students. I do believe there should be strict rules when it comes to students bringing weapons to school but common sense must also be used. We talked about the zero tolerance policy in class and the idea behind it is that if they can control less serious crimes then they will also be able to control the more serious crimes. There are several arguments whether this actually works but in school I think if they use common sense when practicing this policy it will be more effective.