Just follow the rules if you want to keep your job. Let the police handle it. If you want to be a maverick or one of those "inspirational authority figure teachers" that they made movies about in the 1980s, you are putting your job, savings, and possibly your freedom at risk.
“Just follow the rules if you want to keep your job. Let the police handle it. If you want to be a maverick or one of those “inspirational authority figure teachers” that they made movies about in the 1980s, you are putting your job, savings, and possibly your freedom at risk.”
Yes, “risk” is what it became ruled by - schools being sued.
Our massively litigious society helped create the zero tolerance rules in our schools.
What was missing was a concerted public movement to provide legal and taxpayer backstops to help schools defend against frivolous suits, because even when the school was right the cost of defending their action could be a budget buster. The schools opted for zero tolerance rules to take any judgement call out of any action, so they could just say “those are the rules and we did follow the rules”.