Posted on 05/21/2005 7:58:50 PM PDT by Coleus
:sigh:
| Dr. Crawford Lewis DeKalb County School Superintendent Phone: (678) 676-1200 crawford_lewis@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us |
Garry McGiboney Deputy Superintendent (678) 676-1200 garry_mcgiboney@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us |
School Board member Frances Edwards Phone: (404) 289-1477 frances_edwards@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us |
||
| School Board member Elizabeth Andrews Phone: (404) 371-0669 elizabeth_andrews@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us |
Phoebe Bailey Assistant Principal, MLK Jr. High School (678) 874-5402 PHOEBE_L_BAILEY@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us |
Stephen Black Assistant Principal, MLK Jr. High School (678) 874-5402 STEPHEN_G_BLACK@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us |
| Brenda Edwards Assistant Principal, MLK Jr. High School (678) 874-5402 STEPHEN_G_BLACK@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us |
Vincent Hinton Assistant Principal, MLK Jr. High School (678) 874-5402 VINCENT_T_HINTON@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us |
Linda Young Assistant Principal, MLK Jr. High School (678) 874-5402 LINDA_W_YOUNG@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us |
Zero tolerance. Because thinking is too hard.
And we wonder why children brought up on finger food have no table manners
OK, this is the straw that finally broke the camel's back.
People who send their kids to the white citadels of utter insane imbecility are just going to have to live with what they get. We'll just keep on educating our kids at home.
I have Zero Tolerance for Zero Tolerance policies.
Every time one of these No-Tolerance cases comes up, the educrat-whipped make that same evasion.
Ummm,...zero tolerance is ZERO intelligent!
I agree. Sounds to me like a story made up on the spur of the moment. Why would there be a knife in the band room?
Also, the article says the school is a Junior High School. It also says the kids are planning on starting college next year. Makes no sense.
Are there still school systems with Junior High Schools? I thought school systems converted to the Elementary-Middle-High School model years ago.
This affair seems very fishy to me.
If the girls are skipping from Jr high to college, I don't think this will mean anything.
If the school system doesn't want knives at school, I think they better stop letting the school have knives.
If they couldn't keep the school from having a knife, I hardly see how they can punish these children for USING the knife that was already AT the school.
You know, when these kids graduate, there's going to be REAL KNIVES out there. I would have hoped the school system would have taken it upon themselves to teach our kids how to be around REAL KNIVES without using them as weapons. But now we have an entire generation who have never learned the peaceful wielding of utensils.
But they are well-trained in how to put on a Condem. I guess that's the important thing.
It would be interesting to see how these petty dictators run their own homes. Bet they can't even control their own kids, so they psychologically compensate by pounding iron fists at the students. How many of these no-tolerance type despots were the playground bullies of their youth? Still preying on children, because they can. Institutionalized child abuse.
""Her daughter -- Ashley -- and Candace Grier both are band members and honor roll students."'
[And Dangers to society with their birthday cake cutting knifes]
Zero tolerance=zero common sense.
What ever happened to the skill of discerning between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law??
THanks for the e-mail addresses. I sent the following e-mail to the lot of them:
Dr. Crawford Lewis, Board members, and administration of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior High School;
My name is Charles Reichley, and I write an opinion column for the Potomac New Newspaper in Manassas, Virginia.
I have followed the problems with the Public Schools Zero-Tolerance policy with some interest. I have two children currently working their way through the Prince William County, Virginia Public School System, and my son especially has had his share of disciplinary difficulties. But while our school system has a rigid disciplinary policy, it allows for discretion on the part of officials serving in positions of authority.
I read with consternation about a recent incident in your school involving several students of high academic and extracurricular standing, who nonetheless face major disciplinary punishment over the use of a common piece of silverware.
I only know what I read in the newspapers, so I do not mean to judge the case. But I do hope that you will judge the case, and not blindly follow policy rather than using common sense.
The facts as I know them suggest that the knife in question was in fact a common utensil, of the kind I'm sure the children use in their day-to-day lives, and that they could find at any local restaurant.
Further, the knife was already at the school. I would submit that if you are so deeply concerned about your inability to control the children under your care that you won't let them have a place setting, that you should not provide knives in your school for them to find and use.
These are children who we trust with automobiles. I imagine you provide them with condoms on request, so you probably are trusting them to know how to engage in appropriate and safe sexual behavior. They are about to graduate, so we presume they are ready to go out on their own and be productive and law-abiding citizens.
But it seems that the school system doesn't even trust them to know that a knife is for cutting food, not for use as a weapon. God forbid if our school wasn't able to teach them this basic tenet of living in a free society. As I wrote in a recent column, which I have attached in its entirety below, when they get out in the real world there will be knives on every corner, and we better have taught them how to deal with it.
Our public schools exist to train our children to exist in the real world. At some point that has to include giving them the opportunity to do the WRONG thing, so that we can ensure that they have been taught to do the right thing.
If you never let your child near the hot stove, they will not be burned, but they will not learn NOT to be burned. And one day when you are not there, you don't know what they will do.
When I attended school, we had our occasional dust-ups. I saw a girl in 5th grade stab another in the shoulder with a fork (do you ban forks?). It hurt, but we survived. Nowadays as I said before we let children drive, and sometimes they do the wrong thing and they DON'T survive. As horrible as that is, it is better than forbidding them to drive -- because some day they will drive, and they have to learn to do so appropriately.
When a school system forbids students to have a common kitchen knife, it is a tacit admission that the school has failed to instill in the students the appropriate control of behavior necessary to function in our world. The school also tells the students that they are not trustworthy, that they are not mature, that the school expects them to act inappropriately if given the chance.
Moreso, the students correctly discern (for they are intelligent) that the policy is absurd on its face. And they wonder about the other rules. They hear the message 'Don't drink and drive', but seeing the stupidity of the adults on the issue of painkillers, or knives, or fingernail clippers, they reasonably (but sometimes fatally) conclude that nothing the adults say can be trusted. Are drugs really bad? Is smoking wrong? Do I really need a condom for safe sex?
Inappropriate and mindless rules send the wrong message to our students. I hope in this case you can see beyond an outdated and harmful policy, and act in accordance to the power you should possess as intelligent people put in positions of authority. You are decision-makers, not mindless followers. Don't hide behind policy, set the standard.
I thank you for your time, and hope that this e-mail has been helpful to you in your attempts to do the right thing.
Respectfully Yours,
Charles Reichley
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.