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Unfortunately that is not complete vindication unless the girls were officially sanctioned for lying. They should have been suspended at least. Otherwise, they are walking around, admitting getting him kicked out and not learning that their actions have adverse personal consequences.

Geez! When I "accidently" grabbed some girl's posterior while playing "tag", worst thing I got was a slap on the face! :)

Seriously, my wife is a teacher and HATES the zero tolerance rules. A lot of the stuff that goes on in her classes (6th grade) that might be deemed "innappropriate" by some knee-jerk administrator get's an "act your age" response from her or some other form of "punishment", more times than not to embarass them a little. Nothing over the top, just a good humored way to show these kids how stupid they are acting. Of course, I fear some kid will have something innocent happen to them and she will poo-poo it and we'll get sued by some over-zealous parent, but she doesn't seem too afraid at this point.

That is not to say things are markedly different from when I was in middle school, because it most certainly is. She also has her fair share of incidents where she immediately sends the kid to the principal, but a lot of the adolescent stuff her kids do that we used to do at their age is, by in large, kept in her classroom and dealt with by her. The kids respect her more than any other teacher on her hall, BTW.

Not to be overlooked in all of this is teachers who were taught that "ALL" instances should be treated as serious and dealt with by administrators. A lot of teachers don't want to deal with kids in general (which makes me question why they want to teach in the first place) and just send the kid to the principal so they won't have to deal with them. Basically, they are lazy. My wife, fortunately, can and does think on her own, so she deals with a lot of this stuff on her own.

Actually, they should be sued in court for defamation of character.