Less Zero Tolerance my behind!!!

[Greenday]

http://www.app.com/article/20101026/...ns-for-school-

New case. Kid gets bullied. Mom thinks giving her kid a BB gun and a knife to protect himself is a great idea. Mom should rightfully go to jail. Kid goes to school and turns weapons over to school. Doesn't try to use the weapons or hide them. He just hands them over to the school. Now he faces getting expelled.

[Greenday]

You mean the student who was also connected with prescription painkillers (that a student reports made him sick) knives, and alcohol both on and off school property?


Thats not a very good example, it was completely justified.

How do you figure? The principal had an administrive assistant, a.k.a. a secretary, and the nurse strip search a student. They have no right to search her like that. They hold no position within the law and have no legal standing that'd give them the right to perform a strip search. The ONLY people who have that legal ability are the police and the school clearly overstepped it's boundaries in abusing its role as authority figures.

How would you like it if your boss gave you a strip search because you were discovered to have some pain pills?

[Greenday]

...I just posted a story about a kid who was given weapons by his mom and he instantly turned them in, which is exactly what we tell kids to do if they find weapons. He did the right thing, did nothing wrong, and may be expelled for it.

[Greenday]

I agree that one is outrageous. Its like the newstory I heard a few months ago where a member of the military in Britain found a shotgun in the woods and turned it in to the police and was arrested. Its insane that the officials would punish people for doing the right thing, and that is not what rules or punishment is suppose to be about.

It's what zero tolerance is doing. Listening to NJ's main radio station the other day, they were talking about this. One story involved a kid who was given a completely deactivated grenade and turned it in to the school. He got expelled. Another story was a kid who, on the way to school, found a broken gun (so broken it would be impossible to fire) right outside the school. He picked it up, brought it to the office, handed it over immediately...then got expelled.

[telecom_goddess]

It's what zero tolerance is doing. Listening to NJ's main radio station the other day, they were talking about this. One story involved a kid who was given a completely deactivated grenade and turned it in to the school. He got expelled. Another story was a kid who, on the way to school, found a broken gun (so broken it would be impossible to fire) right outside the school. He picked it up, brought it to the office, handed it over immediately...then got expelled.

wtf? That's insane and frankly just encourages me to not report or turn in anything.

[Greenday]

wtf? That's insane and frankly just encourages me to not report or turn in anything.

You can bet your ass if I ever have kids, I'm going to tell them that if they find a weapon on the ground, just ignore it and let someone else get expelled for doing the right thing.

[blas87]

Here, here. I can't agree more.

It seems like it's hurting people instead of helping, to do the right thing nowadays.

[protege]

It seems like it's hurting people instead of helping, to do the right thing nowadays.

Yep, and then the people who came up with the Zero Tolerance bullshit...will be the first ones to bitch when something happens

[KitterCat]

You mean the student who was also connected with prescription painkillers (that a student reports made him sick) knives, and alcohol both on and off school property?


Thats not a very good example, it was completely justified.

I think your thinking of a different case. This one involves a girl (Savana Redding) who’s school mate (Marissa) after being found with prescription-strength ibuprofen accused Savana of having given her the pills. Savan, a student who had no disciplinary record, denied knowledge of having the pills and let them search her belongings and outer cloths. They didn’t find anything so the vice principal had her strip in front of the school nurse and another assistant.

Yah even the thought of having ibuprofen, the equivalent of two Advil’s, can get you a strip search! A drug that you cant get even get high off of. Fun times fun times. Welcome to a pedophiles wet dream where so long as you put in the proper paperwork to say that you think the kid has drugs - not even illegal drugs, just drugs you can have them striped.

Whats sicker still is that the first time the suit by Reddings mother was placed it was dismissed. An appeals panel said that her fourth amendment rights weren’t violated. It took going to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals before the courts said it was a violation of her rights. So you really do have to wonder what the heck are school administrators taking along with court judges, because its certainly not ibuprofen.

[Greenday]

So yeah, saying she was strip searched for over the counter drugs is like saying WWII started because Hitler said mean things. It requires ignoring alot of other stuff that happened.

It still ignores the fact that the school had no authority to perform a strip search and the only reason they wouldn't know this is because they'd have to be complete morons meaning they are too incompetent to be teaching the youth.

[Greenday]

Except it took several appeals to find they didn't have the authority so that means several court systems are just as incompetent, or they follow the law of the country and not the law of sensationalism.

I'd vote incompetency.

[KitterCat]

Your ignoring the other half of that sentence.

She admitted owning the planner, but said that she had lent it to her friend Marissa and that the contraband was not hers.

Think about what your saying Cactus Jack. Your implying that’s it perfectly fine for a school to strip a child, not because they’re even worried about illegal drugs, but because they’re carrying pain medication that you cant even get high on. It’s the rule its self that’s wrong, its why this tread has even been started. People are tired of Zero Tolerance rules.

What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Justice David Souter wrote in Thursday's majority opinion.

“The self-serving statement of a cornered teenager facing significant punishment does not meet the heavy burden necessary to justify a search accurately described by the 7th Circuit as ‘demeaning, dehumanizing, undignified, humiliating, terrifying, unpleasant [and] embarrassing’. Justice Kim McLane Wardlaw

Having a students (Marrissa and Jordan) trying to get out of trouble by blaming some one else saying that they got the pills from you and oh btw you went to a party where there was alcohol wouldn’t be what most people would consider enough evidence to justify a strip search. It would be akin to having a coworker get in trouble with your employer and trying to blame you for having gotten them the advil but you went to a party that weekend as well. Though in that case I don’t see two grown adults letting some one strip search them for it.

Ms. Redding said she had served only soda at the party, adding that her accuser was not there. At the dance, she said, school administrators had confused adolescent rambunctiousness with inebriation. “We’re kids,” she said. “We’re goofy.”

[Greenday]

But the school should have known they had no legal grounds for strip searching a student. The correct action, as any competent person knows, is to call the cops when you find drugs on someone (Even though it was some ridiculously weak stuff that no one would pay for).

[KitterCat]

You can get high from prescription pain killers.
As an example of zero tolerance gone wrong this is a horrible one. It requires us to assume that the school only punished her for the over the counter pain meds and not for having prescription meds, weapons, and distributing the meds. .

There are of course many drugs that can make your high. Ibuprofen is not one of them. You can get the same result of taking an 800mg ibuprofen by taking 2 400 mg or 4 200mg over the counter pills. If parents can tell the difference between a child having ibuprofen and vicodin why cant school staff?

As for the strip search, it would appear there was some legal merit to performing it but in the end it was found to have been wrong. If the school were to strip search her after this finding on the same evidence it would definitely be a violation of her rights.

And reasoning like this is why you have outrage. If an adult on the street decided to strip a child because they thought they might have pain pills on them they’d be on a sexual predators list and multiple charges to their name. Why is it ok if a teacher does it?

Well of course. Nobody who gets caught with narcotics actually own them. Don't you know everything that is illegal belongs to somebody's friend and they just happen to have them in their possession or in something they own. The friend was also searched and the logical conclusion would be that they were in on this together.

Yah I know, we’ve got to crack down hard on those honor students. Doesn’t even have any disciplinary reports, but dame the kids who have been getting into trouble ousted her. Gotta believe the trouble makers since they’d never lie. Gotta enforce now that Zero Tolerance will be enforced and bang into the little cretins’ that there is no difference between any type of drug. A drugs a drug and all your getting is tea.

[Greenday]

Since it took appeals for it to be found that the school couldn't strip search her it would appear that the school is suppose to have a better legal understanding then the court system.

And since the superior court said, "Hey, you screwed up morons" and overturned it, it proves that the original judge was a moron.

I don't expect school staff to be as knowledgeable of the law as Supreme Court judges, but it doesn't take much knowledge at all to know that unless you have some kind law background, strip searching a minor without giving her being to give legal permission since she's a MINOR is completely illegal. And if you want to get techincal, it's also illegal search and siezure (I know getting into the Constitution is a toughy for a lot of people, but again, if these people are teaching our children and don't even know up to the Fourth Amendment...holy shit).