Texas school discipline

Are you sure its lack of discipline or could it be "zero tolerance" policies taken to their wildest extreme? From the article, bolding mine:

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What specific "zero tolerance" policies are you referring to?

 

Any and all of them. If we treated adults the way children are treated inside the public schools our prisons would be full and no one would be left on the outside!

 

Yeah there is a lot of the zero tolerance nonsense floating around in Texas for sure. Also, there is technically a suspension situation called ISS In School Suspension, where the kid does something is suspended but stays in school. It goes down as a suspension on the kids record, but the kid doesn't miss school, they are with a teacher dedicated to this purpose.

I didn't look at these numbers, do they break them down or lump them all together?

 

I'd say your concerns are sheer speculation.

Not "zero tolerance policies" , such as weapons and drugs.

BTW, our prisons are full.

 

Three examples of zero tolerance gone amuck:

Bring an Advil for a headache = suspension
Bring even a picture of a gun = suspension
Defend yourself from an attack = suspension (self defense is not acceptable: sometimes you can't run away and if you don't fight back you could get seriously hurt but zero tolerance doesn't see it that way)

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/education/19discipline.html?ref=us

 

Zero tolerance is sometimes used as a crutch for bad decisions and lack of good judgement.

But I doubt that zero tolerance violations are the cause of even a plurality of the suspensions.

 

LOL, I can go you one better. Or a bunch for that matter, from my local public school in Alabama.

My daughter wore a skirt to school that I measured before she left the house to be certain it met the code (as I did with all her skirts/shorts). Now, I've been a seamstress for over 30 years so I know how to handle a measuring tape. She was put into to "In school suspension" until I could bring her another set of clothing and even though it was easily proven that her clothing was within the school dress code, we were refused the chance to prove it and I was willing to use their measuring tape. btw, as I walk into the school half a dozen cheerleaders walked by me in clothing that easily seen to be out of dress code. Zero tolerance policy gone wrong because of lack of due process and uneven application of the rules.

How about another? If a kid is tardy to school they get "silent lunch" which is certainly a good solution to chronic tardiness, BUT those silent lunches are technically considered "in school suspension" and sets a kid up for other more punitive measures if more than three occur during any nine week period. Btw, there is NNE to sign in a kid who has a legitimate excuse until 30 minutes after school starts. EVERY child is sent to silent lunch from the minute the bell rings until 30 minutes later. So my chronically unhealthy kids often waited the extra 30 minutes so they could be signed, rather than punished for being symptomatic just as the bell rang. 2 kids, 5 years of high school, probably a 40% tardy rate between them (all excused because of their health), how many classes do you think they interupted, 20 minutes into the day because of this policy? (and the high school admin never got the idea!)

Here's another. Kid walks into an afterschool band practice carrying a can of soda. Says to a kid, "hey, will you taste this and see if you think it tastes funny?" What the second kid doesn't know is that the can had been emptied and refilled with vodka. Both (and all the others the first tricked into tasting the can) get suspended and threatened with expulsion! and the kid who brought in the alcohol had done so MORE THAN ONCE, but the other kids weren't warned because she has a "right to education privacy while at school".

In this case, the kids had no idea what they were confessing too, only that they had drunk out of a can the first child handed them. That made them guilty. It didn't matter that they had no clue what they had actually drunk, or that they had "turned in" the other child. Nor were the kids told they didn't have to say or admit anything or that they would be punished if they did! (no miranda warning or anything that told the kids they had rights) Yeah, not the sort of due process I expect in a nation that prides itself on its justice system. Zero tolerance policies gone amok.

If you tell a child he is a no good worthless criminal, he will prove you right.

 

LOL to both comments. So it'll be okay the next time a cop stops you for doing 51 in a 50 zone even though you were only actually doing 49? Oh, and you lose your license to drive too. Because that's how it is in a lot of the public schools. If a teacher "thinks" you've broken a rule, you have and you have no recourse and no ability to defend yourself.

Yeah, I homeschool for a reason. It's amazing how many arbitrary rules I don't have to deal with any longer.

 

I think this is a pretty legalitsic take on the problem. There has to be some grace shown to childnren.

 

So you think we shouldn't show grace to children? I don't think I udnerstand. I agree that good parenting is lacking in most cases, but I still think grace has to be a big part of that.