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When I lived in the states, what struck me was the degree to which society was governed by tons of extremely explicite rules made by private or public organization which aimed at controlling individual behavior in a very detailed way.

I am a scandinavian (danish) and I was used to thinking of my country as very highly organized and with tons of rules, but after being in the states I realize that most rules and norms in my country are implicite and informal which leaves a certain space for anyone with nomative authority (for instance a teacher) to have to justify any exise of power with arguments directed at the informal norms and thus any “zero-tolerance” policy is impossible.

I think the basic difference is that there are very few (or perceived to be very few) commonly held norms in the states or the norms that exist are not trusted as a legitimate basis for enforcement. The love of explicite rules as a source of freedom (less “abritrary” decision) seems to often become a cage.

I wonder if this would be the outcome in a state which is more libertarian such as Wyoming or Montana. We’ve been down this road before on this blog. Education administrators probably think it’s quite insane that they have to do this kind of thing. But the consequence of not doing something are pretty stiff…like End You Education Career-stiff.

You know, shoe laces are a weapon. They can be turned into a garrote. You can hang someone with a belt. Those thick, hard covered books could be used to beat someone to death. Pencils and pens are potential weapons which could blind, maim, or even kill someone depending on how they were used. The list goes on and on.

An empty brass casing is NOT a weapon.

This is one case where I sincerely hope the mother sues the school to have the suspension & probation overturned as well as the stupidity of calling a non-weapon a weapon when they require children to carry weapons into the school every day.

Wouldn’t the language in Henry v. Maersk Line Limited noted below be applicable to the school officials in this case, especially “dips%$t”?

The decision to suspend 10-year-old Bradley Geslak was made by school Principal Deborah Peterson. “Massachusetts General Law gives principals absolute authority in their schools.

Wow, absolute authority. That’s rad! Does that mean that she can carry out a summary execution of an unruly student? Those little kiddies better make sure that behave or else!

Zero tolerance is in reality zero intelligence.

These zero-tolerance cases are very tiresome. We hear the same excuses over and over. “Can’t say anything, privacy issues”, “We feel sorry, but we caused this kid needless grief for his own good”, “We are just following the rules”. The only good news is that this kid now has some understanding that the idiots running the schools are not to be listened to without question. It also reminds the rest of us about the slippery slope of government control. Will they (the government) stop at a reasonable point? No they will not.

Every so often I run across a story like this. People get thet type of goverment they deserve. They (the people) elected the school board which made this and other silly rules. If they don’t like them, in no more than four years they can vote the bastards out and put some new ones in. If the people expressed their dislike of government foolishness in this way, that government foolishness would shortly stop. Government drones, whether liberal or conservative, like worhsipping their ideology, whatever that may be. But there is something else these drones LOVE MORE. . . getting re-elected. Most of them would throw their mother under bus, to say nothing of their ideology, if they KNEW it were required to have any chance of re-election. Don’t gripe people – vote. Vote intelligently and vote retributively!

My son was the victim of similar foolishness. He brought a rifle scope to school – no gun just a $4 plastic scope. Without a gun this is as harmless as a pair of binoculars. His school not only suspended him, but called the police! My attempt to use some negotiating skills with the administration by pointing out that state law (California) required that his conduct be dangerous to himself or others fell on deaf ears. The best I could do was get him a “reduced sentence” of one day instead of a full week’s suspension. It is pretty clear that zero tolerance is equivalent to zero thinking ability when it comes to school administrators.

Teri, you should have sued, and still should.

Their discretion is not absolute – they cannot punish someone completely arbitrarily, which is what your case amounts to, and you may also have been able to sue for libel (they falsely accused your son of a crime, in full knowledge of the fact that no crime had occurred). You may yet be able to sue – talk to an attorney with experience in school law, libel, etc. (perhaps intentional infliction of emotional distress?).

Make them pay, and thereby make them think twice before being such draconian asses.

In cases like this, it seems to me that with the mindless “zero tolerance” going on, children are going to figure out pretty quickly that since they really didn’t do anything wrong or illegal, the admins who are punishing them must be morons, and who needs to listen to morons? Now that’s a hell of a lesson!

Also, since eventually most children will be punished for breaking mindless rules of this sort, I’m betting the ivy league graduating classes of the future will have DOZENS of their best students with this sort of infraction on their records, and it won’t matter, because who can really give any credence to this sort of stupidity? It will only indicate how incredibly stupid their school administrators were.