Word: hink
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...There are a number of kids who need to be there - they do have problems, and we need to focus on them," says Fred Hink, executive director of Texas Zero Tolerance. Hink, citing a Texas senate research paper, says 10% of all the disciplined students are "completely innocent" and that "conservatively, about 30,000 are overpunished." Critics of zero tolerance say the warehousing of students at DAEP schools is a major issue. Students removed from the classroom are twice as likely to drop out, according to the Texas Education Agency...
...commits a crime off school grounds, he gets due process," Hink says. "If he commits a crime on school grounds, he doesn't get due process." The harshness of the procedures was evident in testimony to the Texas state legislature. In addition to Amy Deschenes, legislators also heard from a 10-year-old student who, urged by his friends, set off a school fire alarm: as part of his punishment, he had a mugshot taken at the juvenile-justice center. (See pictures of relics from the 1999 Columbine massacre...
...website of Hink's group details incident after incident of zero-tolerance absurdities and overreactions, some highlighted in press reports, others submitted by distraught parents who often complain they are not notified by school authorities until the child has been removed from campus. One mother of a young boy who helped a schoolmate set off a fire alarm learned of her son's plight from a text message he sent her: "Mom, I'm in trouble - please come to school." A second text followed: "I'm probably going to jail." She found her son in leg shackles at the juvenile...
...American Bar Association, in a report on zero tolerance, said the policy casts a "cloud of fear over every student in every classroom." Despite the changes, Hink says the fear still exists and extends to parents. "Once the parents find out, there is initial anger, then they are overcome by helplessness and crawl back into a hole," he says. "There is a huge fear of retaliation." Hink says the new law is a "first step," and his group will be watching to see if the numbers change and those anguished posts from parents diminish...
...When Hink first asked to be put to death, the doctors refused, but after a few more months and more requests, Douwes Dekker remembers, "They said, 'Your husband is ready for it.'" That weekend he came home from the nursing home to be with the family, and the doctor administered the poison. "He just faded away," she says. "I'm convinced we did the right thing. He died a good death...