Word: zeros
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...stories of children who have been suspended for violations of zero-tolerance school policies are legion and often involve absurd situations. Take the seven-week suspension of Texas high school student Amy Deschenes, whose spotless academic and disciplinary record was soiled when campus police found her stepbrother's theater prop sword in the backseat of her car. Weapons, including swordlike objects, are forbidden according to the rules. But Deschenes and her family fought back, and now, thanks to them and a band of like-minded lobbying parents, Texas has adopted a more forgiving, flexible...
...Zero-tolerance policies for violent, drug-related or otherwise unacceptable behavior grew out of federal mandates for education-funding in the early 1990s. The horrific slaughter at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, reinforced the rigid policies. In Texas, according to a state legislative study, some 144,000 students were sent to DAEP or juvenile-justice alternative education facilities in 2007; 25% of them had disabilities, and minorities made up 65% of the DAEP students and 73% of the juvenile-justice students. Violations ranged from sharing illegal substances or bringing weapons to school to engaging...
...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...
...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...