Jerry: Zero-Tolerance Wouldn’t Work in My Classroom

“School discipline policies and practices emerge in political contexts and result in negotiation among conflicting aspects of democracy. For example, the Gun-Free Schools Act (GFSA) was originally passed in 1994 and reauthorized in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) in the wake of several high profile shootings in public schools. The provisions of NCLB that address school violence reflect society’s belief that the common good requires ensuring the safety of its members. The bill articulates a ‘zero tolerance,’ or ‘one strike and you’re out’ policy for certain behaviors (Kaufman et al., 2001), accepting the loss of individual rights as an acceptable sanction for those who place others in danger.

“The law requires a one-year mandatory expulsion for any student entering school with a weapon (NCLB, Sec. 4141, b). Infractions occurring on school property must be reported to law enforcement authorities (NCLB, Sec. 4141, h, 1). Under GFSA and NCLB, states are obliged to create similar zero-tolerance laws or risk losing federal funds (NCLB, Sec. 4141, b)” (McCarthy & Soodak, 2007).

We have, as a nation, been perplexed and dumbfounded by the number of violent acts that have occurred in public schools in recent years. As teachers, we have been not a little unsettled by such acts and rightfully deeply concerned about our students and ourselves. Of course we do not always make the right decisions about how to properly deal with these situations as Russ Skiba noted in a recent essay (Skiba, 2013; although, I do not agree entirely with his assessment or his conclusions.). On the other hand, we are often left with our hands tied: trying to avoid Skiba’s concern about ‘fear driven politically expedient rhetoric’ and searching for realistic, effective solutions to a problem that seems to have its own form of zero tolerance.

I agree that “zero-tolerance” is a relatively misguided solution to the problem of the mind-bogglingly radical school violence that we experience periodically. A recent rash of incidents in public schools serves to underline my point. Consider these examples:

• A fifth-grade student in Philadelphia had a paper “gun” and is subsequently suspended among other things. The author of the article dryly notes: “Critics who feel the teacher overreacted wonder if the educator was checking for paper bullets in the little girl’s pockets” (Paper gun).
• A 5-year-old in Cape Cod was facing a possible suspension for making a “gun” out of Legos in an after-school program. The mother (rightly, in my opinion) noted that “redirection would have been sufficient” (Lego gun).
• A first-grade student in Maryland was suspended for pointing his finger at another student and saying “POW,” (Jan. 3, 2013, Gun finger). A six-year-old girl in South Carolina was expelled for bringing a plastic toy gun to school (Plastic gun). Eventually, the decision for expulsion was reversed. I found the superintendent’s comments after the reversal very interesting.
• And, finally, a 10-year-old at (ironically) Douglas MacArthur Elementary School in Alexandria, Va., was arrested for bringing a toy gun to school and for showing it to a friend on the school bus. He “was charged as a juvenile with brandishing a weapon.”

I bring this to your attention because we have a problem in our public schools and no one is offering us any viable, realistic solutions. Frankly, I think many people just hope and pray nothing will happen at their school. Some schools have taken matters into their own hands. Consider the Harrold Local School District in Texas where there are no more than 100 students attending classes. Yet in this school district an ‘undisclosed number’ of teachers and staff carry concealed weapons. In 2008, when the program was instituted, the school district was among the first and only schools in the nation to implement such measures.

In a school in Minnesota, a staff member took matters into her own hands and brought a loaded weapon to school and put it in her locker in the staff lounge. It seems to me that perhaps this is an indication that fear is motivating people to take steps that might not be in everyone’s best interest.

Now to bring this home, I teach special education. I also teach a room full of boys. I have toys in my room that are used for sensory breaks—toys like Lincoln Logs, Legos, blocks, little plastic soldiers and other things. My students, my boys, build lasers, play soldiers, play secret agents, cowboys among other reality-based fantasy and role-playing games. I also happen to be teaching in a rural school district where the opening of deer season is akin to a national holiday and camouflage tuxedos adorn the yearly prom (I jest, of course, but camo is a popular clothing style in our school district).  

If I practiced the same zero-tolerance described in the articles above in my classroom, my students would never be in school. That is not rhetoric; that is reality. In many ways, this is what kids do: they imagine themselves as soldiers, cowboys, police officers. I did it growing up, as did my brothers and countless other boys and girls. If I took away the Legos and Lincoln Logs the boys in my class would use pencils or crayons or my pointer stick as guns. In other words, in special education, this is not merely a black-and-white issue. On the other hand, even in general education this is not merely a black-and-white issue.

What is the solution to the problem of lethal violence we face in our schools? Is it the sort of mental health profiling suggested by Skiba? Is it zero-tolerance policies being practiced by many schools, maybe yours? Is it having an armed police officer in every school as suggested by the NRA and some politicians? Is it to arm staff as is practiced by the Harrold Local School District in Texas? Clearly if there is not some sort of solution, people will find ways to solve the problem themselves.

Bickel, 2010 concludes with these deeply poignant words: “The protection of students must always be our primary objective even when physical interventions—delivered in a timely, appropriate and measured manner—are required to achieve this end. To do otherwise would amount to an abdication of our responsibilities as educators.”

What do you think? What should we, as educators, do? I hear from and read about the opinions of a lot of people, but from very few educators. As a teacher, what is your opinion? How would you solve this problem? I believe it is time and necessary for the nation to hear what teachers have to say on this matter. Our voice should matter in this conversation. 

Comments

[Miranda Jones]

Admittedly, I laughed at many of the examples you cited. Meanwhile I can honestly say that the school where I am completing my teaching residency doesn't seem to have this problem with gun violence of the potential for such violence. Nonetheless, I think that the real issue here is people and/or students and not necessarily guns. Perhaps the RTI models helps with this, but my concern is whether or not teachers and other staff really pay attention to students who have real problems happening in their lives. I am certain that we are all guilty of some time or another of thinking that someone, particularly a child, really needed some assitance but we refused to act (and maybe for good reason) only to later hear that something in their lives was going really wrong. I know that I have personally taken an active role in the lives of many of my students where I know that there is the possibility of violence in the home that might translate to problems within the school. For me that is more central than "jumping the gun" over mere pictures, but kicking kids out of school still isn't the answer. Referral for services might be a start.

[Mary Beth Diehl]

Hi Jerry. Wow--some of those cases you cite are just ridik! I remember when I was giving a math test to a kdg class, and a student [usually on-task] decided to just take leave of his senses and make a gun out of the Unifix cubes. He then proceeeded to try to shoot his tablemates, complete with sound effects. I must have looked like the Lord himself coming up to the table--ALL the other children scooted out of the way. The look on the little boy's face as he turned around to see me was one I will never forget. Our conversation consisted of "Is that waht you are supposed to be doing now?" "No" "You need to move to the Alone Table for a while, I think". A report of the incident went no further then his [mortified] older sister who picked him up, and his parents. Apologies from student, and he re-took the test during his recess the next day.
This was in the late 1990s. Sadly, I know that today I'd have to actually report this. And even more sadly, I understand the reasons why, as today we participated in the first of several all-district lockdown drills :( :(

[HollieMason]

It does really seem that, with many behaviors and not just guns, there needs to be a contiuum of consequences. Obviously, if a child brings a gun to school, that is a huge deal and deserves a severe consequence. However, if a child points a finger and says "bang," expulsion from school seems pretty extreme. I am speaking as a special education teacher, however, many students have a difficult time thinking through the consequences of their actions before doing them. Society as a whole has come to a point where most games and movies, even if not geared towards children, have guns in them at some point or another. As a beginning teacher, it is really scary to see so much gun violence in schools. And some of the proposed solutions are even scarier. However, I do not want that to be the main thing that my students are thinking about and I feel that drawing attention to some minor behaviors in front of the whole class could draw a lot of attention to something that could be dealt with with an individual child more privately.

[Kat]

I have this game with my Dad were we try to get the other person to believe the most outrageous, ridiculous made up facts. It’s a game of calling bluff. He got me the other day when he told me that the state I live in was making a concealed weapons permit mandatory for all teachers. My heart dropped and I forgot the game completely. What age do we live in were I will hardly question the idea that the state would force me to carry a gun in my classroom. You asked what the solution to the problem of lethal violence in schools was. Zero tolerance is not it. While I am busy in my own classroom telling students who are playing solder not to shoot guns, parents are walking in though the back door to get to the office. Meanwhile, at staff meetings we go through scenarios of what we would do “if”. It seems that we are concentrating on the wrong aspects of school safety. Instead of talking for an hour about “what if the shooter had a kid hostage outside our door?” (Because let’s face it, who knows what they would do?) Let’s talk about making a protocol for visitors and locked doors, and, maybe new gun laws. We are concentrating on students who bring in weapons. Maybe the “zero tolerance” has stopped some students who wanted to do harm to others. However, many of the most horrific violent offices in schools were done by those who don’t care about being expelled. To me “zero tolerance” seems like a policy created to make people feel like something is being done for a situation that has no reasonable solution. What rational reaction can there be for such an irrational situation. We as teachers must use our common sense. Not every interaction with a weapon or item that looks like a weapon or thing being played with like it’s a weapon, or thing that represents a weapon, is grounds for expulsion.
Further-more, taking matters into your own hands by bringing your own weapon to school is yet another irrational method to combat an irrational situation. You know what they say; two wrongs don’t make a right.

[Lisette]

The zero-tolerance policy is a safety net to prevent gun violence in schools. Just as language changes over time, what is considered acceptable behavior also has changed. It is our responsibility to teach acceptable behavior. Bringing a toy gun to school or pretending to shoot someone is considered threatening behavior; even if innocently done. We simply have to convey that to students. I do believe, like many of the people commenting on the issue, the response and consequence to these actions can be quite severe, and may need to be reconsidered.

[Georgia]

Well said Jerry. As teachers we have to make decisions for and about our students everyday. We face legal, professional and moral issues in each decision we make. When it comes to zero tolerance we are obligated under the "law" to report any infractions of the rules of conduct in the school. As teachers though I believe we are morally obligated to take into consideration the students we have in front of us and the breadth of knowledge we have about their personality, so that before we make a drastic decision to have them expelled we should look into alternative solutions to resolve the issue before we punish.

[Leigh]

Well said. I would like to make the point that the law (as quoted here--I know little about debates of how it is meant to be interpreted, or how it is interpreted in courts, etc.) actually says "a student entering school with a weapon". Well, a student making gun out of paper certainly did not bring a weapon to school. A student who brought a toy gun to school did not bring a weapon to school. Same with using LEGO bricks or a hand: the student did not bring a weapon to school!

In my opinion, I do think that if a student enters a school with a weapon, suspension (not expulsion) should be immediate and automatic. I have yet to experience or hear about a situation where that is not the best immediate course of action. After that, of course, it should be evaluated if the student intended harm, needs counseling, needs to be removed from the home, etc.

As for the cases presented, I think they are all misinterpretations of the law. In my view, it seems obvious that the law is intended to remove a student with the immediate capability to harm people from school. In all the cases presented, a teacher or administrator who was better trained in the law would have used redirection, or a stern warning, or a referral to the school counselor or psychologist, all as needed.

Seems to me that, as always, the answer is education.

[Megan]

Jerry,

Interesting post! The issue of safety is a complex one and I believe educators and administrators walk a fine line between what should be tolerated and what should not.

In a related issue, during a faculty meeting today we had a discussion of what a teacher is to do during a lockdown if there is a student (whom is not on that teacher's roster) outside the room before the teacher locks and closes their door: does the teacher let the student in, or not? One teacher argued: what if that student has the weapon? Another teacher argued: could you really shut a student out of your room during a lockdown only because they're not on your roster? I could understand both sides.

As educators, I believe we have to make judgments and decisions that keep the majority of students safe and happy. For me personally, in many of the situations you mentioned above, redirection and/or a discussion would be deemed sufficient. In the issue of a lockdown, I would let any student in my room who appeared to be nonthreatening. These are decisions that we as educators and HUMANS need to make using our morals, experience, and intelligence..

[Kind]

Bravo! I understand the fear about school violence, but boys will be boys. If boys JUST started pretending to shoot people, it would be different. I imagine this goes back to the dawn of guns. Like you, my school would be empty. It also goes along the lines of hitting (there's a difference between hitting your friend and hitting a non-friend). There's also a difference between calling someone a name once and doing it more than once. The lines are so gray. I was "bullied" as a kid but I have to admit it's the looks and the lack of someone talking to me that hurt more than any word. What should we do outlaw dirty looks?

The problem is the lack of morals taught at home first and seconded by the schools. It was that paired parenting model that made the difference between then and now. TV, songs, games, and parents have loosened morals and the schools are the one of the only ones left defending the line. We will not be successful on our own.