Zero Tolerance Is Too Much

Zero Tolerance: How Much is Too Much?
By Brooke West
Arkansas State University
Fall 2014

Zero Tolerance: How Much is Too Much?
Introduction
“Zero Tolerance” was first established in 1994 after the Gun-Free Act of 1994. This act stated that fire arms and weapons were not permissible on school property. The zero tolerance policy came into play to back the Gun-Free Act saying that any student that was on school property with a weapon and committing violent acts would be punished by suspension or expulsion. The policy grew into any student that had drugs on school grounds would also face a mandated predetermined consequence. Some districts zero policies have grown over the years making other behaviors have a predetermined punishment.
While all of the actions under zero tolerance are serious and do need actions to prevent students from committing these behaviors, not every case is going to be the same and if you are using common sense the punishment might not need to be the same. There have been many cases reported of situations, and most of them are students with a disability, in which the student doesn’t fully understand that the actions or words they are using would be violating zero tolerance policies (Chen, 2014). Chen highlighted a few of these cases, and one of them was a junior high student that was required to write a Halloween story. The story line the student chose was one where a character shot students in the school. This student was arrested and spent six days in jail before he was released because there was no proof of a crime committed. While the student’s story might not have been appropriate, this problem could have possibly been taken care of at the school level with a conference between the student, principal, counselor, teacher and
I do believe that schools these days do have to enforce a zero tolerance policy due to previous crimes that have been committed in schools that are harmful to students. It is unfortunate that some students are punished for behaviors that they don’t understand, but in order to identify any threats that could happen I feel that schools need to treat all violations under zero tolerance as a possible threat. While this might seem harsh and like students have little rights, the teachers and administration are responsible for the safety of all students and it is better to eliminate any possible threats. I also feel like the consistency with the zero tolerance policies sets up clear limitations for the students and they are informed of the punishment that they would face if they violated a zero tolerance rule. In my opinion this helps decrease the number of violations because the consequences have been established. Like many things it is hard to establish a policy that everyone agrees with, but when the safety of a child is in jeopardy I would rather be proactive then