Welcome to the Nanny State run amok.

Their zero tolerance policy put in place by the school board is the cause. It is not the teachers and administrators. It will stop when people elect school board members with common sense.

Actaully I expect common sense to prevail in these kinds of situations. I realize there are parents out there that will complain about anything, and everything. But as bullhaulerswife points out, where was the criminal intent? How can you justifiy calling the sheriff on a 10 YEAR OLD, because she made a mistake of bringing a kitchen knife to school?

I understand the teachers addressing the situation. I would have understood if they had taken the knife from the girl, I would have understood the school contacting the parents, I would understand offering some type or REASONABLE punishment on the child for breaking a rule, but calling the police, taking the kid into custody, and possibly filing felony charges is excessive, its stupid, its irresponsible, no matter the intention the school administration had with the policy. Threre has to be some common sense.



I think the parents will sue anyway. There is no reason for this at all. These type of policies serve no one, they hurt people more than they protect. If a kid is to a point that he wants to bring a knife or gun to class to hurt someone: 1. he probably won't use it to cut meat during lunch, 2. he/she would careless about school policy. This is nothing more the burarcratic feel good policy.

School boards have no idea what's going on in schools. The first line of defense in protecting childern are teachers, and normally some of the biggest accessories to kids getting picked on are teachers.

In almost every school shooting that has occured there were obvious warning signs that school officials ignored. They ignored this kids being abused by fellow students, they ingored their duties in protecting these kids, in some cases making it worse by punishing the kid for being an outcast. PackRatTDI made a good point about how school administrators choose to enforce rules. They weigh their politcal/personal risks with the situation. If there's a fight between the mayor's kid, and some white-trash kid that doesn't live in the teachers neighborhood, who do you think is going to get blamed for the fight? Don't act like this kind of thing doens't take place.

Just like I said before, if this 10 year old girl was a treacher's kid, or someone viewed as special by the teachers, the sheriff would not have been called.

I read the entire article and the school made repeated attempts at contacting the parents. (Now in this day and age why wouldnt they be able to contact a parent?) They did not put the kid in cuffs as some have said.
Let me tall y'all, when it comes to this stupid zero tolerance policy, they aint playing around. Had the school not gone by the book, people would have lost their jobs.
The kid's parents wont sue because they have no grounds. The policy was well known and was followed to the letter including the punishment. There was absolutely no room for any judgement.

From what I read, it wasn't the school that tried to contact the parents, it was the sheriff's department. No they didn't put the child in handcuffs, which I'm surprised about, that probably had more to do with the deputy understanding how stupid this was, but at the same time, since the school called them they had to respond. In fact that's exactually what the sheriff's department said.

Zero tolerance policies are a warm fuzzy feeling policy. Schools can calim their tough on violence in schools, hell they may have a quote on how many kids are kicked out each semester to make it seem like it's working. But until they actually start protecting every kid equally, no matter who the parents are, they won't stop school shootings, and violence.

The only way these stupid policies will be reversed is if the school is put under pressure through legal proceedings to do so. You have to hurt the schools where it hurts, in the bank account. Parents have every right to protect their childern from malious policies like this. They have a right to protect their kids from these hyper-emotional school officals. There is a huge gap from doing nothing, and these zero tolerance laws. You can't convince me that the schools can't come up with a better policy that will allow common sense to be used when enforcing these rules.

I taught for 13 years and can testify that the school board does not take lightly any administrator/teacher who does not follow BOARD POLICY.
You and I are in agreement about the common sense thing. But I think the way to change things is to take school board elections seriously.........most folks cannot name a single school board member in their system. Change from the inside.

Amen! And if I was her parent, I would be calling an attorney ASAP. You can't tell me that this didn't traumatize this child. After all she was taken away by the Sheriff. And I'm sure that every child in that school knows about it. This will have serious repercussions on her in the future. NO way would I send my child back to that school either.

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That would be a waste of money. The school board issues rules to the parents each year. Someone breaks the rules and now we are going to sue the district for enforcing them. This sounds really great.

Suing the school district to challenge these types of rules is not only legal, but it's exactually what parents should do.

Just like in the criminal justice system, sometimes laws are slipped in that are questionably unconstitutional. The only recourse is to challenge these law through appeal, or through a law suit. If schools are going to escualte a situtation for a minor, and hand over the jurisdiction of that child in their care, from a school environment to a criminal justice environment, parents should have a legal right to challenge the enforcement of these rules.