Zero Tolerance (schools) - Media Attention

Media Attention

Egregious cases often attract the attention of the international media. Many publicized cases have questioned the schools' disproportionate responses to technical transgressions. These cases include students being suspended or expelled for transgressions such as possession of ibuprofen or Midol (both legal, non-prescription drugs commonly used to treat menstrual cramps and headaches) with permission of the students' parents, keeping pocketknives (small utility knife) in cars, and carrying sharp tools outside of a woodshop classroom (where they are often required materials). In some jurisdictions, zero-tolerance policies have come into conflict with freedom of religion rules already in place allowing students to carry, for example, kirpans.

• A Sandusky, Ohio high school student was suspended for 90 days and flunked, after school authorities found a broken pocketknife on him during a drug search in September 1999. He had used the knife to clean his golfing cleats.
• After bringing a Cub Scouts dinner knife to school to eat his lunch, a six-year-old boy was ordered by Christina School District to attend an alternative school for students with behavioral problems for nine weeks. After a media uproar, the school board voted unanimously to reduce punishments for kindergartners and first-graders who take weapons to school to a 3-5 day mandatory suspension., retaining the original definition of "weapons".
• A third-grade girl, also in the Christina School District, was expelled for a year because her grandmother sent a birthday cake, and a knife for cutting the cake, to school. The teacher used the knife to cut the cake, and then reported the girl to the authorities as having a dangerous weapon. The expulsion was overturned and led to a state law that gave districts the ability to, "on a case-by-case basis, modify the terms of the expulsion."
• Other cases in the Christina School District include a straight-A student who was ordered to attend "reform school" after a classmate dropped a pocket knife in his lap, and in 2007, when a girl was expelled for using a utility knife to cut paper for a project.
• Earlier in 2009, an Eagle scout was suspended for three weeks for having an emergency supply kit in his car, that included a pocket knife.
• A kindergartner was suspended in March 2010 for making a finger gun.

Media attention has proven embarrassing to school officials, and the embarrassment has resulted in changes to state laws as well as to local school policies. One school board member gave this reason for changes his district made to their rigid policy: "We are doing this because we got egg on our face."

Zero tolerance policies have been portrayed in the American musical comedy-drama series Glee. Starting with the second season episode "Never Been Kissed", zero tolerance against bullying is promoted as being effective and is the reason gay character Kurt Hummel transfers schools after being bullied in the episode "Furt".