School board comes to its senses with 6-year-old “offender”
posted at 9:30 am on October 14, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
The Christina School District in Newark, Delaware managed to put the numbers 6 and 45 together and realize it added up to a deeply negative result last night. Angry parents descended on the school board meeting to demand an answer why they had ordered a six-year-old boy to go to reform school for 45 days — longer than Zachary Christie had been in the first grade — for the crime of carrying a Cub Scout utility tool to school. Faced with a deluge of bad publicity, the board instead directed that Zachary serve a suspension of three to five days:
However, on Tuesday night the school board made a hasty change to its code of conduct. The seven-member board voted unanimously to reduce the punishment for kindergartners and first-graders who bring weapons to school or commit other violent offenses to a suspension ranging from three to five days. Now, he could return Wednesday. …
School board member John Mackenzie told The Associated Press before the meeting that he was surprised school officials did not use common sense and disregard the policy in Zachary’s case. The need for common sense to prevail over the letter of the law was a recurring theme among the boy’s supporters and school safety experts.
“When that common sense is missing, it sends a message of inconsistency to students, which actually creates a less safe environment,” said Kenneth S. Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a consulting firm. “People have to understand that assessing on a case-by-case basis doesn’t automatically equate to being soft or unsafe.”
Wow! It sounds like they have almost recovered their own common sense. Almost:
Jennifer Jankowski, who runs the special education programs at Jennie Smith Elementary in Newark, said schools need to be vigilant about protecting students. If Zachary or another student had been hurt by the knife, she said, the district would have taken the blame.
“If we can’t punish him, then what about kids that did bring (a weapon) for bad things?” Jankowski said. “There’s more to the school’s side than just us being mean and not taking this child’s interests into account.”
Do they teach Strawman 101 in Bureaucrat School, or do they just get on-the-job training in it? No one said that the school should take no disciplinary action against the boy. The criticism came from applying a one-size-fits-all punishment to a situation, thanks to a mindless “zero tolerance” policy that gets bureaucrats off the hook for applying judgment to situations. They treated this incident the same as they would a child who brought a switchblade and threatened other children with it. Equating the two doesn’t make children any safer; it just makes bureaucrats’ backsides safer.
Is it any wonder more people opt to home-school their children or look for other alternatives to public schools?
Blowback
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I get it; you’re joking. Had me fooled for a while.
ManUFan on October 14, 2009 at 12:05 PM
why on earth do we have to put up with people like Blake that feel discussing an issue includes being down right rude including calling names? Isn’t that the liberals way of “discussion”? Attack people, blur the issue.
You’ll find this method of “discussion” in Alinsky’s book.
NavyspyII on October 14, 2009 at 12:14 PM
Nope.
Chris_Balsz on October 14, 2009 at 12:16 PM
It does though I think battle hardened is less important than making sure they are well grounded in their values before academia trys to pull them into the morass of ethical relativism. There will always be liberal idiots but that matters less when one knows who he or she is. Unlike, of course, the filthy liar in the White House who doesn’t have a single core belief.
highhopes on October 14, 2009 at 12:17 PM
This kid is soooooh adorable. I’d suggest they use him to make a Home Alone 3, except I wouldn’t want Hollywood to ruin him.
Buy Danish on October 14, 2009 at 12:17 PM
It’s not incarceration. They go to a different school.
Chris_Balsz on October 14, 2009 at 12:17 PM
How about we lock you up in the County Jail for a couple weeks for doing nothing? Probably wouldn’t hury you. Me – I’d be a little troubled by that, but then I’m not everybody.
ManUFan on October 14, 2009 at 12:23 PM
Oh, you are too kidding. This is not a serious comment. The kid is six!
ManUFan on October 14, 2009 at 12:25 PM
It’s not incarceration. They go to a different school.Chris_Balsz on October 14, 2009 at 12:17 PM
You honestly believe “reform school”, is just the same thing in a different building????
MarkTheGreat on October 14, 2009 at 12:33 PM
I agree with you more than it sounds like- I think it depends on where you live, and where your kids plan to go to school, but no matter what, giving them a rock solid sense of conservative values is at the core.
But I do disagree with your last statement- I am afraid Mr. Obama has core beliefs, and that is why he is scary- he thinks he is doing all of this for our own good- he thinks he is righteous.
Kristamatic on October 14, 2009 at 12:33 PM
I’m guessing that Chris is one of those guys that wets himself whenever he sees a handgun.
MarkTheGreat on October 14, 2009 at 12:34 PM
Such things as this have occurred often enough that, by now, parents and teachers could reasonably foresee the outcome of the rules well in advance and change the rules well before something happens in their own school or to their own child. It seems the time to exhibit “zero” tolerance toward zero tolerance is now, before someone else gets hurt.
Kralizec on October 14, 2009 at 12:40 PM
I suggest you do some research on what a reform school is. You clearly have no idea.
Vashta.Nerada on October 14, 2009 at 12:47 PM
Every time I look at a photo of Zachary Christie, I’m reminded of the teachers’ and administrators’ machine-like stupidity. They directed their zero tolerance, not against just any boy, but against one who would straightaway become a poster child in the fight against their “zero tolerance.”
Kralizec on October 14, 2009 at 1:03 PM
With the youngest children school officials need to err on the side of a gentler more child friendly approach to situations such as these. Certainly in this case a calm warning, explanation and contacting the parents would have been the best approach for all concerned. One size fits all never works when dealing with children.
jeanie on October 14, 2009 at 1:27 PM
Don’t even get Chris_Balsz started on sporks.
Jim Treacher on October 14, 2009 at 1:27 PM
My church had a Christian school, and a rule against bringing knives. The preacher realized we had that rule about a year after he came, and said it was ridiculous. He said every boy should have a pocket knife, and if any boy in school didn’t have one, come see him and he would get him one.
Obviously, you can’t do that at a public school. But it’s a pretty good argument for sending your children to a school where such things are non-issues.
tom on October 14, 2009 at 1:36 PM
@Blake:
It sounds as if your defense of “zero tolerance” policies for weapons, including pocket knives, plastic dinnerwere, etc, is that they are items that can be used to hurt people.
In that case, why do we allow school children to carry sharp pencils?
karl_lembke on October 14, 2009 at 1:39 PM
Zero tolerance rules might be less popular if they were correctly labeled as “zero judgement allowed” rules. Unfortunately, the rules are so over-broad that applying them exactly as they’re written results in treating 6-yar-olds who accidentally bring a plastic knife to school exactly the same as a 16-year-old JD who should have already been expelled.
Worse, in some cases zero tolerance rules even take effect for toy knives or toy guns that are attached to action figure toys. So G.I. Joe has a 3/4 inch long machine gun, and suddenly a child is getting expelled.
Do we really want people who have to deal with hundreds of children to not be able to use their best judgement?
tom on October 14, 2009 at 1:45 PM
I was curious to know how a kid got sent to “reform school” so I followed the links in Ed’s first post. The Code of Conduct spells out the violation and that kids go to an alternate school. I don’t see any order to detain a kid overnight in any kind of prison. If I’m wrong go ahead and post a link showing where this kid would sleep away from home. The fact he’s being homeschooled is suggestive that wasn’t in the cards.
I carry a wenger pocketknife with the same blade on my key chain. I’ve had it confiscated and destroyed at the courthouse. My fault. If I’d been ass enough to try to smuggle it past the metal detectors I would belong in county jail, because I have no business taking a knife where it’s banned.
I’ve heard it all before guys, remember the Clinton impeachment? I’m a fascist, I’m unreasonable, the crime didn’t matter anyhow, the real victim is the defendant, I only say it to destroy someone beloved by the people, I must be a deviant myself, blah blah blah. It’s the same thing.
Chris_Balsz on October 14, 2009 at 1:46 PM
First God created idiots. Then he created school boards.
Percy_Peabody on October 14, 2009 at 1:47 PM
If the boy had misused his pocket knife, his chip card from the cub scouts would have been removed and he would not be allowed to use his knife again until he could prove trustworthy.
That’s the way the Boy Scouts work. If anyone had bothered to find out their policy on these things, they would have known.
But everyone knows the Boy Scouts are an evil organization.
Mommynator on October 14, 2009 at 1:51 PM
A six-year-old bringing his Cub Scout knife to school is like the Clinton impeachment. Well, you’re definitely teaching the rest of us valuable lessons in perspective.
Jim Treacher on October 14, 2009 at 1:55 PM
Absolutely. The Modus Operandi of politicians (and I include school boards in that category) is to overreach first, then cave when the heat is on. They are typically not only mindless but spineless as well
We have to keep the pressure on in order to fight this type of idiocy. Protests, tea parties, bad publicity all do work. Remember Alinsky’s Rules and use them!
UltimateBob on October 14, 2009 at 2:10 PM
OK – you’re an adult; you admit you knew the rule and understood it.
The kid was six and no one has argued that he knew or understood the rule (that’s why the emphasis on “zero tolerance”)
You had your knife confiscated (and destroyed – many courthouses will just hold it until you leave). This kid undergoes a 45-day penalty (and, please, get real – this is not just a different school in a different neighborhood; it is reform school – you know, with kids that actually deserve to be there).
So, do we see any nonsensical differences between the cases?
ManUFan on October 14, 2009 at 2:12 PM
They could have called it “non-instructional materials” — like bringing a toy to school when it’s not show-and-tell day — and given him a warning. My guess is they’ve fundamentally altered this kid’s view of the educational system, and not for the better.
DrSteve on October 14, 2009 at 2:13 PM
If that’s all they have done, they have done him a favor.
ManUFan on October 14, 2009 at 2:21 PM
This reminds me of the time that I accidentally brought my Boy Scout pocketknife to school. I believe I was 10 or 11.
What happened? Well as soon as I realized that it was in my pocket (around 10am) I told a teacher who summoned the principal who confiscated the knife until my parents could retrieve it later that afternoon when school let out. I seem to remember him saying something to the tune of “Well since you did on accident and came forward about it when you realized you broke the rules you will only get a minor punishment that I will leave up to your teacher.” She had me miss 10 minutes of recess that day and that was the end of it.
I got a stern lecture at home about “Things That Don’t Belong At School” and that was about it.
SgtSVJones on October 14, 2009 at 2:29 PM
I hope that Zach’s parents finally do the right thing and punish him. They are the ones responsible for this entire incident.
Giving a child a tool is all about teaching responsibility. He broke a well known (even if incredibly moronic) rule.
warden on October 14, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Hey, I forgot that one: perspective.
It’s the vicious lack of integrity in excuse-mongering that I recognize.
Our courthouses are secured by sheriff’s deputies. Don’t confuse them with hospitality workers.
Hey, you don’t have to worry that he’d be stabbed or something.
And that’s what it comes down to: a ban, on kids, bringing knives, to school, applies to a kid bringing a knife to school.
Chris_Balsz on October 14, 2009 at 2:49 PM
No kidding.
Jim Treacher on October 14, 2009 at 2:57 PM
Oh yeah – didn’t think of that. OK; you’re right. I give up.
ManUFan on October 14, 2009 at 3:10 PM
Chris_Balz is right: you’re letting the perp’s youth blind you to the danger.
For instance, it turns out this particular scofflaw is a non-productive member of society. He has never held a real job. Yet he apparently finds time to hang out with other youths of like minds and social status. And there are reportedly weapons present at their meetings.
Now, you might think that these meetings are innocent, since those meeting there are so young. But apparently there are adults also present, so it seems unlikely the meetings are so innocent after all.
Far from taking it easy on the perp, they should interrogate him further and crack down on the other members of this dangerous organization. Just trace it back to the adult sponsors. I believe they’re called den mothers. And of course, we know that den is the German definite article. I’m not quite sure what mother is short for, though.
tom on October 14, 2009 at 3:20 PM
Always trust a bureaucrat to protect his rear end first. They didn’t get common sense. They just realized that it would hurt their chances of re-election if they continued to double down on punishing a six-year-old. These people have all the compassion of the IRS.
hachiban on October 14, 2009 at 3:49 PM
The same irrational liberal mind will send a six-year old to reform school for being a cub scout and set a child molester free. It happens every day in Vermont and other liberal states. I can’t think of a better definition of insanity.
orlandocajun on October 14, 2009 at 4:02 PM
Yeah.. He’s all cute and stuff until he guts his teacher with the knife and eats her liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti…
IT WOULDA HAPPENED PEOPLE!!
GoodBoy on October 14, 2009 at 4:29 PM
Can we put the school board in lock up for 45 days?
Mangy Scot on October 14, 2009 at 6:05 PM
First-grader gets off a bus, knife falls out of his pocket…never a big deal?
Depends on the kid–What kid?
Depends on the knife–What knife?
Chris_Balsz on October 14, 2009 at 6:15 PM
Depends on the kook who’s worried about it–What kook?
Jim Treacher on October 14, 2009 at 6:17 PM
Right, the kids in Reform School won’t have anything sharp. Like a Pencil, or a Pen, or scissors…
Nobody could possibly stab someone with a pencil or pen.
See, here I’ll stab this pen into my arm to show you how safe they are at all times… perfectly safe.
…
Um, does anyone have a bandage? Is blood supposed to spurt like that every second or so? I feel woozy, I thi
gekkobear on October 14, 2009 at 6:39 PM
If I came to you, and said your child had damaged my property, and appealed to your sense of justice, fairness, propriety, and responsibility, would I get this eyewash about the nature of the child, and perspective, and being mature enough to decide based on the whole set of circumstances?
Do you really LIVE like this?
Chris_Balsz on October 14, 2009 at 7:51 PM
You are insane and unreasonable to think the 6 year old needed to go to reform school for 45 minutes even. All they had to do was take it away from him and call his parents in. Simple enough nazi fukk
CWforFreedom on October 14, 2009 at 8:05 PM
I want to know when they are going to figure out that weapons bans are pretty much useless. You can ban all the weapons you want, heck recognize the pencil for the deadly weapon it can be (does anyone think that a person would survive having a pencil shoved all the way into their brain via the eye? Joker: “watch me make this pencil disappear”)
Those who bring a knife, gun, or any other weapon to school to use it for harm are not going to be the least bit detured by a “weapons ban”.
The problem lies not in the weapons, but in the hearts and minds of today’s youth who have shown an increasing lack of empathy or remorse when committing even the most heinous crimes. Knives and guns aren’t even required for their murderous intents. They will gang up and kick and punch a kid to death, they will take a bat, a rail road tie, or gasoline as the tools of death. And they will laugh it all off, only showing remorse for getting caught, not for the act.
Imagine what Columbine would have been like if those boys DIDN’T have the guns, and instead focused more carefully on the make-shift bombs they brought instead. I imagine a far higher death toll were the bombs to have been the focal point of their attack. My point isn’t’ that it’s good they had guns, but rather that the problem isn’t the presence of weapons, it’s the sickness that is rapidly spreading in our society, one that is manifesting itself in a deadly way amongst the youth.
Forget the weapons, focus on inculcating the kids with a belief in virtue and the innate value and uniqueness of human life.
flyfishingdad on October 14, 2009 at 8:17 PM
Uh oh…now a 15 year old charged for throwing a
deadly burrito
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/1014092burrito1.html
CWforFreedom on October 14, 2009 at 8:19 PM
Also I’m sick of the argument that the knife might not be dangerous in one kids possession, but not in another, so we need to freak out with both.
We are teaching our kids to live in fear. We are teaching our kids that life can be totally safe if we just have enough rules and laws. We are teaching our kids to completely submit to the unflinching, unfeeling, and all too often, unthinking rule of the state.
flyfishingdad on October 14, 2009 at 8:20 PM
Also, I think it’s insane to SUSPEND the kid for an hour, let alone 3 days. Just call the parents, explain the problem, apologize for inanity of the rule…that it would apply to such a benign device, express the hope that pencils and pens won’t one day be recognized as the potentially deadly weapons they could be in the hands of someone intent on harm, and then move on with the day.
Prepare the slate boards and chalk kiddos. With the nanny state, you may one day be down to just marking your answer in the dirt with your fingers, because the chalk could be thrown.
flyfishingdad on October 14, 2009 at 8:25 PM
He admits to throwing something at a moving car. The car has actual damage to the windshield. The driver is over 45 years old– check the complaint– and had to have the kid traced by his license plate– this wasn’t two sophmores fooling around a parking lot. What about that is tolerable?
Chris_Balsz on October 14, 2009 at 8:44 PM
After today’s conversation, I’m not going to trust the parents.
Chris_Balsz on October 14, 2009 at 8:59 PM
If you came to me and said my child damaged your property, I’d tell you to get the hell off mine.
Jim Treacher on October 14, 2009 at 9:30 PM
Why is that?
Chris_Balsz on October 14, 2009 at 9:57 PM
I understand. But you will give me that any policy which is fair must be equal in its application — you cannot apply the policy unequally based on attributes external to the policy. For example, a black child with a cub scout knife must be treated identically to a white child under similar circumstances. A male with a “cub scout knife” should be treated identically to a female with a “brownie knife” under similar circumstances (I’m assuming such things exist; I’ve got a collection of Girl Scout camping equipment I bought at Goodwill for the trail). A kid related to the principal with a “cub scout knife” gets treated the same as the poor cross-neighborhood kid with the same kind of knife under the same circumstances.
To understand what I’m saying here, the 220 low hurdles race depicted by William Saroyan in “The Human Comedy” is instructive. Note the difference in treatment of Homer and Hubert by Mr. Byfield; Mr. Byfield lies to Miss Hicks (who had detained two of his runners for churlish behavior in her history class) to get his favorite runner free to win his race, but leaves the other in detention:
I despise the Mr. Byfields of the world, as anyone who cares about the rights of the individual must.
unclesmrgol on October 14, 2009 at 10:19 PM
So you’d prefer that he call in the authorities, and, later, to sue you to recover the damages.
The aforementioned acts are, of course, what a civilized person would do to be “made right”.
unclesmrgol on October 14, 2009 at 10:23 PM
Scroll up.
Jim Treacher on October 14, 2009 at 11:01 PM
I wouldn’t really give a damn what he would do, because he’s nuts.
Jim Treacher on October 14, 2009 at 11:02 PM
It’s a 6-year-old who brought a knife because it was part of the Cub Scouts, and he was all excited because he had just joined the Cub Scouts. A 6-year-old with a Cub Scout knife is a very different thing from a teenager with a switch-blade. If the rules don’t distinguish between the two, then the rules aren’t very good.
And if you’re going to apply a rule strictly, you’d better make sure the rule makes sense in all situations.
“Zero tolerance” is an over-reaction to the fact that students have been allowed to get away with too much in the past. Rather than correct the instances that need correction, they announce a “zero tolerance” policy so it looks like they’re serious about the rules. Plus, they try to essentially demonize inanimate objects like guns and knives. A sensible policy towards guns and knives would differ according to the age of the offenders and the type of “weapon.”
The problem is that the focus is put on the device rather than the person. A folding pocketknife could be used to cut somebody, but it’s liable to fold back up on the hand of the person using it. Someone trying to use a knife as a weapon is not going to have a pocketknife, but some kind of switchblade or razor blade. Someone who has a plastic knife in his lunch is probably not planning to get in a knife fight. Neither is someone with a folding pocketknife with a 1-inch blade.
Rules used to reflect this sort of common sense. A pocket knife was permitted if the blade was under 2 or 3 inches. Switchblades or folding knives with locking mechanisms that could actually be used in a knife fight were sensibly banned.
It’s inevitable that the rules would be tightened, but common sense still needs to be applied. Otherwise, you get this sort of thing: a 6-year-old with an obviously non-lethal pocket knife who threatened nobody facing a 45-day suspension in an alternate school.
James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal has long had a “Zero Tolerance Watch” feature in his “Best of the Web” daily column. This tale is relatively tame. Some schools have suspended or expelled students for such things as having a GI Joe figure that holds a tiny plastic toy gun, or a plastic knife packed in a lunch, or drawing a picture of a soldier holding a rifle, or bringing a water pistol, or having a BB gun locked in the trunk.
It’s almost like they want to teach students that the very possession or touching of any sort of knife or gun is evil…
RAther tha
tom on October 15, 2009 at 12:58 AM
Most people here would not give you that.
You would still expect a parent to accept their kid had to suffer some punishment for breaking a rule, and many people here seem incapable of behaving that way.
Chris_Balsz on October 15, 2009 at 10:57 AM
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