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guest_
· 4 years ago
· FIRST
We can blame the schools- and they should have some accountability- but like many things- the ultimate blame is on society. These reactions in public schools tend to stem from anti gun laws in the early 90’s. The label “zero tolerance” in schools was part of an anti gun campaign.
guest_
· 4 years ago
After Columbine the public and especially parents really pushed on schools and these policies were expanded drastically from weapons and contraband to include any violent act or even other infraction seen as “warning signs.” Then of course parents come in- when two kids fight- it’s usually a game of “he said she said.” Your kid is getting expelled for hitting another kid but that kid hit your kid too. Who really hit first? Who was teasing who for how long and blah blah. So people say “oh. My kid finally defends themselves against mental/social/whatever abuse from this other kid and they get expelled but not the other kid- so you don’t care about mental abuse just physical?” And so on. Parents bring lawyers and underfunded understaffed schools lose faculty time to proceedings and money.
guest_
· 4 years ago
Look at many current popular attitudes towards guns or terrorism and see where the blame is if you don’t believe the origins of these policies. Or google it. It’s an actual fact- not some theory.
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guest_
· 4 years ago
Whenever there’s a mass shooting or terrorist attack what happens? People explode with finger pointing. “Look at all the warnings and subtle signs this person was dangerous.” “How could they keep letting this person around when they showed they were potentially dangerous..” and then people want to prevent it. They say “it doesn’t even matter if someone has never shown any danger. We can’t let the possibility they COULD exist. We have to preemptively remove the danger before it can become dangerous!”
guest_
· 4 years ago
What schools are guilty of in these cases is bowing to public pressure. Imagine the news- a kid shoots up a school or shoots or stabs another student at school. Then they start reporting “this kid had a history of violence towards other students. They were involved in a fight with another student and the school allowed them to stay...” If they expelled both kids- that story reads different. It says: “this kid was expelled for violence and had XYZ warning signs but police/family/medical professionals didn’t do anything and they killed someone.”
guest_
· 4 years ago
The real “goal” of zero tolerance is that if you’re gonna kill another kid or hurt someone- you’re gonna have to do it off school grounds or by being in the school illegally. It allows schools, if something happens with those kids, to say: “hey- we did our part. We recognized they were dangerous. Someone else is to blame.”
guest_
· 4 years ago
And it wasn’t schools that came up with it. It was law makers and voters who came up with it and made it a policy.
guest_
· 4 years ago
In the fear of mass shootings and youth violence- people will grab on to anything that makes them feel a little safer wether it actually makes them safer or not, and wether there is a high price for whatever safety it does give or not.
