Zero tolerance has become a crutch for weak and unwilling administrators to lean on when absurd rulings and edicts are made. Schools, businesses and work places have hidden behind the shield of zero tolerance when school principals, work managers and supervisors are either unwilling or incapable of asserting themselves to interpret or enforce rules.
This leads to absurd rulings such as the one in Florida where a young woman was arrested and suspended from school for 5 days, thus missing her graduation, for having a kitchen knife in her car. The knife had fallen out of the boxes of household goods she had in her car the day before when she was moving. A school security guard saw it lying on the car floor and blew the whistle on her. This young woman, a college bound National Merit Scholar, was arrested on a felony warrant, handcuffed and hauled off to jail.
The school principal’s weak excuse was that he had no choice but to enforce the rule forbidding weapons on school campus. Weak! No choice? There is always a choice. What has happened to common sense? What have people done with their minds? No choice – hogwash!
Actions like this make me wonder how much further the pendulum will have to swing before people become fed up with the lack of backbone and discretion displayed by school administrators. It seems they’ve checked their brain at the door when they walk into the building. Lord help us.
They are poisoning the minds of the students they are trying to teach by just lying down and spouting the excuse, “I had no choice to not show what a strong, capable leader looks like.” “I had no choice to not be a role model.” “I had no choice but to leave my spine in my car when I get here every morning.”
Marysville
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