Zero tolerance rules: most schools have had them for a long time now. Anything that explodes is a weapon, and weapons on school grounds are an automatic expulsion.
And this is why zero tolerance rules are despicable.
Not because they were enforced in this case, but because of the countless times they were probably threatened and not enforced. These rules don't enforce justice, they leave justice up to the arbitrary will of an administrator.
My school has a rule that states "If a phone is seen out, you will get 20 lunch detentions." And yet most of the teachers do not enforce the rule. In fact, here I am typing a response on Hacker News. Yet if a teacher were to not like me, he/she could single out me and only me and give me lunch detentions. This may only be a simple example, but it scales all the way up to serious offenses and the higher level administrators as well.
"You seem like a nice kid, I'll let you off this time"
It becomes even worse when bias and prejudice are involved.
This is the way police states operate - ridiculously strict laws that are only laxly enforced. In such a system, the enforcers (not lawmakers) have inordinate power to punish or reward people as they see fit.
Possibly, if any kind of administrator dares call it an explosion. I'm not in favor of zero-tolerance policies either, just acknowledging how common they've become. Packing a metal butter knife in a lunch box can lead to expulsion these days (it's happened several times, and made the news each time).
What about farting in the playground? That's a small gaseous explosion, expulsion?
Lets have preschoolers who throw Lego thrown in jail while we're about it.
Honestly, this "zero tolerance" just ruins lives. You've just taken an A grade student who could be contributing to society and possibly put them into a life of poverty and disadvantage. That's great for society.
> each one of us is committing some crime every minute
This statement is actually not absurd. Well, actually, it is an absurdity, but it's also an accurate description of reality.
I was reading a comment by someone (I believe a law professor and criminal defense lawyer) who rode along with a highway patrolman in the US. They played a game, where the officer would follow a car, and the officer would win if he could name a legitimate traffic offense committed by the car, for which he could pull the driver over if he was so inclined.
The officer won every time, usually within well under a mile.
There are so many laws, and they are so complex, that just about anyone is probably guilty of something if you just look hard enough. Only the thin paper shield of the Constitution (in particular 4th and 5th amendments) is about the only thing that stands between just about anybody in the US and prison.
Soda cans and farts are not the same thing as ammonia and bleach and drain cleaner being mixed together in a container. Those are serious acids and bases. And these analogies are crap.
Anything in the preceding comments which seems ridiculous has been introduced by the concept of "zero tolerance", which precludes common sense.
Zero means zero. If the rules are enforced as written - arguably as intended - this is what you get. The preceding comments just take the concept to its logical conclusion.
Ooooohohohohoho you would SO get expelled for that, since it's a much more violent reaction than what happened here. K-12 schools are largely totally unreasonable organizations run by completely unreasonable individuals who wouldn't make it in the real world.
Let's assume just for the sake of argument that every actor from their own perspective is reasonable.
The problem is that a small group of parents are at the top of the "food chain." These parents are self-selected and therefore have a more overbearing personality (i.e. helicopter parents) than average.
So these parents sit in PTA meetings or similar and pass more and more rules based on the latest moral panic (e.g. guns, knives, hairstyles, video games, healthy food, etc). They aren't trying to strike a "balance" to find what is reasonable they're trying to keep the kids safe even at the cost of everything and everyone else.
Now you might say "but isn't the principal in charge?!" well, no, not really. I mean the principal is in charge of certain things but if they fail to keep the PTA happy they will be replaced by someone who will. Child safety (as the PTA will spin it) is one of those areas where principals have very little freedom.
With this specific incident in mind, even if the principal AND the teachers thought it was crazy to both exclude and arrest her, they might have effectively zero say in the matter.
Exactly. A lot of people have no idea how it really works -- the "noisy" members of the community have a lot of control over how things are run since they can have someone fired/impeached for not kowtowing to every crazy knee-jerk demand.
Typically expulsion requires a review and vote by the county school board (at least that's how it works where I grew up). My dad was on the school board and had to review a few ridiculous cases like a kid who brought a pocket knife, or another who brought a flask of alcohol to prom.
Stupid, draconian laws enforced by ridiculous school administrators. Zero-tolerance laws are illogical because they make an attempt to pass-off guilt, logic, and responsibility by simply saying "perform any act bordering on this description and we have no choice but to come down on you with this one-size-fits all penalty."
They are willing to screw up a kid's life because they are unwilling to use logic. Bringing a gun into a classroom != having a pocket knife in the center console of your car, but they are treated as if they are the same act.
They had best get rid of the microwaves in the teachers' lounge. Cooking your soup on high too long can result in an explosion of steam sending flying fragments of meat and potatoes all over!
