Zero-Tolerance of Violence in Schools

DeletedUser

In the Cumberland County School District (a county in Tennessee, United States) there is zero-tolerance towards violence in schools. This also seems to be in many other schools.

What this means is that if any kid lands a blow on another they will be punished with suspension. Now, I believe it is fair for the aggressor. However, with zero-tolerance the defender also gets in trouble even if its self-defense. What is your opinion on that?

I'm for being allowed to defend yourself.
 

DeletedUser

I agree with you. Zero tolerance in anything ignores mitigating circumstances and fails to take the entire situation into account. It's never a good idea. Alright, there are some exceptions, like handgun possession in schools, but mostly "zero tolerance" is a bad thing. Aren't we supposed to be teaching kids tolerance?
 

DeletedUser

Exactly. Just the other day I was at band practice (I play saxophone, first chair in the band) and the band instructor was letting us have the day off so that he could organize information on the instruments. I was sitting in a chair and a 6th grader (I'm in 7th grade) kept hitting me and slapping me with objects. Finally I decided to scoot my chair up to one of my friends, and he pulled the chair straight out from under me. I fell on the ground and gave him a jabbing hit to the shoulder. The teacher called us over.

Thankfully, my teacher knew that I'm almost always well behaved and agreed with me, and both of us (due to the lack of evidence: the coward blamed it on another kid he was bullying) got off. That made me think, though, of our zero-tolerance rules: teachers sometimes let us break the rules, but if, say, the principal was in there I would have gotten my first suspension probably.
 

DeletedUser

In the Cumberland County School District (a county in Tennessee, United States) there is zero-tolerance towards violence in schools. This also seems to be in many other schools.

What this means is that if any kid lands a blow on another they will be punished with suspension. Now, I believe it is fair for the aggressor. However, with zero-tolerance the defender also gets in trouble even if its self-defense. What is your opinion on that?

I'm for being allowed to defend yourself.

Man, this topic is like so last week..... :D
 

DeletedUser

When I used to fight back in Public Schools we were allowed to defend ourselves. Like if a guy was on top of you, you were supposed to push him off; or hit him once to get him off and go to a teacher. Now that's garbage. I can't see a person getting their butt kicked, punching a guy once, and running.

Now that I'm in Private Schools, your not allowed to hit the aggressor back at all. It might just be the difference in schools, and not the fact that there Public/Private. Or it could be that Private schools just have a zero tolerance rule, I'm not sure.

But "defending" yourself, usually beating the other kid up. Most people if they were to be hit, would hit the kid back and hit him repeatedly until the fight is stopped by a teacher; not just hit him and running away.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

DeletedUser

In public schools in my town, you get arrested for defending yourself, suspended for saying even "God Damnit" if they are hurting you. Victims are punished.
 

DeletedUser

Please keep swapping stories about how you are getting bullied in school because you are scrawny nerds. This is good stuff.
 

nashy19

Nashy (as himself)
It would only zero tollerance when caught and inforced. I doubt they'll inforce it blindly, they will probably still judge each situation like usual but with harsher punishments.

In my school we go outside of school to avoid the complications (well sometimes), there's been a few fights inbetween the one of the gates that we had to keep pushing back outside. Other times we'll just run the school, or not fight at all but mob up go for a long walk around the school anyway, forcing the teachers to tag along.

I think my school claims zero tollerance too, but by that they mean they take it seriously.

Missery..err.. Missouri.
And by Missouri you mean North Korea?
 

DeletedUser

You guys should just consider yourself lucky that they don't have rules like they did where my son went to school. A high percent of their students were gang members (or potential gang members), those who were likely to drop out of school, and those who just couldn't be controlled in a regular classroom.

If you threatened someone else, flicked someone in the head, or even made an 'aggressive' gesture toward someone, you were put in a locked room for a set amount of time. If you actually threw a punch, the police were called and you were arrested for assault. You weren't allowed to wear "colors", t-shirts or hats with writing on them or any clothes that were associated with a specific group/gang.

If there was an actual fight, both people were locked up until the police came. Once they determined what had happened, one (or both) students was arrested, and the other (if not arrested) spent a couple of hours in cool down (the locked rooms). The same punishment happened for sexist behavior; comments could get you put in cool down, and actual touching could get you arrested.
 

DeletedUser

I witnessed that first hand in a school I attended ages ago (when dinosaurs roamed the Earth). At the time I thought it was appropriate, considering the severity of violence in that region, but nowadays I think that approach merely exacerbated the problem, caused problematic kids to think "prison" wasn't that big a deal, and reinforced the "i am bad" syndrome.
 

DeletedUser

It would only zero tollerance when caught and inforced. I doubt they'll inforce it blindly, they will probably still judge each situation like usual but with harsher punishments.

Er...isn't zero tolerance, by definition, taking away the ability to judge each situation "like usual"?
 

DeletedUser

I witnessed that first hand in a school I attended ages ago (when dinosaurs roamed the Earth). At the time I thought it was appropriate, considering the severity of violence in that region, but nowadays I think that approach merely exacerbated the problem, caused problematic kids to think "prison" wasn't that big a deal, and reinforced the "i am bad" syndrome.

Actually, a lot of the kids were there because they wanted to keep them out of juvenile detention centers. It was a school for kids who weren't able to make it in a normal school. In Minnesota, the law says you have to stay in school until you're 18 or have a diploma, and this school was their last chance.

The biggest problem was that not all kids were there for being delinquents or potential dropouts. They had grades k-12 in the same building (although the younger ones had classes in different wings than the older ones), and they did it so that all kids could feel safe while they were there.

In spite of the strictness, they still had to call the police at least 4-5 times a week, and a couple of the students left to go to jail for more serious things. I know of at least 2 that were convicted of murder within a year of graduating, and a couple were murdered before graduating (but not at school.)

My son was there for a different reason, he's autistic and couldn't handle the regular sized classes. He was pretty nervous for most of his first year there, but once he realized that they didn't allow victimizing other kids, he did extremely well there. He managed to graduate with close to a 4.0 average.
 
Top