Ah, the joys of zero-tolerance in the schools, as illustrated by the latest in the Reno Gazette-Journal:

A third-grader who was shot Thursday with a pellet gun at Grace Warner Elementary School underscores the danger of the nonlethal guns among teens and adolescents, officials said.

Two students were taken into custody after the incident between 8:30 and 9 a.m. before classes at the northwest Reno campus, Washoe County School District spokesman Steve Mulvenon said.

A boy brought the Airsoft pistol to school and he and a female classmate were playing with it on the school grounds, Mulvenon said. The girl accidentally pulled the trigger, and the round pellet struck a third-grader, Mulvenon said.

“Fortunately, she was not injured,” Mulvenon said. “It raised a welt, as those things do.”

The girl’s mother came to school, looked at the injury, decided the girl was fine and the student was returned to the classroom, Mulvenon said.

School police took the two arrested to the Jan Evans Juvenile Justice Center. Mulvenon did not know what charges they might be facing.

That’s right - a child brings a pellet gun, accidentally shoots another child, leaves a welt that doesn’t even concern the parent, and the two children involved get arrested.  Why?  Well, it’s a pellet gun, after all, so it’s vitally important that we suspend all reason and thought, ignore the true severity of the issue, and call the police, who, in turn, shall similarly suspend all reason and thought and lock the children up.  Why?  Oh, that’s easy - two words:

Zero tolerance.

I remember when a “zero tolerance” platform was put into my high school - this was around 1996, I believe, which seems to coincide with when most other school districts jumped on this bandwagon.  The idea, as most everyone is aware by now, was that, since drugs, violence, and weapons were serious problems in some schools, it was vitally important that all schools escalate these issues to law enforcement so that they could be nipped in the bud.  Since the “zero tolerance” policies were written by educators and politicians, two groups that are well-versed in the needs of children in a school environment and how to meet them through legislation, the resulting policies were both fair and flexible, providing school administrators with the support they needed to reclaim their schools.

Who am I kidding?

Like any “zero tolerance” policy in any other school district, the end result was neither fair nor flexible - more than anything, it gave administrators and teachers the legal cover they needed to abdicate all responsibility and thought from their jobs.  Suddenly, instead of taking into account things like context and circumstance, it was far more important to make sure that teenage girls were locked up for bringing ibuprofen to school (it’s a drug!), teenage boys were locked up for getting in fights (violence!), and so on.  Then, someone got the bright idea that these policies should apply across the entire school district - after all, everybody knows that rules designed to scare the living shit out of high school kids are completely and totally appropriate in an elementary school setting.  In short, in the name of security, we’ve effectively banished our children to prison from the ages of 5 to 18… but, at least we’ll feel safe, knowing that, so long as these policies are in place, we’ll never have to worry about pellet guns or OTC painkillers getting near our precious little snowflakes.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS