3rd-Grader Busted For Jolly Rancher Possession 804
theodp writes "A third-grader in a small Texas school district received a week's detention for merely possessing a Jolly Rancher. Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch Monday when a teacher confiscated the candy. Her parents said she was in tears when she arrived home later that afternoon and handed them the detention notice. But school officials are defending the sentence, saying the school was abiding by a state guideline that banned 'minimal nutrition' foods. 'Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,' said school superintendent Jack Ellis."
More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
From our so-called educators.
Kids today. (Score:5, Insightful)
Learning to get away with stuff is vital to the developmental process. I see a sad future where the adults of tomorrow are too stupid to run a decent ponzi scheme, and all the good ones are owned by foreigners.
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
When did the Jolly Ranchers become illegal and subject to be excluded from school?
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously though, a week detention for candy? How about starting with a polite note home to the parents explaining the policy? All a detention will do is set up an adversarial relationship where the parents will fight the school on everything they try to do from now on.
This is Not all Bad News (Score:5, Insightful)
This third grader, her parents and those who read the story are learning a valuable lesson about the nature of the state.
This just in: Hypoglycemic child dies... (Score:5, Insightful)
while walking home from school after teacher implements zero tolerance policy and confiscates condition-regulating candy.
I suppose it would take something terrible like the hypothetical situation above to put tolerance back into the system.
Re:What were the parents thinking ? (Score:1, Insightful)
having actually RTFA (crazy i know), her parents didn't give her the candy, another student did, and the law is quite clear that no restrictions are placed on food given to a child by their parent. odd that no mention is given as to what, if any, punishment was given to the student who gave her the candy, and either way a weeks worth of detention for a 3rd grader is a massive overreaction for pretty much anything short of violence.
Diabetics (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:This is Not all Bad News (Score:3, Insightful)
Not My Child You Don't... (Score:5, Insightful)
If this EVER happend to my kid, I would be down at this principal's office, telling him to shove thier policy up their ass sideways and my son would absolutely not be serving any detention over a friggin' piece of candy.
They want to press? I'll be pressing buttons on the phone for my lawyer and the local newsmedia myself. Legal nightmare, PR nightmare, financial nightmare... they'll have all of that for sure.
If your going to do the crime youve gotta be... (Score:2, Insightful)
If your going to do the crime youve gotta be willing to do the time. Book her Danno.
It's nice to know that they still find new ways to make children afraid and paranoid of authority figures.
I think they should enact a 10-20-life policy for kids who get caught with multiple jolly ranchers with intention to distribute or consume.
If they get caught with paraphernalia (candy wrappers) they should be fined, given 5 days detention, and put on probation.
Isn't it also a law where if you get caught dealing on school property the sentence is doubled?
Liars (Score:5, Insightful)
saying the school was abiding by a state guideline that banned 'minimal nutrition' foods. 'Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,' said school superintendent Jack Ellis."
Except that the state guideline is intended to restrict what the school provides to students, not what students bring into the school themselves. It's about making sure that the school is meeting nutritional requirements in the lunches it provides and not that it's taking state and federal funding dollars to provide the students with pizza bought from the Domino's franchise owned by the principal's brother. It's actually explicit even in the linked article without having to read the linked statute, and the administrators dance around it as "well the parent didn't provide it - it came from another student". Still didn't come from the school - still not covered by the law.
The school administrators making this claim are either idiots or liars. They could, I suppose, be idiots - plenty of idiots get moved into administration positions where they can do less harm to students than in front of a chalkboard. But it's more likely that they're liars who think that if they "blame the government" they can divert attention away from themselves. They don't want candy in school? That's fine - when I was a kid the administrators at my elementary school had the same rule. But they didn't try to pretend like they were conforming to some fictional government requirement to restrict candy in the school. They just said "no candy in school" and that was that. And if the parents had a problem with it they could bring it up at the school board meeting and get the school board to change the policy.
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:2, Insightful)
This policy was obviously supposed to help direct the school lunch providers, as the school board has no right to dictate to parents what they can and cannot send with their child for lunch.
What would be the problem with... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is Not all Bad News (Score:5, Insightful)
This article, and many more like it, prove the existence of a growing "Nanny State.". I often read people dismissing "Slippery Slope" arguments but here is a real life example.
Someone passed a guideline to try and help children eat healthier and suddenly children are being punished for possessing a piece of candy.
It doesn't take a genius to see how this is going to play out in other realms such as healthcare and finance. After all, the bureaucratic morons running the schools are essentially the same bureaucratic morons that you'll find doing the administrative work in local, state, and federal governments.
No, not all of the administrators in a school or the government are morons. Many of them are intelligent and capable people. The problem is that they're outnumbered by the morons.
Re:Liars (Score:1, Insightful)
And these are the people we're depending on to teach our children "critical thinking?" Zero tolorance, when applied in this way, is just laziness. As Jer said, it's easy to claim that it's a state regulation, but it's also easy to treach all infractions the same and thus avoid having to justify your actiosn to a parent.
so how's this different from... (Score:3, Insightful)
The Health Police vs Personal Accountability (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is Not all Bad News (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Kids today. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure you're not describing my kids school...
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:2, Insightful)
Redundantly, the law doesn't say that at all. The law is a restriction on what the school itself may provide for students as food, in order to force them to provide healthy meals for their students. There are no restrictions placed on what parents may provide for students for their own meals, on nutritional grounds. The school is just being ridiculous.
Whoosh LOL XD (Score:4, Insightful)
+4, +3 Insightful? Wow Mods, whoosh. This is funny. Your lack of noticing the tongue-in-cheek comment is even funnier.
Sometimes it's funnier to mod a funny post "insightful". It's a way of drawing even more attention to the comment in an even more serious light - which makes undercutting this with humor even more effective...
Granted, it's sort of an abuse of the moderation system, but, god damn it, just because someone reacts differently to a joke than you did does not mean they didn't get it! I'm sick of "whoosh", people overuse it and misuse it all the time.
Re:State Guidelines? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What were the parents thinking ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I also thought this part of the article was interesting:
Ellis said school officials had decided a stricter punishment was necessary after lesser penalties failed to serve as a deterrent.
How extreme do the punishments have to be before the powers that be realize that the rule sucks? Maybe deterring is pointless? I understand that Fast Food Nation and Supersize Me are bringing things to public awareness, and in general it's a good thing if the schools increase the nutritional quality of what they provide to the kids, but to try to take away a kid's right to choose whether she's going to eat a tiny piece of long-lasting candy is borderline insane. Rule makers, educators and legistlators: Please stop making new rules just to try to make things "better", when there are much better ways for you to spend your time.
Also, one other question: Do parents get to provide any feedback on this rule?
And then they're surprised... (Score:4, Insightful)
... when every couple of years one of the not-so-well-adjusted kids gets himself a gun and makes them pay. As far as I'm concerned, actually I'm surprised that it's only one of them every couple of years.
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:2, Insightful)
The law says nothing about food brought from home. It only requires school-provided food meet minimum guidelines. There is nothing in there about giving detention to a student for having junk food.
This is just an over-zealous administrator trying to make a statement about regulation, and using a child as a pawn. Pretty low.
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to attend FREE school, you absolutely must abide by the state/district policies. Don't like it? You have a choice: Private school. Actually, there's another choice: Home school.
Yes, this policy is being abused, no it should not go this far, probably there's some subtext here not being reported (like continuous pastern of this issue, and singling out a particular student as an example). Possibly, this could even be an attempt explicitly to GET notice, so the law gets CHANGED! Very often, the best way to see a law overturned is to actually enforce the letter of the law, even if you don't agree with it, as doing so would actually create enough news and yelling that the law can be changed.
My wife's school has a pretty touch nutrition program. Nothing sold in the cafe is "questionable" on a nutrition standpoint. kids can't buy snacks unless they've already both bought and EATEN their meal (they have to get a pass from the cafeteria aide before they can enter a snack line). Snacks are limited to relatively healthy items, but things like chips are available, but again, only if the meal was actually eaten... Candy is not sold by the cafe, but it is available from teachers as a positive reward system. Parents are cautioned not to send certain snacks (especially candy) to the school, but kids can not be directly punished for it (a not is sent home the first few times, and contraband is confiscated if its a continuing problem).
What IS important to note: The PARENTS can actually get in some hot water if they're failing to either send a nutritious lunch, pay for a meal plan, or get on an "assisted" lunch program (for those having trouble affording it). They handle this by checking what kids are eating, and if the school feels the lunch is "dramatically poor" in nutritional quality, the kid is made to buy a meal at the cafe, and the parents get a bi-monthly bill for those meals. i.e. send you kid to lunch with some low-grade snack-as-a-meal, or fail to send one at all, and the parent is not only out the cost of what they sent (which likely will be thrown out by faceteria staff) but they get a bill for the meal the kid did eat. Failure to pay that bill (or get on an assistance or free lunch program for those that qualify) leads to added fees, late charges, and eventually collections (in the form of you kid can not return to the school until you pay, or fill out forms to get on a program).
Every kid that goes to public school in 8th grade and lower here is essentially guaranteed a good meal, regardless of who's paying for it. You would be flabbergasted at how many parents send their kids to school with little or no food and no money, and who would otherwise have NO ISSUES financially getting them a good meal. Many are simply lazy, others seem to not give a shit. The state has a responsibility to get involved. I'd much rather it be this way, including continual documentation of the neglect to provide a good meal, eventually leading to a DSS visit at home to find out why, and in the meantime the kid doesn't suffer...
banning candy (and sodas and other such pure sugar content items), is essentially done exclusively such that those can be used as positive rewards in other ways. Ensuring lunch actually includes basic nutrition (whether it be vegan, vegetarian, or other, many standard easily apply to what is and is not a fulling and nutritious lunch), that is important.
Fuck you and your WOT.
If it's my kid, Then I set the rules. Period the end.
I think in this situation the parent should decide the punishment if any. And I sure expect the parent to be able to over turn the detention, if they thought it appropriate.
Re:This just in: Hypoglycemic child dies... (Score:3, Insightful)
fucked up as it is, i'd kinda like to hear about a kid walking home from that school get abducted just so we could see the school try to explain why there was no proper supervision on their property...
Parents like you are a problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
Parents like you are why highly experienced well trained teachers leave the profession and public schools struggle to find decent replacements.
Parents threatening financial and personal ruin on teachers do not encourage 21 year olds to take up this profession, and drive existing teachers out of schools fearing for their own safety. Let's face it, you don't go into teaching to make millions and retire early. You do it because you believe its a great thing to do, you do it for the love of it. Parents threatening violence and abuse will turn such people away from this career and then what are you, the parent, left with?
Now a parent who comes in to have a sensible debate with the principal, and argue that the punishment being set out is too high in a measured voice, open to listening to the principal's point of view [mysanantonio.com] and constructively discussing how the school could improve its policies, well those are the kind of parents teachers love to meet. These are the parents schools are desperate to encourage on to their boards of governors. Doesn't sound like you're one of them though.
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
"Students do not shed their constitutional rights when they enter the school house doors." -Tinker v. Desmoines
Re:This is Not all Bad News (Score:1, Insightful)
Big Brother comes from the left.
Big Brother always comes from the "left", except for all those areas where it comes from the "right".
Both sides want to control what you think, what you do.
To think anything else is to lie to yourself.
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to attend FREE school, you absolutely must abide by the state/district policies. Don't like it? You have a choice: Private school. Actually, there's another choice: Home school.
Since when is it free? They've raised our property taxes a few times now to generate more funding for the public schools in the area. They're hardly free. If I want to send my kid to private school, they don't let me opt out of paying for the public schools.
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always preferred to call it the "Zero Intelligence" policy. As all too often demonstrated by school administrators.
Re:The Health Police vs Personal Accountability (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for eating healthier, but THIS COUNTRY IS GETTING NUTTIER AND NUTTIER. I never smoked, but banning it and making it illegal were harbingers of things to come. Then the Safety Police got involved with seatbelts... Then trans fats and high fructose corn syrup... As they are all hard to defend against, everyone has let this country start down the slippery slope because 'Well, it won't affect me much and its a good thing...". Everyone should WAKE-UP. Tell the Health Police to pound sand and demand more personal accountability responsibility, not hand over more decisions to the government! Detention in school as she had a piece of candy that didn't meet 'minimal nutrition guidelines'!!!? ARE YOU KIDDING, AMERICA?
Personal accountability is necessary, but it's not the end-all, be-all, panacea. Smoking, unlike other vices, affects more than simply the user. It's exceedingly difficult to avoid breathing in second-hand smoke when in the vicinity of a smoker, and because the user is someone else, you are not at liberty to regulate the amount the other uses/produces. Should we hold children personally accountable for their inability to avoid their parents' second hand smoke?
Trans fats and HFCS are food additives, not foods in and of themselves. They weren't even on the proverbial radar but for a few years ago. How can I hold myself personally accountable if the pervasiveness of HFCS is such that it is in every food I purchase? How can I hold myself personally accountable for trans fats if they aren't included on the nutritional label (where applicable)?
I agree that this article is an extremely bad example, but the government plays a very useful role and, as other posters have noted, this event has absolutely nothing to do with the state or local government, and instead has everything to do with a knee-jerk administrator reaction and misappropriation of rules.
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:2, Insightful)
What I wanna know is how the hell a child is supposed to know it's against the rules to eat a jolly rancher?
It's not exactly the same as having a bag of coke, or a can of beer... that would be obvious because of age and illegality inside and outside of school.
Besides, I thought the nutritional rules were about what THEY provide to the student... not selling pepsi == good. rules prohibiting pepsi != good. (pepsi used as an example)
Things have changed so much since I've been in school, wow...
Re:This is Not all Bad News (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree about the slippery slope, and what others have posted about "zero tolerance" bullshit. However the part that is really monumentally moronic here is that those nutritional food guidelines are supposed to cover school-provided foods, NOT what lunches parents send their kids to school with, Public schools have absolutely no right to monitor such things providing the kids aren't consuming banned narcotics, etc.
The "zero tolerance" anti-drug rules are also idiotic. There is absofuckinglutely NOTHING wrong with parents giving their children tylenol, aspirin, or even insulin or cortisol where it's medically necessary. To suspend or expel children for "drugs" which anyone can legally purchase and consume is stupid. Yes, if someone takes too much of even a legal drug, one can die. However common sense needs to play a part here, and children on heart or hormone (insulin, cortisol, etc.) medications generally know how much they're supposed to take, when they're supposed to take it, and no void of a school official has any business second-guessing the child's medical needs.
The nanny state mentality needs to die already (there should be zero tolerance for that bullshit) and government at ALL levels needs to fucking butt out. My parents' generation didn't have a problem with shootings in schools, and yet kids brought guns to school for shooting competitions, etc. My generation didn't have that but we did have archery on occasion and not one child got hurt, plus we were able to buy french fries, coca-cola and even candy at school, and yet very few students were obese. The ones that were obese, either had health issues and were fat due to hormone ("glandular") issues or heart issues, and most of them were obese even in kindergarten. Oh, there were a few outright fat students who were fatties due to grazing all day, but they tended to bring eleventy-teen sandwiches for lunch.
Bullying? When it comes to zero tolerance for bullying, the bullies are protected. It is invariably the targets of the bullies who are singled out and punished. "zero tolerance" is stupid because it teaches kids to be wimps and take the bullshit that gets shoveled their way. Now, it leads to suicides (witness the currently-ongoing bullying case here in the reigning nanny state of Taxachusetts). My parents' generation and my generation duked it out. Someone hits you? Sure, try ignoring them, but after a few instances of that proving turning the other cheek doesn't work, turn around and beat the living crap out of your bully. That bullshit ends quick. The bully goes home with a broken nose or cheekbone and a suspension, and the bullying ends. The criminal reaped what he sowed, and the victim proved that violence DOES on occasion solve problems (you can't negotiate with a terrorist/assailant/etc). Justice reigned, and kids for the most part weren't wimps.
I don't know why my generation is bent on creating a nation of cowardly weaklings. I apologise to everyone on behalf of my peers for the moronic policies being erected by thirty-somethings, and for the ongoing erosion of personal responsibility. I use the power of my vote to choose personal responsibility and not for those who want to institute a nanny state, and I urge you all to do the same. The election of Scott Brown here in Taxachusetts was a great first step but it doesn't go far enough.
We do not need nor do we want government (including schools) to institute zero tolerance rules, to prevent victims of bullying from fighting back, to tell parents what they can and cannot feed children, to tell parents whether or not the children can have facebook accounts, to use webcams to monitor students (in fact schools should NOT be providing laptops to children!). What we DO want schools to do is to put the smack down on the bullies rather than treat them as victims, to provide healthy and fun to eat options for food, and to teach academics in school, not "social" bullshit. We want you to teach math, hard sciences, IN ENGLISH (don't coddle illegals!), and American Hist
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:3, Insightful)
When did the Jolly Ranchers become illegal and subject to be excluded from school?
Ever since they had the potential to be a god damned mess in school. [mysanantonio.com]
It has nothing to do with nutrition, it has to do with the fact that a wet jolly rancher is a bitch to clean up. Same with gum.
This is what's seriously wrong with our society today, no one wants to deal with nuance or a deeper story.
Re:Whoosh LOL XD (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:3, Insightful)
Not "Nanny State", Police State (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem doesn't stem from giving kids nutritional guidelines. When I was growing up we learned about the food groups, etc, and nobody got disciplined for eating junk food.
The problem stems from an unchecked authoritarian mindset among school administrators. Since the 80s, the easy solution to social problems has been to criminalize bad behavior and institute harsh penalties across the board. Now when a child brings utensils for his lunch, he gets hit with weapons violations [nytimes.com]. A girl rumored to posses OTC medication is strip searched by the principal and could have faced expulsion for drug charges [cnn.com]. Some kid gets a cell phone picture from a partially undressed peer, and he's hit with child pornography [msn.com]. These are just a few examples. We routinely classify innocuous behavior as the most extreme and vile crimes. So now are public schools are microchasms of a police state, with TSA security screenings, strip searches, a huge police presence, and criminal sentences for routine disciplinary problems. Institutionally, we see our children as equally capable of evil as Al Queda.
What we're seeing is the inevitable result of that process, where effective discipline has simply given way entirely to arbitrary enforcement of state power. But the process didn't begin when they started talking about the four food groups. The process started when we decided we needed to "get tough on crime" and we culturally embraced zero-tolerance. The problem started when politicians started to convince people that law enforcement was the best answer for all our social ills.
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:3, Insightful)
It's called compulsory education for a reason you know.
Meanwhile, you do realize that this is just a piece of candy don't you? It's not like the child eats nothing else.
Surely you should realize that even if this was actually a case of bad parenting, punishing the child for it is not likely to be helpful?
Perhaps the school is concerned that Jolly Ranchers are a gateway? Why next thing you know, the kids will be taking ibuprofen for a headache and then who knows what debauchery might ensue?
Re:Liars (Score:3, Insightful)
And continuing on in the very article you posted:
The superintendent also noted the state's school nutrition policy bans certain foods of minimal nutritional value, including candy and gum.
Which is completely irrelevant to the discussion unless the superintendent intends to falsely make the "my hands are tied - the state is forcing me to do this" argument. It reads more like the superintendent changed his story when he decided to go "on record" because someone told him that blaming the state government was idiotic.
Re:What were the parents thinking ? (Score:3, Insightful)
What the mother fuck is wrong with our society?! We used to bring and trade around all sorts of candy and shit back in the day and everything was all good. Nowadays if you take a sneeze out of turn you might get expelled for it. Seriously, starting to really seriously consider homeschooling supplemented by private tutoring for my children when they are old enough for school (thankfully at 3 and 6 months respectively, it's not currently an issue, although the 3 year old is quickly approaching school age). Our society is getting all sorts of fucked up and it usually seems to center around moronic school officials and their power trips and FUD about how some kid with a Jolly Rancher will somehow turn out to be a murderous psychopath who wants to raze an entire school.
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:4, Insightful)
You're obviously not a parent. Or any sort of individual responsible for teaching a child. My child, my rules -- consistency is one of the key issues with parenting, and having those rules undermined and changed on a whim because of a school administrator only serves to subvert the authority of the parent -- a fragile entity at any point in a child's life.
The government is stepping way over the line with parenting - constantly. The GP's reply was succinct and to the point - they're my children, my problem. Until schools allow us to divert our tax dollars to a private school and until school officials are not public officials they do not have the right to dictate to me what my children do. Just in case you missed it -- they work for us. Me. They're not an untouchable entity to which I must bow and scrape.
One example: my wife buys food for my son to take to school. He doesn't like it, so he doesn't pack it. He goes to school and ends up skipping lunch. The food's there -- but in your world the government billing us for him to eat what the school provides is just dandy. We can't force him to take his lunch -- take away their food, you go to jail. Take away their freedom, you go to jail. Take away their game system, you go to jail. The government is making parents into individuals who have all the responsibilities but none of the power -- while conveniently ignoring their own continuing abuse of powers.
The "letter of the law" is not intended to be zero tolerance. These teachers and principals and other officials always claim they're following the letter of the law, but police officers let speeders off with a warning every day -- or ignore the jay walkers -- or the people in the financial industry routinely flipping the SEC the bird while they manipulate away billions of our dollars. Claiming the "letter of the law" is being followed is just an excuse to piss on the individual on question, and not even bother to call it rain.
With the way the world is going we're all going to burn in the next century; that fire may be religious, or indignant, or nuclear in nature -- I don't know.
"People should not fear their government, their government should fear the people."
"There is no justice. There is no balance. Violence isn't the last resort; it's the only resort."
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:1, Insightful)
"If you want free education, you must accept their terms"
FREE????
Are you fucking kidding me?? Referendum after referendum, begging for more money, higher and higher taxes for consistently lower averages and educational standards....is FREE??!?!
Seriously, I do not normally hate people irrationally or wish them harm, but for the Love of whatever you choose to worship, if anything, Fuck off and DIE!!!
*YOU* and everyone else who thinks *anything* provided from the government is FREE are the reason this country has gone to hell. Thanks a lot, you absolute fucking moron.
Re:RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm from Texas and this is just stupid.
Well... you said it, not me.
Re:Not My Child You Don't... (Score:1, Insightful)
If this EVER happend to my kid, I would be down at this principal's office, telling him to shove thier policy up their ass sideways and my son would absolutely not be serving any detention over a friggin' piece of candy.
They want to press? I'll be pressing buttons on the phone for my lawyer and the local newsmedia myself. Legal nightmare, PR nightmare, financial nightmare... they'll have all of that for sure.
So then YOU would be all for HIGHER taxes to clean up YOUR child's food messes?
I certainly don't want to pay for YOUR child's poor eating practices.
Maybe the PARENTS of misbehaving students should repay, with TIME & MONEY, all the behaving ones for their child's actions. So, the next time you look at lawyers, remember you too should be sued by all the other parents at the school for YOUR child's selfishness.
Don't emulate the school by going overboard too.
Re:Not her parents... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks man ... next time someone asks me why I oppose the criminalization of drugs, I'll just point them to that article. Sometimes reality provides it's own parody.
I think... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not My Child You Don't... (Score:3, Insightful)
Taking school authority seriously is one thing, but should we also teach kids that we should follow authority no matter how stupid the rules seem?
Well, yes.
When subject to some kind of authority (as we all are, at some time) you don't get to pick and choose the rules you want to follow. The police officer will be happy to pull you over for a speeding ticket even if you think 45mph is ridiculously slow for this piece of road - and charge you double, even if you think it's stupid to call a stretch of road a "work zone" where no work is happening.
So, yes, the kids should be taught that authority is real and that they must follow the stupid rules, too.
At the same time, of course, you can teach them that there is some recourse for dealing with stupid rules. Teaching them that they can work to have a stupid rule eliminated is quite different from telling them that a stupid rule doesn't apply to them because it's stupid.
The difference is a matter of how you approach the problem. If you head into the school building, guns blazing so to speak - verbally assault the highest immediately accessible authority for an hour, and so on - first, you're very unlikely to accomplish anything except to make an underpaid professional's day worse, and to teach the child that yelling at people who piss you off is a sensible way of dealing with them. If the teacher or principal relents under those circumstances, you get what you want but the lesson you've taught your child is even worse - they've learned that this behavior is rewarded.
Re:What were the parents thinking ? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Zero tolerance" is code for "I don't want to have to think critically," or "my staff is too unprofessional to avoid favoritism."
Thus, the only people who think zero tolerance is a good idea are inept managers, administrators and politicians.
Re:What were the parents thinking ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually no, most "child protection" laws are civil laws.
Of course. That's because the state considers your children their property. You are expected to care for them properly and not abuse them, send them to the indoctrination centers every day, and you will be paid a token stipend (in the form of a "deduction") at the end of the year.
Re:What were the parents thinking ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Whats wrong? Political Correctness and Liberalism is running rampant. Its only going to get worse with Obama and company in charge.
And yes, I posted as AC because I know Slashdot is full of liberals who automatically mark any comment that might be critical Obama and left as troll or flame bait.
Re:RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I'm some 30 years out of school, but no the US constitution applies to everyone in the United States.
Consider the 4th Amendment. The police can't just say "oh, he's a minor" or "oh, he's a foreign national" and disregard it. Well, on the second point, it's being more casually overlooked, but that's a completely different argument.
How about the 8th Amendment? Do the courts torture or kill minors who commit crimes? No, they fall under the same laws that we all do.
Or I guess more specifically, the 14th Amendment.
I don't see in there anywhere the text "emancipated adults", nor any reference to age at all.
But let me guess, you're a teacher. If you teach any sort of American History, Civics, or Politics classes, you gloss over these little details, and/or add in your own verbiage as you see fit.
I have kids, AND I've dated women with school age children. If the school has tried to overstep their bounds, I've reminded them of exactly such. It's been very rare, but there is the occasional bad apple. Usually it's only taken a polite phone call to the principal to get the error straightened out. As a parent and parental figure, it's my job to protect my children from people like you.
Re:RTFA (Score:1, Insightful)
It's not stupid....it's the New Order under the Obama Regime! YOU WILL NOT EAT ANYTHING WE DO NOT APPROVE OF!!
I'm posting this to a bunch of conservative blogs. Could it be /. has seen the light? Could it be the massive brainpower of /. readers FINALLY developed a sense of logic?
Re:What were the parents thinking ? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Zero tolerance is for things like, violence, gun possesion, possesion of drugs, harassment, cheating, etc, etc."
You are doing exactly what parent is criticizing, and for exactly the same reason. Violence (self defense), gun possession (BB Gun, toys), possession of drugs (OTC, prescription, etc), harassment (online? name calling?), cheating (plagiarism, failed footnote).
You really, really need to rethink.
Re:What were the parents thinking ? (Score:3, Insightful)
She is 10 years old, obviously she is not in charge of her own food.
Her parents and the school are the only ones who should be supplying her with food, so why is she the one getting detention?
It cannot be expected of her to have self control or to even understand health, take the food away and punish the source, anything else is just ridiculous.
Re:RTFA (Score:1, Insightful)
From the link in the article:
The Texas Public School Nutrition Policy (TPSNP) explicitly states that it does not restrict what foods or beverages parents may provide for their own children's consumption. The policy also explicitly states that school officials may adopt a local policy that is more restrictive than the state's.
I agree, a screwed up school administrator
A recipe for crime (Score:3, Insightful)
I am convinced that such policies--and knee-jerk "zero tolerance" policies in general--contribute to crime, because they teach impressionable children that rules and laws are arbitrary, unreasonable, and unfair, and that the people who create and enforce them are fools who are unworthy of respect.
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, can't do that, see the gun control debate...
Re:More "zero tolerance" idiocy (Score:3, Insightful)
Fuck you and your WOT.
If it's my kid, Then I set the rules. Period the end.
I think in this situation the parent should decide the punishment if any. And I sure expect the parent to be able to over turn the detention, if they thought it appropriate.
Funny how those who use "period" in their statements are those who put the least thought into their postings. Your kid? You set the rules? So you can feed your kid candy 3 meals a day every day, for example? No, that is legally child abuse. Ahhh, not so "period" anymore is it? Plus you are completely ignoring the fact that kids full of sugar from lunch are essentially unteachable for the next 1-2 hours. The school, by enforcing nutrition, is also performing its duty of teaching the kids the whole day instead of just the part of the day before lunch. Ahhh, even less "period" now, eh?
Stop with the absolutes.
Re:RTFA (Score:2, Insightful)
There are two separate and distinct questions.
The first, and the one I was quite clearly responding to is, "Does the constitution apply to minors." The answer is unequivocally yes.
The second question, the one nobody asked, and the one you seem to be hell bent on incongruously attaching my response to, is whether age, or more accurately attendance of a public school can diminish your rights. The answer is also obviously yes.
If the constitution didn't apply to students there would be one decision, not, as you say, mountains of case law feeling out the bounds of in loco parentis. That one decision would be to minors what Dred Scott was to blacks.
Re:RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
~Damn you and the GP! If we taught that objects (other than the stray meteor) don't do harm, it's the people who use them inappropriately, then we'd be teaching personal responsibility, rule of law, and how to get along without banning stupid shit for no reason! We can't have that!~
Really, weren't there already rules against vandalism? If that was enforced when the mess occured, and not prior to it, then kids might learn that they get in trouble for misusing objects. Other kids might look and say, "So, if I eat my candy and don't get it all over then it's ok, but if I use it to gum up the copy machine then I'll get in trouble" and learn how to get along in the world. All this girl learned is that rules are arbitrarily made up and enforced by those with power over her, so she may as well do whatever the hell she wants 'cause eventually someone is gonna kicker her in the teeth with a made up rule about something she'd least expect.
Re:RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
You've never dealt with small children before, have you? These are 3rd graders, they make messes, and teachers don't have the slightest idea who to punish for it.
If the problem is bad enough that they have to ban jolly ranchers, then they have to enforce the ban.
You cannot make policy around rare medical conditions. You can account for them in policy, but that's outside the scope of this discussion.
oh ya (Score:2, Insightful)
'Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,' said school superintendent Jack Ellis
Actually, you don't have to follow the rules.
What you could of done was just took the candy away and told the kids they can't eat that during school hours.
You could of ignored it.
You could of used the incident to maybe get the rules changed.
Instead, you choose to be a sheep and follow the letter of the rule, not it's intent.
Yes, I know, you run a school and you want your kids to understand rules are to be followed. but seriously, dumb rules won't be followed by kids. They just figure away around them.
So why don't you do something good for the kids, and learn to think for yourself, and share that with the kids.
Re:Not her parents... (Score:2, Insightful)
For most people, no, it's not the only reason. First... none of those markets can even begin to approach the ubiquity and profitability of the drug trade. We are talking billions of dollars flowing among hundreds of millions of drug producers, sellers, and consumers. Second - and more importantly - all of the examples you listed involve crimes with victims. Producing, selling, and using drugs are all inherently victimless crimes: no person is harmed or deprived of their rights as a consequence of these actions.
Criminal organizations make the vast majority of their profit from the drug trade, because the market for drugs is huge, but they engage in many other crimes as well, including the ones you mentioned. If we can deprive criminal organizations of the profit they make from drugs, they will inevitably be weakened - their ability to use money to influence and bribe corrupt government officials to their ends will be reduced. No doubt they will redouble their efforts to make profit from other markets, but the markets for the things you mentioned are nowhere near as ubiquitous as the demand for drugs is (and there is no reason to believe that criminal organizations aren't already trying to maximize the profit they make from these other ventures.)