We all remember when 6 year old Johnny Prevette made headlines by kissing a classmate and was suspended from school....Our schools have become prisons , students facing zero tolerance rules are punished with out any system of checks and balances. Children are handed military like suspensions without trial or aggrievements.
Today's Zero tolerance policies make it an everyday occurence
At one public school in Texas, a 12-year-old girl named Sarah Bustamantes was recently arrested for spraying
herself with perfume.
A 13-year-old student at a school in Albuquerque, New Mexico was recently arrested by police for burping in class.
Another student in Albuquerque was forced to strip down to his underwear while five adults watched because
he had $200 in his pocket. The student was never formally charged with doing anything wrong.
A security guard at one school in California broke the arm of a 16-year-old girl because she left some
crumbs on the floor after cleaning up some cake that she had spilled.
One teenage couple in Houston poured milk on each other during a squabble while they were breaking up.
Instead of being sent to see the principal, they were arrested and sent to court.
In early 2010, a 12-year-old girl at a school in Forest Hills, New York was arrested by police and marched
out of her school in handcuffs just because she doodled on her desk. “I love my friends Abby and Faith” was
what she reportedly scribbled on her desk.
A 6-year-old girl in Florida was handcuffed and sent to a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums
at her elementary school.
One student in Texas was reportedly arrested by police for throwing paper airplanes in class.
A 17-year-old honor student in North Carolina named Ashley Smithwick accidentally took her father’s lunch with her to school.
It contained a small paring knife which he would use to slice up apples. So what happened to this standout student
when the school discovered this? The school suspended her for the rest of the year and the police charged her with a misdemeanor.
In Allentown, Pennsylvania a 14-year-old girl was tasered in the groin area by a school security officer
even though she had put up her hands in the air to surrender.
# In Florida, an 11-year-old student was arrested, thrown in jail and charged with a third-degree felony
for bringing a plastic butter knife to school.
#Back in 2009, an 8-year-old boy in Massachusetts was sent home from school and was forced to undergo
a psychological evaluation because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross.
# A police officer in San Mateo, California blasted a 7-year-old special education student in the face with pepper spray
because he would not quit climbing on the furniture.
# In America today, even 5-year-old children are treated brutally by police. The following is from a recent article
that described what happened to one very young student in Stockton, California a while back….
“Earlier this year, a Stockton student was handcuffed with zip ties on his hands and feet, forced to go to the hospital
for a psychiatric evaluation and was charged with battery on a police officer. That student was 5 years old.”
# At one school in Connecticut, a 17-year-old boy was thrown to the floor and tasered five times because he was yelling
at a cafeteria worker.
# A teenager in suburban Dallas was forced to take on a part-time job after being ticketed for using foul language
in one high school classroom. The original ticket was for $340, but additional fees have raised the total bill to $637.
# A few months ago, police were called out when a little girl kissed a little boy during a physical education class
at an elementary school in Florida.
# A 6-year-old boy was recently charged with sexual battery for some “inappropriate touching” during a game of tag
at one elementary school in the San Francisco area.
# In Massachusetts, police were recently sent out to collect an overdue library book from a 5-year-old girl.
live links to these stories
12/6/97 John Wiley a Mannford Middle School student was suspended
for turning
in a bag of marijuana to school officials.
His mother, Lenora, said the boy's
trust in school officials has been shattered,
and she worries about how other
children will treat her son. "We'll finish this semester.
We still need
to talk, and we're still working with an attorney."
Update 12/18/97 The
school decided to let John back into school after "new
evidence" came
to light. Officials said some other middle schoolers involved in
the incident
had changed their stories.
Mannford Middle School Principal Molly Gregory
said the investigation into
the incident was continuing and that some of the other
students involved had
begun to paint a different picture of what happened that
morning.
John contends that he was offered marijuana by some other students
the
morning of Dec. 2. He said he accepted it so that he could turn it in, and
when
he did so, he was suspended for possession of an illegal substance.
His
appeal of the suspension to the Mannford School Board was denied.
Is it actually possible to be tossed these days for bringing fake drugs to school? It is if your last name is Grass, Adam Grass.
The seventh grader with the ironic name was recently suspended from seventh grade at Hickory Middle School in Chesapeake, Va.,
for bringing a plastic baggie full of oregano to school. Yeah, the Italian spice, not some cool new street slang for marijuana.
The school said the popular pizza topping falls under the heading of an “imitation controlled substance” and
is prohibited according to district rules. Grass wasn’t even the one who brought the mock Mary Jane to school,
but was caught passing it to another student, landing him a 10-day suspension and possible expulsion.
June 16 1997 Scott Louis Sussman was banned from graduation ceremonies at Gilman High School unless he changed his hair style... Scott wore his hair in cornrolls... School officials said that his hair style was extreme and prohibited by school dress code. Scott had worn this style for some time and it never came up until graduation rehearsal, which kind of makes you wonder what or who the problem really was... So Scott took down his hair, then it resembled dregs which are permitted as they are not extreme?
On August 17, 1996, a flyer was distributed throughout the Danville Community
High School(IN). Upon being seen by the school officials, it was immediately confiscated
and an immediate interrogation began of everyone who had one in their possession.
Altogether, there were about 200 copies floating around the school. Word got back
that one David M. Schroeder and one Patrick W. Gillespi were responsible for the
creation and distribution of this piece of "filth"-James Disney, Ass. Principal,
and we were summoned to the office. As soon as we walked in to the head fascist's
office, we were immediately told that no unsolicited material could be passed out
among the students, and that since this particular document had objectionable content,
it was inappropriate for school. We completely denied any involvement and told them
that it was about time that something was said about this apathetic school and society
and also asked how they figured that we had anything to do with it since we didn't
have a single copy of the flyer nor were we seen passing them out by anyone. Their
response was "Well, we heard from an unnamed student that you were in the Kroger's
parking lot passing them out to other students." What exactly did this have
to do with the school? To this day, I still have no idea. I doubt I ever will, aside
from the fact that our "alternative dress and lifestyle" were under constant
scrutiny by both the principal and ass. principal, David Marcotte and James Disney,
respectively. After being told that we, without any evidence, were responsible for
this, we asked what exactly was this objectionable and inappropriate material. Would
any of you like to take a guess at what this was?
Mr. James Disney picked up
a copy of the flyer that happened to be sitting on his desk and pointed out two things...
one caption that said "a subculture of dreams and sex" and another that
said "celebrate the rights of homosexuals."
What does that say for
Danville schools? You can figure that one out. I know. I have been a victim of their
tyranny and moral judgements for 4 years. So now, against their every wish and hope,
I will publish Newspeak.
To save my friends/co-conspirators from the wrath of
school (institutional) administration, I am making this an e-zine. It will be posted
bi-monthly starting in mid-July. Hopefully, this will aid in the waking up of this
country to the facism, oppression, lies, predjudices, and terrorism that make this
country/society the blatant contradiction that it is.
I am still an minor... until Dec. 8. I am not in high school anymore thanks
to the same facism and bias of the same school system. I was expelled for excessive
abscenses the first semester of last year (I missed too much of my first and second
period classes) and I was forced to withdraw within two weeks of returning the second
semster. Reason being.... they found a pack of cigarettes in my locker. Upon finding
them, they called my father in to the school and said that since I had been abscent
once already this semseter and I was tardy to class every so often, they were going
to expell me unless he withdrew me from school. So I had the ultimatum of my life
thus far... graduate two years later than the rest of my class or drop out and get
my GED. I choose the latter, and now I have a GED Honors Diploma, I take my ACT's
in the fall, and I start college in January.
I could rant and rave about the
countless things that happened at that school to me and my friends (suspensions because
of clothing, jewelry, speeches, protests...etc.), but that is what I made the homepage
for. A link on your page would be greatly appreciated, it's not very often you find
someone with an open mind trying to do something about such apathy.
David Schroeder
Whats the system doing to our youth?
