Posted: 2/14/2010 12:45:56 PM EDT
|
I encourage you all to contact your state Senator and ask them to support this bill. SB-299 makes a whole lot of sense, something that these fools rarely do.
Zero tolerance in schools to be challenged under new Senate bill By Ernie Suggs The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 6:26 p.m. Saturday, February 13, 2010 Here is the case of Eli Mohone: On the afternoon of Oct. 23, the mother of the 14-year-old Morgan County Middle School student was called and told that she could either bring her son down to the Sheriff’s Office and surrender, or they would come get him. Amanda Hensler delivered her son, who was quickly handcuffed, placed in the back of a patrol car and driven 90 minutes to the Sandersville Regional Youth Detention Center. He spent that Friday night at the detention center and stood before a judge the following Monday on a weapons charge. Eli, who would go on to spend time at an alternative school, is now on a form of probation and, according to his mother, suffers from symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome. His crime? In her haste to get Eli to school on time, Hensler threw his books into a bag on his dresser. The bag was the same one he used a few days earlier to go fishing, and it had a 2 1/2-inch fishing knife in it. When Eli discovered the knife, about 30 minutes after school had started, he turned it in to the principal. “How am I supposed to teach my son to do the right thing when you are punishing him for it?” Hensler said. For many critics, Eli was the victim of rigid “zero-tolerance” policies in schools they say don’t work because they criminalize kids for minor, sometimes insignificant offenses. Over the years, Georgia students have been suspended under the policy for, among other things, kissing a girl on the forehead, wearing a studded belt, bringing a French teacher a gift-wrapped bottle of wine and carrying a Tweety Bird wallet with a chain on it. “I don’t call it ‘zero tolerance,' I call it ‘zero intelligence,' ” Clayton County Juvenile Judge Steve Teske said. When Eli got in trouble, his mother called Sen. Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur), who immediately drafted SB 299, which would ease the policy, including requiring judges to hold a hearing before a student is taken into custody. “I came back wondering how could this happen to a kid who tried to do the right thing. I came back determined to put together legislation that would stop the school pipeline to prison,” Jones said. “This bill is my signature piece of legislation. There is nothing more important to me and my service to the state than to get this bill passed.” Jones’ bill would specifically: * Prevent any kind of standing court order that mandates that a student be arrested or jailed immediately without a hearing. * Ban the charging of a student as a designated felon. The action would be classified as a delinquent act unless the weapon was used in an assault or if it was a gun. * Give judges more discretion into how they handle cases. "The schools turn these kids over to the judiciary and let the courts figure it out," Jones said. "The message must be sent: Don’t be sending our kids through the judicial system for minor offenses.” Jones’ bill is now in the Senate’s Education and Youth Committee and is finding bipartisan support. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said he believes the bill is a “common-sense piece of legislation” and vowed to support it. The concepts of zero tolerance sprang out of the 1980s, when officials were focusing on federal anti-drug and anti-weapons policies. In 1994, administrators whose schools received federal money faced a mandate to automatically expel any student who brought a firearm to campus. But over the years, the definitions of weapons expanded, as did the types of behavior that could fall under the zero-tolerance umbrella. “Zero-tolerance policies are effective in combating crime, depending on the nature of the crime,” Teske said. “But for some reason, somebody got the bright idea to apply zero-tolerance policies to the school systems.” Teske, who lectures across the country about the problems with zero tolerance, said the policies have led to increases in suspensions and expulsions because school officials are not allowed to use common sense in handling minor infractions. Eli, who had never been in trouble before, spent the remainder of the first semester in alternative school. By the time he returned to his regular school this semester, he could no longer be the water boy on the basketball team, had lost his position in the band, and could not try out for the wrestling team. He had to sign a contract stating that any infraction could land him back in alternative school or the detention center. “For them, it is a big deal, and I understand it,” said Teske, who is chairman of the legislative committee of the Council of Juvenile Court Judges. “But in my world –– when I am dealing with gangbangers and kids who are breaking into homes –– you're gonna ask me to worry about your school fight when I need to use my time to deal with kids who are actually scary? We need to deal with the kids we are scared of, not the kids we are mad at.” Find this article at: http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/zero-tolerance-in-schools-301284.html |