Here's one for ya! and people wonder why the citizens of the USA don't want the government in their lives! Is there any IW members in the great State of La. that can shed some more light on this story? You just got to love this, IF it is true as writen, or even close to true, I would suggest you consider moving to another State ;)

http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html

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Wednesday, December 8, 2004

GOVERNMENT SCHOOL IDIOCY

A government school in New Orleans has suspended an 8-year-old girl .... 8 years old .... for nine days. What did she do? She brought about 30 "Jell-O Shots" to school for her classmates. She says her mother made them and suggested that she take them to school to pass out to her friends. Now ... admittedly ... her mother does work in a bar, and her mother does make Jell-O Shots laced with alcohol to sell to bar patrons. There is no evidence that the Jell-O Shots she made for her daughter contained any alcohol. It doesn't matter though. The girl was suspended anyway ... because the Jell-O Shots are a "look-alike" drug. They're going to test the little goodies to see if there's any booze there. If there is booze, it's not the girl who should be punished .. it's her bar-maid mother. Jail time would be appropriate. The school says it doesn't matter. Booze or not, the suspension stands.

The issue here is the moronic zero-tolerance policy they're following at this school. Somewhere along the road of life I got this strange idea that schools should prepare your children for life in the wide wide world. Part of that preparation would be teaching our children basic reasoning skills. Most situations don't present themselves in stark blacks or whites. Most of the times you have shades of gray. How in the world do you teach our children how to deal with real world situations with artificial zero-tolerance policies? Can you imagine these zero-tolerance policies being applied to the real outside-of-government schools world? This girl is being suspended under a policy of zero-tolerance for "look alike" drugs. Let's apply that to bank robbers. If you just look like a bank robber you go to jail. It doesn't matter what you actually are. It doesn't matter what you actually did or are planning to do. It only matters what you look like. Look like a bank robber, look like a drug dealer, look like a gang-banger and you go to jail. In this type of world who would we have left to play professional basketball?

Perhaps the zero-tolerance policies are an indication of the trust in the judgment and decision-making capabilities of our school administrators. In that case, I could see your point.

Sometimes you just have to shake your head. But I don't know that you can entirely blame government for this policy. You can certainly go after the administrator(s) for being rigid and heavy-handed. That zero-tolerance policy seems remarkably similar to one instituted at one of our local private schools, so idiocy isn't limited to government.

I wonder how they're "testing" the Jello for alcohol... :D

Aerich, the local School board or what ever they call the govermental institution in La., sets the rules and can over ride the school administrator, that issued the edict from on high. So if it is true then it is a governmental problem. If I lived in that school district I would run for the School board in the next election, and bring this up constantly to show how stupid the policy and the people that alow this policy to manifest in this manner. I'd welcome any opposition, I'd point out that anybody to stupid to tell the differance between virgin jello shots and the real thing are to stupid to trust our children's education too! They are going to punish this girl even if the jello does not contain any alcohol!!!!!!

What sucks doubly is that the little girl probably thinks on some level now that her mom is a bad person, a drug dealer.

What's that going to do to an 8-yo's self esteem?

And how many kids, especially 2nd graders, see jello as a drug? I saw it as a delicious dessert until I was about 15 and heard about it being used with alcohol. Like the op-ed said, zero-tolerance is a pathetic black/white, true/false paradigm that never works out in even the simplest of scenarios - such as a parent making something for her kid's class.

Train of thought that is an even sadder reflection of the way we are going...If there is no alcohol can the mother or daughter sue the school? [img]tongue.gif[/img] :D


If a teenage girl gives her friend a headache tablet, because her friend has a headache, would that make her a 'drug dealer' and give cause for suspension under this idiocy?

This mess is an inevitable result of not allowing reason or common sense the oxygen it needs to breathe. Without disrupting the topic I would venture to suggest that the three strikes and you are out rule with the removal of a judges trained use of applying common sense to balance society's need for justice is a very similar situation.

I agree with everything you've said here... About the headache tablet, though. I came from a school that DID suspend someone for giving out cough drops. I hate policies like that. They discourage independent thought and arbitrary obedience of rules without using judgement and yes, common sense.

The possession of the drug in the first place would be cause for suspension in most cases, much less distributing it.

There's ongoing almost serious joke at my school that the ridiculous number of arbitrary rules are in place to teach us how to effectively circumvent them. Our leaders realize that we'll have to get around all sorts of stupid rules in the real world to get stuff done, and take it to absurd extremes at this level to accustom us to the habit.

<font color=plum>The school here in western NC have a similar "policy" regarding weapons being brought to school. And the enforcement has been just as ridiculous.

I've worked in the Purchasing Dept. of two different hospitals for a total of 13 years now. One of my everyday tools is a standard box cutter. A few years ago, one of our delivery drivers (worked for a company similar to UPS) said that he had delivered a package to one of the local high schools. It was a package the principal had been looking for and she was anxious to open it. So the driver offered to help and took out a very small box cutter he carries with him on his key chain. All of a sudden, the principal forgot all about her package and told the drive he could NOT bring that "weapon" onto her campus.

"Huh, excuse me?" he said.
"That cutter you have there, that is considered a weapon and you cannot come onto our campus with that item in your pocket."

The driver said "Listen lady, I use this box cutter several times everyday on my job. It goes where I go."
"Well, you cannot come onto our campus if you have that in your pocket."
"OK - fine. Where do you want to meet me to pick your packages up? If I can't bring this on campus, then I just won't deliver your packages to you. So tell me where you want to send one of your employees to meet me to pick up anything I have for you."

After a short pause, the principal reconsidered her position and decided the delivery driver was "responsible" enough to be trusted to not "threaten" anyone at the school with his "bladed weapon" and said that he could continue to deliver the packages to her office as usual. :rolleyes:

So common sense CAN manage to sneak through the fog of beauracratic denseness at times.</font>

I don't believe it is a Zero tolerance problem, in fact I have no problem with a zero tolerance policy on drug, weapons, alcohol etc. I have a zero tolerance policy on stupidity myself :D Alcohol is alcohol, no alcohol is no alcohol. The implimentation(sp?) of zero tolerance policies is the problem, Yes kids have and do get suspended for giving a friend asprin! under the zero tolerance policies. These pukes have lost all common sense and brain function for a set of rules. "Hale" I'd give them one of my mirrors to find there rear-ends but it would be a waste of a good mirror. ;)

Our Youngest daughter got jumped at school and fought back, she was suspended for 3 days, even though the vice-principal was a witness and told us she was defending herself. The school had a zero tolerance policy on fighting, when we had to go to the parent pricipal conference, I informed the head idiot-in-charge that no only was I not going to punish our daughter for defending herself but I was going to take her out for dinner. If it is good enough for the founding fathers of this nation, and the State legistalure of this State to alow a person to defend themselves, I sure as "Hale" is hot was not going to punish our daughter for doing something legal. He could take his Zero tolerance policy and huggie feelie style of administrat'n and stick it for all I cared. If he wished to scrap farther bring it on, when My lawyer, who happens to be my brother-in-law, so it wouldn't have cost me a dime got done with him and the school board. I would be the King of the Tuscaloosa county board of education. Our Daughter would take the suspension(sp?) only because I believed it was a more valueble lesson to learn about the stupidity of gov't pencil pushers, since she would have to deal with those kind of pukes her entire life. :D

[ 12-09-2004, 10:59 AM: Message edited by: John D Harris ]

What's wrong with a classmate giving you a painkiller when you have a headache? I had a teacher give me a painkiller once when I had a really bad headache. I don't see anything bad with that, as long as it's those headache pills you don't need prescription for. [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img]

Edit: I mean why do *they* think this is so bad? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 12-09-2004, 10:52 AM: Message edited by: Spelca ]