Should schools relax zero-tolerance disciplinary policies?

Don't ease the discipline

BY MATTHEW EISLEY
STAFF WRITER

Maybe some of the thousands of disruptive, violent or criminal students Wake County suspends each year need a more constructive alternative than getting kicked out of school.

In-school suspensions, reform schools or community service might be better alternatives than life at home, in a gang, or on the street, away from the chance to learn.

But if Wake's school board tinkers with its "zero-tolerance" disciplinary policy, as some board members want to do, it should take care not to make matters worse for teachers and the majority of students who work hard and behave.

The job of students is to learn. The job of teachers is to teach. The job of schools is to make it happen, not to coddle troublemakers.

Granted, some troubled students need and want help. They come from broken homes or suffer emotional, developmental or learning disabilities. We must not abandon them.

And there's no doubt that some misbehaving students booted from school only graduate to professional lives of crime, preying on innocent victims and requiring still more public attention, effort and treasure. Reform school is cheaper than prison. We need effective programs to shrink the pipeline of despair.

But we must maintain peace and order in our schools. Students who want to learn need their teachers' full attention. And we should expect teachers to be teachers, not social workers.

Otherwise we invite and empower disruptive students to steal the educations of their peers, a grievous theft we cannot allow.

Matthew Eisley is editor of The N&O's North Raleigh News and Midtown Raleigh News.

Zero-tolerance is bad policy

BY KEITH SUTTON

Zero-tolerance school disciplinary policies have outlived their usefulness. Once thought of as the solution to an upward trend in school violence following the 1999 Columbine High School shootings, such policies produce thousands of suspensions and expulsions of Wake County students every year.

Zero tolerance is a practice or culture defined by rules/laws that are consistently applied to a certain class of offenses or infractions, without regard to the circumstances surrounding the event.

Zero-tolerance policies have become the main valve in the school-to-prison pipeline, with more than 5,000 suspensions levied for instances of non-compliance in one year.

In addition, according to research conducted by Jason Langberg and Cary Brege at Action for Children's Services, 84 percent of school-based delinquency complaints were for minor misdemeanors. This is where the pipeline begins, and black students are affected disproportionately.

Once students enter the juvenile justice system, many with educational or mental disabilities, they and their families face judges, lawyers, court counselors and detention centers.

Yet many of our school principals are left with few options for addressing behavioral issues, especially when they are charged with maintaining a safe learning environment.

When my predecessors on the Wake County Board of Education instituted these policies, they had very good intentions.

As we enter a new decade, my colleagues on the school board and I must, and hopefully will, confront this challenge head-on.

Keith Sutton is a member of Wake County's public school board, representing District 4.