| # | Name | Comments |
|---|
| 51 | Ellen Lebowitz | The Christina School Board should have followed Dr. John MacKenzie's common sense vote which was based on a judgement of intention. If the rest of the board is incapable of making good judgements they should not be serving in this capacity. They should publicly admit their error, apologize to the student and her family, and revisit the criteria of zero tolerance which doesn't allow for humans to discriminate between mal-intent (e.g., the intention to do ill with an exacto knife) and good intent (e.g. the intention to do an art project with an exacto knife). Come On People! |
| 52 | Shawn O'Ferrall | |
| 53 | Lolita | I vote for common sense and good judgement to be applied to the rules governing the children. I believe many teachers and administrators have forgotten what they're being paid for and their responsibility owed to the students and their profession. It's simply to TEACH. That includes academic and social skills along with right from wrong. Have you ever heard 'It takes a village to raise a child?' If one system breaks down, then by God if the other fails them too, then where and whom do they turn to? Why send them to school at all? Is not the system teaching the children as much bad stuff as good? We parents do need to get involved! We can no longer sit back and depend on the administrators and teachers to raise and educate our children. We're as much to blame as them. Do you know who is or is not TEACHING your child? If the answer is NO...then it's time to find out who's the janitor all the way up the ladder to the Senator that govern's your district! It's time! |
| 54 | Catherine Williams | Zero tolerance policies are simply a way for administrators to avoid making difficult judgments. Treat children as individuals, and consider their past history. |
| 55 | Pat Gould | These policies are driving parents to Private, Charter, and Home Schools. |
| 56 | C. Jayne Mitchell-Werbrich | The Christina School District Administrators are educators not criminal justice majors. The Department of Justice needs to be involved. The Christina School District doesn't understand due process...unless it applies to one of their own employees. |
| 57 | Daryl Cobranchi | You're fighting the good fight. Good luck. |
| 58 | Anonymous | |
| 59 | Laura Derrick | Common sense would be a good start. Adhering to constitutional righs to presumption of innocence and protection against cruel and unjust punishment might be nice, too. |
| 60 | Linda M. Rossi | The atrocity of the ZT policy goes far beyond school administrators and school boards failing our students simply because they haven't the conscience and/or the backbone to recognize "gray areas".... but worse, some of these individuals who
consider themselves "educators" are seemingly (sadly) deriving more pleasure from having the unrestricted power to complicate the lives of the students they expel than from the true purpose for
which they are there. We need to do something about these type of "educators" in our system before they destroy it completely one student at a time. There are some remaining whose hearts are
truly in "education" and if not for the fact that their jobs are on the line should they not comply with
ZT would love to go back to treating students as individual human beings rather than numbers. We
need to give the power back to the "real" educators.... |
| 61 | Anonymous | |
| 62 | Anonymous | I think one year suspension is too strong, considering that she had abolsutely no previous record of indiscipline.
It will traumatize the child forever
There has to be some other way. |
| 63 | Tracy Crosley | |
| 64 | Bo Hanson | Zero tolerance is fine when the intent has been proved to be malicious, but justice should surely be tempered with mercy, when the circumstances require it??? |
| 65 | Yvonne Herrmann | My 9 yr old daughter was suspended for artwork, a drawing, depicting a warrior carrying a severed head. For heavens sake! |
| 66 | Cliff Shelby | Children need to be treated with the same respect as adults. Zero Tolerance is a stupid policy which is designed to absolve teachers and administrators of their responsibilities and reasoning. |
| 67 | Jerry Moore | We are a nation with "justice for all." Justice requires a consideration of all the relevant facts pertaining to a violation of rules for the setting fair, proportionate punishments. |
| 68 | Anonymous | |
| 69 | Harry Villanueva | Zero Tolerance =Zero Intelligence
Did they decide after it flopped in the prison system to try it out on our little children. |
| 70 | Krista Wiltbank | |
| 71 | Klaudette Kline | |
| 72 | Anonymous | We are currently going through an unfair expulsion. We have created a blog site to talk about it. http://washingtoncountyparent.blogspot.com/ |
| 73 | Joel Faust | I strongly am against zero-tolerance as it exist today. It violates the rights of the child and also the parents. There is no way to adjudicate the issue and it is like speaking to deaf ears when trying to combat it. It is run by an administration that pushes its responsibility onto someone else and the ultimate authority in these cases is pompous and arrogant. This policy must be eliminated and or setup so it addresses the individual circumstance. There needs to be legal recourse against inappropriate punishment. |