Zero Tolerance bill moves to Senate rules committee
A bill that would give principals and school systems more discretion in how they handle disciplinary cases in their schools passed a key Georgia Senate committee Tuesday, pushing it closer to a full Senate vote.
Sponsored by Sen. Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur), the bill targets the widespread use of “zero tolerance” in schools, which critics say criminalizes students for minor and sometimes insignificant offenses.
“This bill does not weaken the disciplinary action of a school. It does not weaken practices,” Jones said. “But we have heard about these cases where kids have no intent whatsoever to do harm to anyone and are punished. These kids, under this legislation, would be given second chances.”
Jones’ bill would 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, unless he used a weapon in an assault or brought a gun to school; and give judges more discretion into how they handle cases.
Jones drafted the bill after the son of a friend of his from Morgan County was handcuffed and sent to jail for accidentally bringing a knife to school.
Eli Mohone actually turned the knife over to school officials when he discovered he had it. His mother, Amanda Hensler, said her son was traumatized by the arrest and incarceration.
Eli also had to spend time in an alternative school before he was allowed back into his regular school this semester.
David C. Belton, a member of the Morgan County Board of Education and a supporter of the bill, said that with Eli’s case, the principal was compelled to follow the law as written.
“This bill brings common sense to the law, because when you send a kid to prison for something like that you are sending him on the path to criminalization,” Belton said. “The Board of Education was powerless to do anything. The principal said we need to keep this kid in school, but his hands were tied.”
Since the policy was implemented in the 1990s to combat drugs and weapons in schools, zero tolerance — which automatically expels students for bringing weapons to school — has been a mixed bag nationally and in Georgia.
Just this week, a seventh-grader in Indiana was suspended under a zero-tolerance drug policy because she was holding a prescription pill that belonged to a friend.
Over the past decade, Georgia students have been suspended for kissing, wearing studded clothing, giving gifts to teachers, and for carrying a Tweety Bird wallet with a chain on it.
The bill, SB 299, breezed through the Senate Education and Youth Committee and will now go to the Rules Committee for a chance to be voted on by the entire Senate. Jones is hoping for a Rules decision by next week.
The Education and Youth Committee also passed a companion piece of legislation authored by Jones, SB 332, which would require schools to include on their annual reports how many students have been disciplined under zero tolerance.
Jones said the reporting would not impose additional work on school systems because they compile the data already.
“The more kids that we can save from having to experience being incarcerated the better,” Jones said. “This puts discipline back in the hands of the school system. This bill needs to go [forward].”
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14 comments Add your comment
David Hyde
March 2nd, 2010
5:55 pm
When my son was 17 his was asked by school administrators to leave his high school classroom at 11:00 AM and unlock his car so a fellow student’s backpack coul be retrieved from the car. The administrators proceeded to search the car and found a pocket knife in his center console. The blade was broken off, but the remaining blade was still 2″ long. He had used it the previous weekend as a screwdriver on his class homecoming float, and left it in the car. He was handcuffed, placed in the back of a patrol car, taken to jail, and charged with felony weapons possession on school property. He was in jail for 3 days, having to wait for a hearing before a superior court judge to set bond. His wore an orange jumpsuit to his hearing before a judge. This arrest remains on his record today. He was never able to return to school, and had to attend an alternative night school to achieve his GED. He never recovered his self respect after being treated as a common criminal. He never felt “normal” again, has been unable to successfully continue with his college education, and is today unemployed. The school administrators said they had no other choice under “zero tolerance”. Their treatment of him was comparable to a death sentence for his educational.
LJ of UGA
March 2nd, 2010
6:21 pm
Zero tolerance = zero common sense.
Yankee in Gooberville
March 2nd, 2010
7:04 pm
Expect Right wing opposition to this very quickly…it’s sponsored by a Democrat so the crazies should be out here soon saying ‘weak on crime’ and all sorts of nutty things the tea bagger types come up with on the fly.
Reality Train
March 2nd, 2010
7:04 pm
The notion that the principal has no choice is ludicrous. If the principal took a stand against a moronic law, who would complain. What would have been the consequences of leaving the child in school? David Hyde’s comments shows that these laws can ruin lives.
ProgressiveThinking
March 2nd, 2010
7:51 pm
Just my two cents, but I think that the State of Ga should partner with the Department of Defense to develop a Military School Program for those Troublemaker and Disruptive Students who are a waste and a drain to the State School system, the bad students don’t care about school anyways. Instead of allowing a few bad students disrupting our hard working teachers, Maybe a Military School Program will Discipline and Straighten out the troublemakers and who knows maybe mold their character to serve in the US Armed Forces and be productive in society..
Mel
March 2nd, 2010
9:22 pm
@ Progressive Thinking: Interesting idea. We absolutely need alternatives for the troublemakers in our classrooms. Far too much time, from elementary school on, is being spent on discipline and not learning. Unfortunately, education is too often looked at as daycare in the lower grades and as the kids get older, many parents of the worse offenders tune out even more (or are in denial and would never allow an alternative for their child).
I’m all for this bill adding common sense back into our schools and that sense should extend to acknowledging that one system is not right for every child.
Zero Tolerance bill moves to Senate rules committee | Gold Dome Live Gold just to Me
March 2nd, 2010
11:04 pm
[...] more here: Zero Tolerance bill moves to Senate rules committee | Gold Dome Live tags: class, entire-system, german, golden-price, housing, housing-bubble, making-methods, [...]
Reality Train
March 3rd, 2010
7:19 am
the problem is defining what constitutes “Troublemaker and Disruptive Students”. Its easy to think anyone who brings a weapon to school is such a student, so lets say that anyone who does that is going to military school .. the problem is that not only includes the kids that brings a loaded handgun to school with the intent to harm but also includes the kid who forgot to take the fishing knife out of his car. It is important to either (1) grant powers to the Judge to send a kid to such a school on a case by case basis depending on the severity of what happened or (2) add an “intent” element to the crime so tat it has to be shown that the kids intended to do harm with the weapon. Now, if its not black-and-white, some troublemakers may slip through, but that’s a better option than “zero-tolerance” which defies common sense and punishes everyone the same (even good kids who make a mistake). IS there anyone who can articulate a reasonable defense of “zero-tolerance”?
pete12
March 3rd, 2010
7:22 am
does this not step all over our bill of rights.what is happening in this state of georgia that our children and people need to be policed like we live in old russia. we need to enforce our bill of rights.
The General
March 3rd, 2010
8:37 am
Glad to see such a bill is making its way through the Senate. Hopefully, my fellow conservatives don’t quash this much needed return to sanity.
lmno
March 3rd, 2010
8:39 am
Well, this is a step in the right direction!
Its nice to see us do something right.
You Asked
March 3rd, 2010
1:46 pm
Progressive Thinker,
The DJJ already runs a fully accredited school where youth offenders can receive a degree (not just a GED).
The National Guard runs Youth Challenge Academies at many of our Georgia millitary bases.
We have programs in place that are some of the best in the nation.
Having said that- the DJJ officials I have talked with don’t want the zero tolerence cases kicked from the schools to them if the child is not really a high risk case or bona-fide criminal. They have their hands full already. The schools do need to take the responisibility to be judicious in their enforcement of the policies. They are ruining kids lives by clamping down on the kid who left their boy scout kit in the trunk of their car or who said an unwise joke in the cafeteria. This shows lack of responsibility on the part of the schools to kick the non-serious cases up the ladder to some other agency.
Zero Tolerance reform bill moves through committee : Georgia Liberal
March 3rd, 2010
3:02 pm
[...] to ease up on the state’s Zero Tolerance policy in schools in regards to drugs and weapons has passed a committee vote and will move onto the Rules Committee as its last barrier to a full Senate [...]
Trooper
March 13th, 2010
8:05 am
Progressive thinker:
I’d prefer that kids who can’t behave in class be sent to Peace Corps training schools. We don’t need undisciplined kids in the military; send the undisciplined, irresponsible kids to the Peace Corps, Americorps, or the Democratic Underground where they can find their peers. Leave the military to the real Americans.