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Zero Tolerance Policies in Schools
Paper on zero-tolerance school policies
Thesis on zero tolerance in schools
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Zero Tolerance: More Harm than Good The punishment does not always fit the crime. Zero tolerance policies began as a way to protect children from potentially violent situation. Over the years, these policies designed to protect are now doing more harm than good. Children are being punished for simply being children. Zero tolerances policies need to be replaced because these harsh policies have resulted in an increasing number of suspensions, many students harshly punished for minimal offenses, and these policies have a negative impact on students. Zero tolerance policies have resulted in an increasing number of suspensions. “In 2009-10, at least 2,624 secondary schools across the nation suspended 25% of their total student body” (Losen & Martinez 15). Forcing …show more content…
Suspended children are missing out on valuable school time. These children often miss out on important exams and assignments. “Many of these children are missing out on the education their schools are providing, and they are learning far worse lessons away from those schools” (Henault 548).
The majority of these zero tolerance punishments are for non-violent minimal offenses. Zero tolerance policies are punishing children for minimal offenses. Some examples include violation of dress code, writing on the desk, and tardiness. Although theses offenses deserve punishment, they do not warrant the harshness that zero tolerance policies entail. For instance, five-year-old Ethan Clos was suspended from Reid Elementary School in Springfield Ohio for having a Mohawk haircut. School officials stated that his haircut was a distraction for other students. After missing two days of school his mother was forced to shave his head in order for him to be allowed to return to school. Although his haircut was probably a distraction, the child did not need to be suspended. Children can be distracted by anything for
The proposed expulsions and suspensions from their disability behaviors deprived them of their right to a free and appropriate public education in accordance to the EHA. The Judge ordered the school district from making other disciplinary acts other than a two-to-five-day suspension against any disabled child for disability-related behaviors and ensured that the “stay-put” provision would be in place and no student would be removed. This went to the Ninth-Circuit appeal where the previous decision was affirmed and modified to allow up to a ten-day suspension.
This decision makes it clear the most important thing for a school to do is to protect the students. It also states that the board of education, whose role is to oversee the schools, must make sure that the staff of the schools is protecting those children. This case highlights that long-term abuse can happen in schools if there are not clear policies or, if there are, that there is no one ensuring that those policies are
If you did not know, the zero tolerance policy is when students break school behavior rules and strict regulations created by the district or school and get severe consequences for it. Carla Amurao, the author of the article, “Fact Sheet: How Bad Is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?”, stated that “statistics reflect that these policies disproportionately target students of color”. Students of color are being affected so badly by this policy, that statistics show black students are 3 times more likely to get expelled than white students. Since these students are being expelled or arrested for breaking zero tolerance policy rules, they are missing valuable information in classes due to court hearings. But, some people argue that the zero tolerance policy is unfair to all students, making the education system equal for all to succeed. For example, a “2007 study by the Advancement Project and the Power U Center for Social Change says that for every 100 students who were suspended, 15 were Black, 7.9 were American Indian, 6.8 were Latino and 4.8 were white”. As you can see, the zero tolerance policy affects all races, making them miss their education because of certain consequences. Because the mindset of these people is that, if the zero-tolerance policy does not affect just one race or group of people, then the education system
The intent of this argumentative research paper, is to take a close look at school systems disciplinary policies and the effect they have on students. While most school systems in the nation have adopted the zero tolerance policies, there are major concerns that specific students could be targeted, and introduced into the criminal justice system based on these disciplinary policies. This research paper is intended to focus on the reform of zero tolerance policies, and minimizing the school to prison pipeline.
“Principals must be able to balance the school’s interest in maintaining a safe and orderly environment against the rights of individual students to be free from unreasonable discipline” (Hachiya, Shoop, and Dunklee, 2014, p. 145). This is a delicate balance to be sure, but one that is the responsibility of an administrator. Students have constitutional rights to free speech and expression, as well as the right to due process. This is very true with suspension and expulsion. Due process is very important here as well. A hearing must be held, and all parts of the Pupil Fair Dismissal Act must be followed.
In the most recent years, the relationship between educational institutions and the juvenile justice system, which was once created to protect children, has displayed an ultimatum for minors through “zero tolerance” policies that result in sending individuals from school to prison to pipeline. Studies have shown that these policies are not beneficial to students or the educational environment that should be guaranteed to children. Opponents argue that the policies promote safety, but through this research it can be concluded that the policies actually increase danger. Studies demonstrate the factors that affect the enforcement of these policies which include media, the sociopolitical atmosphere, and the racial disproportionality, yet there are valid solutions for this issue that can be explored.
Lawmakers and school officials have been wearisome in the efforts of finding a policy that works to make our schools a safer place for students and administrators. Schools, both public and private, are an environment for learning and pleasant experiences that a child or adolescent will remember for the rest of their lives. Although, experiences like the Columbine High school massacres are not what an individual would want to remember and is one of the most significant enforcer when it comes to all austere policies. Zero tolerance was first introduced by President Ronald Reagan’s
Another major reason why juveniles are ending up in the juvenile justice system is because many schools have incorporate the zero tolerance policy and other extreme school disciplinary rules. In response to violent incidents in schools, such as the Columbine High School massacre, school disciplinary policies have become increasingly grave. These policies have been enacted at the school, district and state levels with the hopes of ensuring the safety of students and educators. These policies all rely on the zero tolerance policy. While it is understandable that protecting children and teachers is a priority, it is not clear that these strict policies are succeeding in improving the safety in schools.
Who hasn’t heard of the Columbine shooting, where in the spring of 1999 in Littleton, Colorado over a dozen people where killed and many others were wounded at the hands of two students? Or even more recently, who does not know about the Virginia Tech massacre where a single student killed thirty-two people and wounded over twenty more? University of Texas, California State University, San Diego State University, the list of school violence is long and heart-breaking. Students and teachers have lost their lives by the dozens to gunmen that carried a grudge for some reason or another. These are extreme cases, for sure, and there is without a doubt a need for discipline in schools every where. However, zero-tolerance policies are not the answer to school discipline unless they can be reformed to have fewer gray areas and kept from being too strict, be less disruptive to the education process and allow teachers to keep their voices, and figure out how to correct claims of racial discrimination, regardless of claims that they are effective.
Schools inevitably must deal with disciplinary action when it comes to misconduct in students. However, at what point should the courts and law enforcement intervene? “Zero tolerance” policies started as a trend in the school setting during the 1990s in “response to the widespread perception that juvenile violence was increasing and school officials needed to take desperate measures to address the problem” (Aull 2012:182-183). However, national statistics indicated a decrease in juvenile’s share of crime during the influx of zero tolerance policies in schools (National Crime Justice Reference Service 2005).
The zero tolerance policies were implemented with the intended purpose to punish juveniles who display unacceptable behavior and dissuade them from committing the act in the future. The policies are based on deterrence theory. Deterrence theory states that an individual is capable of making rational choices to partake in behavior, therefore punishment which is implemented with swiftness, severity, and certainty will cause the individual to change their delinquent behavior (Schram and Tibbetts 2014). This is the foundation to the school-to-prison pipeline as one receives punishment directly after the incident occurs, the punishment is harsh as one is suspended, expelled, or adjudicated, and there is certainty that the offense will be processed.
The answer, it turns out, is yes.” This experiment should be enforced into all districts around america. “...nearly 3.5 million students in kindergarten through high school - was suspended at least once in the 2011-12 academic year…”. Most of the these suspensions have been for some type of confrontation or mix up. “African-American students are hit hardest.
When people think of the term “juvenile delinquency” they may think of the extreme regulations some schools have begun to enact upon individual students in response to major issues such as bullying and school shootings. Criminal prosecution seems to have become the normality in many bullying cases these days as some students can find themselves being suspended for making guns out of paper, or even drawing a gun. Though these “no tolerance” policies that some schools have come up with in order to prevent delinquency from happening may help deter these negative behaviors in some circumstances they are in no way a practical solution, overall.
By definition, in school suspension is “a program to which a student is assigned because of disruptive behavior for a specific amount of time.” (Effective Program, 156) Many schools that have in school suspension programs have a zero-tolerance policy. This deters bad behavior by having swift and serious consequences for breaking school rules.
The Zero-tolerance policies criminalize minor infractions of school rules, while officers in school’s lead to students being criminalized