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PACE Collaborates with CASE and Common Good on Zero Tolerance Study

Administrator
02/24/2009

Zero tolerance is in the crosshairs

 

Written by Barry Botnick

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Lawmakers in Colorado meant well when they passed a “zero-tolerance” measure designed to punish students who brought suspected weapons to campus.

The law arose in the wake of the Columbine massacre, which took place over10 years ago. In Colorado, those caught with weapons, or items that look like weapons, can be expelled for up to one year.

It is easy to understand why Colorado legislators enacted the harsh rule. No one wants another Columbine. But zero tolerance often leaves school administrators with no wiggle room if a student is found with a butter knife or an obviously fake rifle.

Now one local group, Common Good, has begun a public campaign to add a dose of reason to the state’s zero-tolerance measure.

“Our mission is to restore common sense to the laws of Colorado,” said Anne Marie, executive director of Common Good, a non-partisan coalition of attorneys, educators, doctors and civic leaders.

Top of the list is the zero-tolerance measure, which Marie said has hurt many innocent students.

“We want balance and discretion and the opportunity to look at each incident on a case-by-case basis,” she said.

And lo and behold, this week, five Republican state senators introduced a bill  that would add some discretion to the state’s zero tolerance law.

The new bill was spurred by the strange case of  Marie Morrow, a 17-year-old senior at Cherokee Trail High School in Aurora. Morrow is just the latest student to face expulsion under the zero-tolerance law. She fell victim to the law when a fellow student reported seeing a rifle in Morrow’s car.

The student acted correctly upon seeing what looked like a dangerous weapon. But the “weapon” turned out to be an obviously dummy rifle, the kind Morrow often used as a leader of the Douglas County Young Marines drill team.

The zero-tolerance law forced school officials to suspend Morrow for 10 days. She avoided full on expulsion after school officials deemed the suspension sufficient punishment.

“The student certainly should not have been expelled and should not have been forced to endure this absurd process in the first place,” Marie said.  “We need to change the law and district policies so that educators can use a little common sense in distinguishing between students who actually pose a threat and those who are innocent victims of illogical, one-size-fits-all policies."

Morrow is hardly the only Colorado kid to face suspension or expulsion under the zero-tolerance rule.

Marie and other Common Good supporters have tracked several similar cases as they work to build momentum to change the zero-tolerance law. Perhaps the most absurd incident involved seven 4th graders at Dry Creek Elementary School in Centennial caught in 2002 pointing “finger guns” at each other while playing a game of soldiers and aliens.

The students were suspended for the day after the school principal asked them if their parents owned guns. The action led the Denver Post to give the Cherry Creek School District a “Doofus of the Month” award.

The folks at Common Good also took issue with the 2007 suspension of a six-year-old punished for bringing a butter knife to school to build a fort.

Marie said administrators and other school officials should have the leeway to examine a student’s age and whether the alleged act was intentional or a simple mistake before anyone is pulled from school and suspended.

“It is important (to take action) when people become innocent victims with laws that don’t make sense,” she said. “We believe there will be more problems (with the zero-tolerance law) unless flexibility is worked into the statute.”

Common Good is currently gathering input from The Colorado Association of School Executives and the Professional Association of Colorado Educators as part of an overall analysis of the zero-tolerance policy.

Marie said a survey has been launched with PACE and CASE to obtain opinions about the best way to deal with the current law.

“Our role is to present bipartisan analysis and support changes that would provide greater flexibility and discretion,” she said. “There are folks advocating change in the state Legislature, but we have not formally touched base with them yet. … We support statuary changes that would give discretion and balance back to principals.”

And in fact, the new bill “Permits, rather than requires, a school district to suspend or expel a student for brandishing an artificial firearm. Permits a school district to suspend a student while determining whether the student's conduct could be grounds for suspension or expulsion,” in the words of the bill summary.

 

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