Apparently, in Virginia Beach, the boys were shooting an air soft gun at a target on private property. 70 yards from a bus stop, the boys reportedly were shooting tiny plastic balls out of plastic guns towards a target. As normally happens with middle school boys, the plastic balls hit each other, too. Although the boys were not supposed to have the guns out while Mom wasn't home, the guns came out before they went to school. In the midst of the playing, one of the boys' Mom called 911. She was "uncomfortable" with them holding guns. When the bus came, (SEVENTY yards away. That's almost an entire football field, think about that. It's 210 feet.) the boys put down the guns and got on the bus. Later they were accused of violating the school's weapon policy and have been suspended for the remainder of the school year. The REMAINDER of the school year. It's September 24th. The Mom on whose property this occurred said this of her son & his relationship with the school-
"My son is my private property," she said. "He does not become the school's property until he goes to the bus stop, gets on the bus, and goes to school."
The school district disagrees. A good recitation of the story is here - http://www.wavy.com/news/local/va-beach/has-zero-tolerance-gone-too-far
Before I tell our story, let me just say to the Mom that called 911 - WHAT IN THE HELL? Why did you call 911? You knew that the guns were toys and you were not in fear of your life. Your own kid was playing with the other boys, yet you called 911 instead of going outside and saying "hey, knuckleheads, knock it off" or "hey, johnny, quit playing with your friends and go to the bus stop" or I don't know, anything, other than calling as though it was an emergency situation. You should get charged for using emergency services for a non-emergency. After that, you should be given parenting lessons so that you can go outside and tell your own kid to quit doing something stupid rather than calling the police and involving the school district. Also, to the other 911 caller - if you thought it was a real gun, I guess I see your point. If you didn't notice the orange tip, I guess I get it. Maybe it's a rough neighborhood.
Speaking of rough neighborhoods.... I had a sibling group of foster kids who were high school and middle school aged kids. They came from a rough neighborhood and, if it's not obvious from their foster care placement, a rough family. Of all of the kids we had over the almost decade of doing foster care, this particular group came from one of the worst situations that I'd ever seen. When they first came, one of them said "it's so quiet here". I asked them what they were used to hearing, naively expecting a comment on the lack of car sounds or people or light rail. "There's no gunshots. Or sirens. There's never sirens." That horrifying statement was followed up with "how do you keep people out of your house? there's no bars on the windows." These kids knew the difference between a real gun and an air soft gun.
The boy was in 7th grade, I think. It might have been 6th, but I think 7th. He was as nice a kid as his circumstances would allow. He did have an air soft pistol on a school bus and he might have known better. I still dispute that he knew better. He hadn't been out of his former life long enough, I don't think. We were called into the school and then to a school board meeting regarding the Incident. Social workers were called. Counselors were visited. We were not arguing the fact that he did something wrong. It was wrong and dangerous and stupid. We had been very clear with him about that. Our problem was with what the consequences of his stupidity were going to be. He was to be expelled from the school district. He would be unable to enroll in any local public school until the terms of his punishment were met. The only place for him to go was to an Alternative School. In our area, there was no designated middle school class for the Alternative School. He would go with the expelled high school kids.
I pleaded with the school district to come up with another answer. I literally begged. Social workers wrote letters. Counselors. I sat at that school board meeting and begged them to be logical and think about the long term results of their decision. Instead of being in an environment that was better than where he'd been before, he would spend every day, all day, with the kids who had been expelled from high school. Those kids were practically grown and though still from a small town, had been expelled for real reasons. Drugs. Actual weapons. Criminal charges. To be clear, this was not the same as the continuation high school for those who need a little extra help or structure or who have babies or want to graduate early or whatever. Why would these grown ups want to subject a 12 year old with no other behavioral problems in evidence to that? What would the outcome be? Is there any way to argue that any behavioral issues would, in fact, be made worse?
I understand the idea behind zero tolerance but I cannot understand how it is better to not take into account individual situations. I'm sorry you're overworked and underpaid, trite though the saying may be. I don't want to be a middle school teacher or administrator. I think it sounds horrifyingly hard. So, please, don't misunderstand. I can empathize with how hard your jobs are. But can we please apply logic? Expelling kids from school for the duration of a school year for "possession of a firearm" when the firearm does not involve any actual fire is not logical. The odds of those boys becoming worse behavioral problems following this incident are enormous. Not only will they be sent to the special school, their files permanently noting the Firearm charge, they also now have a totally different view of grown ups. If they thought we were stupid before, imagine what they think now. If they distrusted adults and people in positions of authority before, what must they feel now? Do you think they wonder why the school is policing their front yard? Why they weren't safe to behave or misbehave at home? Do they think that the punishment fits the crime and makes sense? Will they be able to extrapolate the unfairness to the broader justice system, authority and society? When they do extrapolate, after they've hung out with the kids at the alternative school for a year, what will the outcome be for them as members of a broader society? The issue of the school getting involved in something that happened at home is one issue that should be dealt with and we should all be concerned. But, more generally, will this application of zero tolerance make those kids better people - or worse?
In my situation, I didn't have an argument. He was on a school bus and the Policy was the Policy. Period. It didn't matter that he came from a situation that I doubt anyone on that school board could understand. It didn't matter that he had only been out of that situation for a couple of months. It didn't matter that no one got hurt and that he certainly didn't mean for anyone to get hurt or scared. It didn't matter that it wasn't a real gun. They were Unable to Make Any Exceptions. And so this poor, scared boy was going to be sent to hang out every day with almost grown up, actual criminals. I chose to homeschool him. Not every child has that chance but I hope that the parents of those kids in Virginia Beach make the same choice that I did. I also hope that there is a lawyer in VA that can take their case and argue that the kids were not at school, on the bus or at the bus stop. But I know from experience that logic doesn't come into play in Zero Tolerance situations. Only Policy is on the table - as though 12 & 13 year old boys even understand what those lawyered up paragraphs in the edcode mean.
