LAWYER GROUP MAY OPPOSE SCHOOLS' 'ZERO TOLERANCE' POLICIES

"Zero tolerance" policies in schools can be unfair, some lawyers argue,
because a student found with aspirin in his pocket can get suspended as
quickly as one with marijuana.

Leaders of the 400,000-member American Bar Association probably will come
out against such rules at the close of their winter meeting, even though
some schools say lawyers were a big part of the reason for adopting zero
tolerance policies.

"The ABA is an organization that stands for fairness and justice, and many
of the zero tolerance policies around the country have been unfair and
unjust to children," said Robert Schwartz, director of the Juvenile Law
Center, a public interest group in Philadelphia.

"The problem is that children aren't treated as individuals, but are
treated the same way no matter what they've done or who they are," said
Schwartz, a lawyer who helped draft the recommended policy.

Opponents of the policies at the ABA and in some civil liberties groups
point to examples they say show zero tolerance has run amok: The Pittsburgh
kindergartner disciplined in 1999 because his Halloween firefighter costume
included a plastic ax, and the Cobb County, Ga., sixth-grader suspended
last year because the 10-inch key chain on her Tweety bird wallet is
considered a weapon.

School districts say parents often demand the policies and most parents
like them unless their own child is targeted.

Tony Arasi, assistant superintendent in Cobb County in suburban Atlanta,
said zero tolerance works well, although he acknowledged cases like the
Tweety wallet "can look ugly."

"We say it treats all students the same based on what they did, not who
they are," Arasi said.

The policies came about partly because schools faced lawsuits charging that
principals disciplined unequally based on race or other factors, Arasi said.

Having a universal policy on paper protects schools from lawsuits by
eliminating a lot of the arbitrary nature of school discipline, he said.

"Those people saying zero tolerance leads to unfairness in serious
discipline may want to go back 10 or 15 years to before most districts had
zero tolerance,"' Arasi said. "They were saying there was unfairness then.
It's come full circle."

Once in place, the policies also help protect against lawsuits from parents
charging the school did not do enough to keep students safe, or from
complaints that individual punishments did not fit the offense.

"In a way it can be very appealing for school administrators who don't want
pressure from parents ... for coming down hard," said Judy Seltz, director
of planning and communication for the American Association of School
Administrators. "The administrator can say, 'I had no choice, my hands are
tied."'

Seltz's organization has no position on zero tolerance policies, preferring
to leave the choice to local school officials.

It is hard to gauge the monetary effect of the policies for lawyers, and an
ABA spokeswoman, Nancy Slonim, said the draft policy has nothing to do with
money.

Lawyers made money suing school districts before zero tolerance, and they
can make money representing disgruntled parents now. Lawyers also represent
children referred to court through zero tolerance policies, although Slonim
said there is not much money in that.

"The ABA isn't being asked to look at it as a fee-generating matter. It's
being proposed as a fairness issue," she said.

Zero tolerance policies typically address drugs, weapons or violence in
schools. They are adopted locally, although same states have laws that all
but require school districts to have such rules.

Many if not most of the nation's approximately 14,000 school districts have
some kind of zero tolerance rules.

The policies vary, but most set out automatic punishments for various
offenses that range from reprimands to suspensions to criminal prosecution.

As a practical matter, the proposed ABA policy would have no legal effect
on individual school districts. Advocates of the policy hope it will prompt
schools to reevaluate the policies.