DODGING LAWYERS 'BULLETS' IN THE SCHOOLS

The Issue: Zero-tolerance policies in schools may indicate school board
officials are afraid to make decisions about degrees of culpability for
fear of prompting lawsuits.

The Newport-Mesa school district expects to run about $5 million in the red
this year unless money can be found to make up the deficit. In spite of the
shortfall, the board trustees have recently voted to explore a program of
equipping all of their school buses with computers designed to identify and
track children as they go to and from school.

The computer solution came after some kids on buses were determined to be
unruly, and, in an effort to keep them in line, they want to issue kids
plastic identification cards with magnetic stripes which would be swiped in
a machine as they boarded their bus.

If I were not awake to read about it, I would not have believed this if it
were told to me by Walter Cronkite.

Picking on Newport-Mesa is easy for me because my wife and I have two kids
in the district and we try to keep track of the comings and goings, but
they're also an easy target because some of the decisions are just plain
folly.

This isn't necessarily about he Newport-Mesa school board, it's about local
bureaucracies that are out of control and so scared of their own shadows
that it has affected their ability to make rational decisions. Consider the
fact that only one of the Newport-Mesa board members, Wendy Leece, voted
against the computer idea. This, apparently, was a no-brainer for this
school aboard.

The Newport-Mesa board members obviously didn't care about the money. What
they did care about, and what they may never admit to, is that they are
afraid of lawyers. That's right - the fear of lawsuits may be driving the
decision-making at this and other levels of local bureaucracies.

The "zero-tolerance" policy in place in our district is a case in point. A
zero-tolerance policy forces the school district to transfer and, in some
cases, expel a student who is caught carrying or using weapons or drugs on
a school campus. Thus, the plastic butter knife used to cut a bagel and
carried in the student's backpack becomes the same as a loaded gun; the
aspiring brought on campus by a female high school senior experiencing a
particular problem morphs into heroin. No quarter is given.

The zero-tolerance policy for kids is safe harbor for school board members.
With this policy, they no longer have to think. Cases do not have to be
judged on their individual merits, they are simply rubber-stamped for the
convenience of the board and to decrease the likelihood of a lawsuit. If
everyone is treated the same way, the thinking goes, how can we be sued for
a discrimination decision?

Therein lies the problem. These board members, as were the ones in your
district, were elected because we thought they would be good leaders. Among
other qualities, a good leader is supposed to make the tough decisions and
suffer the consequences. Adopting a rule which only clears your desk of
some paperwork is not leading, it's laziness. And, in the meantime, it is
the kids who will suffer from this suffocating decision.

Consider then the case of Ryan Huntsman. Ryan was stopped by the Newport
Beach Police Department after the radio in his car was so loud it was said
to have been heard in Fullerton. The police found suspected "trace amounts"
of marijuana in his car, according to the Register news report, but he was
not cited for it. He was cited instead for "noise pollution," and his
police report, which mentioned the possible trace amounts of marijuana, was
forwarded to school officials, who applied zero-tolerance rules against
him. That led to his suspension from Corona del Mar High School. He is back
at school while his case is being appealed.

The "What, me worry?" attitude of the school board came back to haunt it.
Had they not been constrained by the one-size-fits-all zero-tolerance
policy, they would not have spent one minute debating this case before
moving on to other matters, such as how to spend money they don't have for
computer tracking devices they don't need.

The computers operate the same way. In an effort to homogenize and
de-individualize the bus-riding students, the board believes it has found a
way to absolve itself of any responsible decision-making and head off the
lawyers and hostile parents who would otherwise consider a lawsuit.
"Extenuating circumstances" is a phrase you will not hear in this school
district. Neither is "degree of crime," which applies in all criminal cases
before our courts. So if your kid acts up on a school bus there is no
degree of violation. Shooting a spit wad may be the same as punching
someone in the face. Well, I've got news for the school board - the only
way you'll get kids to sit quietly on buses is to outfit them with straight
jackets and give them 10 mg of Valium prior to departure. Kids goofed
around when I rode the bus 30-something years ago and they'll goof around
50 years from now when buses are flying home on rockets.

The best solution to all of these problems is also the cheapest.
Unfortunately, only Mrs. Leece has had the giblets (with apologies to Dr.
Laura) to say that parents ought to be responsible for teaching their kids
proper public behavior. That is truly where the responsibility lies. The
last thing we need is a bureaucracy "helping" parents by absolving them of
their responsibility to monitor their kids.