No slack for pencil sharpener

When she was growing up in South Korea, Sumi Lough says, she used the traditional pencil sharpener that all children there used: a 2-inch-long blade that folds into a small handle.

Now a resident of Katy, Lough went to a school supply store while visiting Seoul, South Korea, and bought one of the sharpeners for her daughter to use.

But what may be considered a routine item for schoolchildren there was alarming enough in the Katy school district to get Lough's 13-year-old daughter in deep trouble. School officials viewed it as a potential weapon.

Okay, I can see the point here. You don't want kids carrying around blades, even if they're only 2 inches long. In this particular case though it's apparent that the mistake was the parent's. Mom bought her daughter what, in her experience, was an acceptable pencil sharpener. Daughter used the tool that Mom bought her. A common sense approach might go along the lines of confiscating the pencil sharpener, cautioning the student and explaining to the mother that the item is not permitted in school. Was common sense applied? Of course not.

Christina Lough, a straight-A student at Garland McMeans Junior High School, was punished after a teacher saw the sharpener in class on Oct. 8.

In addition to being ordered to attend a special disciplinary class for seven days, the girl was removed as president of the student council and honor society.

"Disciplinary class" is the code name for in-school suspension. That's where all the reprobates wearing Dio t-shirts stay when they actually make it to school. Was this necessary? Was anything more accomplished by subjecting this straight-A student to a week of punishment than would have been achieved by explaining the situation to her? And removing her from the student council and honor society? That's just plain stupid. Did her pencil sharpener have anything at all to do with her elected position as president of the council? The honor society is a laud that you receive when you get good grades. What in the world does that have to do with a rule about weapons in the school?

So what are the parents to do about this? They can't go to the school board as that's the source of the problem.

Now Lough and her husband, Alan, are pressing a federal lawsuit that accuses the district of punishing their eighth-grader, Christina, without a fair hearing.

"This is one of the most egregious examples of overreaching and lack of due process that I've ever seen," their attorney, Neal H. Paster, said Tuesday.

What Sumi Lough saw as part of her Korean heritage, school officials viewed in the same category as a knife, razor, or box cutter, the parents contend.

Their lawsuit also accuses district officials of retroactively including the pencil sharpener on the list of prohibited items.

I agree with Mr. Paster here. The school's actions here are reprehensible and highlight perfectly why zero intelligence policies don't work. The school's response to all of this?

District officials said they had no choice but to follow their zero-tolerance policy to the letter, however.

"If we vary from the rules, that's when the rules fall apart," said Christopher B. Gilbert, an attorney for the district.

They made a rule that intentionally forbids them to use their intelligence and discretion according to the actual merits of a situation. When a situation comes up that shows just how bad the policy is they fall back on the policy itself as justification for their actions. In other words they believe that the policy is justified because of the policy. This is a perfect example of circular logic.

"Your policy isn't working. You need to act rationally and fix it."

"The policy does not allow us to act outside of the policy."

"But it's the policy itself that is the problem. The policy doesn't work."

"We cannot work on the policy because the policy itself tells us not to do so. Don't you get it?"

But Gilbert said the punishment could have been worse. He said the district could have expelled Christina from the National Junior Honor Society and kept her in disciplinary classes longer than seven days.

So wait a second here. They are admitting that the punishment is discretionary. The lawyer for the district itself is saying that the punishments meted out are not on a fixed mandate. How can they then use zero tolerance as an excuse for the outrageous punishments that they gave to Christina?

Hartman, of the teachers' federation, said that unless an item is clearly illegal under state law, districts have the discretion to show leniency to students who don't intentionally violate school policy.

Which fits this particular case to a "T". So why didn't they?

But when schools use discretion, they run the risk of being accused of bias and discrimination, he said.

"Their lawyers advise them to treat everyone exactly the same."

So they lump all offenses and offenders together. An honor roll student inadverdently breaking a rule by bringing a Korean pencil sharpener to school is exactly the same as a reprobate student who carries a switchblade. And they do it because they are afraid of being accused of bias and discrimination. They would rather be seen as idiots than be accused of bias. Not guilty of bias, just accused of it.

Guarantee of people thinking I'm an idiot vs. chance somebody might accuse me of something I am not doing.

I guess I better never get on a school board because I'd apparently be picking the wrong answer every time.

(Hat tip to Best of the Web)