TRI In The News

Zero-Tolerance Out of Whack

From OneNewsNow
Original article available here.

In Virginia Beach, Virginia, a kindergartner has been suspended for crying -- a decision one constitutional lawyer says is just the latest example of a zero-tolerance policy lacking [room] for common sense.

Six-year-old Bronson Clark was given an out-of-school suspension for allegedly crying at Tallwood Elementary School and disrupting the educational process. John Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, tells OneNewsNow school officials demonstrated "a brief lapse of judgment" during the incident.

"What we think they should have done is sit down with the parents...called them in and...figured out a way to deal with the child possibly crying in class in the future," he suggests. "That's what they needed to do. But most schools now act pretty quickly; anything that supposedly disrupts, something they don't like, [and] the kids are suspended.

"That's the problem here [with] suspending the child," the attorney continues. "Not taking the child out of class and into an empty room with a teacher who might put their arm around the child -- [instead] the child was suspended from school."

Whitehead says his firm has contacted the school, asking officials to "clean up" the boy's record.

"He shouldn't have a disturbing behavior conduct on his record, which will follow him the rest of his life -- and take off the idea that he was suspended in any way for disrupting the class because all he was doing was crying at the time," he states. "He was upset; he missed his parents."

In his letter to the school, Whitehead notes that "sanctions should be tailored to the individual circumstances of each student and not imposed in an artificial, 'one-size-fits-all' approach that lacks reason, proportionality, and compassion."