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You are here: Home / For the Love of Everything Holy

For the Love of Everything Holy

by John Cole|  October 9, 20039:13 pm| 13 Comments

This post is in: General Stupidity

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I have no patience for zero tolerance rules, so this story has me reeling:

Boyfriend and girlfriend, 15-year-olds Brandon Kizi and Andra Ferguson are both asthma sufferers and both students at Caney Creek High School. At least, they were, until Andra began suffering an asthma attack at school.

“I couldn’t breathe, and I was just very short of breath,” recalled Andra. “My chest was tightened up and it was hurting.”

Brandon described the incident. “Her face was turning a little reddish-pink and she looked pale, as far as I could see. I loaned her my inhaler. I walked her to the nurse’s office and loaned her my inhaler.”

That’s when the trouble started. The school nurse called the school police, who arrested Brandon. They charged him with a felony, namely distributing a dangerous drug for loaning out his prescription inhaler. Andra’s mother thinks that’s wrong. “His (inhaler) is the very same thing. And he has had my permission to give her that medication any time she forgets it,” said Sandra Ferguson.

Is our children learning? Yes- they are learning we are not serious at all. For a whole lot of fun with zero tolerance idiocy, check out this website: Losing My Tolerance for Zero Tolerance.

Full disclosure- I carried a pocket knife and aspirin in school. Lots of my friends even had *GASP* shotguns and rifles and compound bows and hunting knives in their trunks. Crazy, aren’t I?

(via TalkLeft)

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Reader Interactions

13Comments

  1. 1.

    cameron

    October 9, 2003 at 11:45 pm

    As an asthma sufferer, I can say this is TRULY BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!

    I believe it is called http://www.thisistrue.com

    i used to get daiy updates from this guy. He is big on doing away with zero tolerence.

    Check him out.

  2. 2.

    Harry

    October 10, 2003 at 1:31 am

    I went to high school in rural Georgia during the late 70s we had a class, taught for credit toward graduation, on firearms and firearm safey. In this class we actually had target practice with real by god ammo. No one that I went to high school with was murdered by a gun during that time. And what about building the bomb in chemistry class? Didn’t everybody?

  3. 3.

    Kimmitt

    October 10, 2003 at 1:36 am

    Insane.

  4. 4.

    scott h.

    October 10, 2003 at 1:51 am

    Another argument for vouchers…

  5. 5.

    David Perron

    October 10, 2003 at 9:48 am

    I actually know the (recently) former chairman of the board of trustees of Hillsdale; the man doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. “Know”, in this case, means I used to hang out with his daughter a lot in high school and during college break, but haven’t seen the guy in a decade or so.

  6. 6.

    David Perron

    October 10, 2003 at 9:49 am

    Whoops, wrong thread.

  7. 7.

    Kimmitt

    October 10, 2003 at 4:43 pm

    Another argument for vouchers…

    Er, these policies are put into place at the direct request of parents, who demand them or threaten suit. Why would vouchers be relevant, unless what you’re implying is that the insane parents would self-select for schools with zero-tolerance and would not demand that good schools without zero-tolerance change their policies when they switch over.

  8. 8.

    SDN

    October 11, 2003 at 7:47 am

    Kimmitt:

    The simple reason is that voucher money is used to pay for private schools. One of the clauses in every private school I’ve ever seen says that you will agree with how we enforce our rules or leave. The Idiotarian parents might be able to try to sue, but if they get a judge who believes in contracts they’ll probably lose.

  9. 9.

    M. Scott Eiland

    October 11, 2003 at 1:00 pm

    I have a standing proposed remedy for school administrators who do this sort of thing–sue them until they have no assets left but their blood–which they can sell to avoid starvation. Sooner or later, they’ll learn.

  10. 10.

    Alan E Brain

    October 13, 2003 at 8:58 am

    I thought I’d fact-check, so wrote an e-mail to the principal. Here’s his reply (he gave me permission to quote him):

    • No student was ever in any life-threatening situation. Student confidentiality does not permit us to be specific but it has already been reported in a Houston paper that the student in question went to the
      clinic for a minor headache. During both incidents, three clinic personnel were
      present including a registered nurse.
    • No student was ever expelled. We had a mandatory expulsion hearing
      where we could finally use discretion. Our decision is that while the student’s
      actions could have been harmful, it does not merit expulsion. So why was it portrayed as an expulsion? State law requires an automatic expulsion hearing when dangerous drugs are involved.
    • No student is “in jail”. The police are forced by mandatory
      requirements to send the case to the juvenile system but they did not accept the case based on our expulsion hearing.

    Is this much ado about nothing? No. It is sad that our nurses and police
    do not have more discretion without violating the law. Where is the common
    sense?

    Our answer is that common sense did prevail. It just did not happen with internet-like speed. The system is set up to err on the side of caution
    when drugs are involved. It is also sad that many have labeled our school because of erroneous information.

  11. 11.

    physics geek

    October 15, 2003 at 9:01 am

    There’s an update to this story at http://www.click2houston.com/news/2547143/detail.html

    The student is being expelled, but no criminal charges are being pressed. And my wife wonders why I don’t want to send our children to public school.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. Modulator says:
    October 9, 2003 at 10:04 pm

    Zero Tolerance

    When it is applied to bad things like murder it is ok. We should not tolerate murder. When it is used to eliminate applying intelligence to the evaluation of a situation it is bad and here is a an example of the bad. For more examples Balloon Juice poi…

  2. One Fine Jay says:
    October 9, 2003 at 10:34 pm

    Tonight’s Quick Quartet

    I’ll be posting the Quick Quartet, hopefully every night that I am actually home and not getting drunk over at non-blogging buddies’ houses. Just some late-evening linkage before I go to bed. Deal? Just four. Makes choosing even harder.
    Zero tol…

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