The School District of Philadelphia recently implemented a zero-tolerance policy for students who have violated school rules. Zero tolerance means that for certain offenses, students are automatically punished without an individualized consideration of the specific circumstances of the student’s misconduct.
With a zero-tolerance approach, a student who picked up a broken pencil sharpener off the playground and handed it to his teacher faced severe disciplinary consequences for “possession of a weapon,” even though he had no intention of using the sharpener as a weapon. Not surprisingly, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of Philadelphia students transferred to disciplinary schools or expelled, in many cases for offenses that do not objectively warrant such treatment.
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