“Kyle Heidmann,” droned the aging English teacher, “how many times have I had to tell you to put your book down and listen to me when I am speaking?” She kept up her bleating with claustrophobic closeness, so close he could smell the coffee on her breath. He rolled his eyes, which only made her madder, even as he completely tuned her out.
“You know you can always go back to teaching, something I thought was your job.” he interjected.
“You shut your mouth or I will send you to the office. If I see that book open one more time it’ll be the same deal. Understood?” Her beady brown eyes simmered in their sockets, surrounded by
“Okay, fine, whatever” he muttered, reluctantly putting his copy of Fountainhead in his backpack. Ordinarily he would’ve gladly accepted a trip to the principal’s office, but they were giving stiffer punishments than detention for insubordination now.
With that in mind, he decided to do exactly as the teacher instructed, giving her his full, undivided attention, and pointedly making eye contact whenever possible. The seconds crawled as he watched the pompous blowhard talk about a chapter in Macbeth, which he had already breezed through. He stewed about how much he hated school until finally, mercifully, the bell rang and class was dismissed.
Two periods later and an hour after he had practically memory holed the whole exchange, James heard the school intercom call him down to the office. As he walked down to meet his best friend, the principal, he found himself confused as to why he was getting in trouble again. He gave a knowing nod to the front desk secretary before sitting down in one of those red, hard as a rock office chairs while waiting to be called in.
“Heidmann,” boomed the principal’s voice after a moment, “get in here.” That was his cue, so he went in, took his seat in front of the dark brown, polished principal’s desk, and flashed a confident smile. He gave no weight to the sour face of the man on the other side of the desk, Mr. Vickers, as it was quite familiar to him. The older man pointed at Kyle for a moment, letting his finger hang in the air as if signaling to an invisible crowd that this was the man who fit some unspeakable crime that they were ready to pounce on him for.
“Kyle,” said Vickers, “you’ve really pushed us this semester. I can’t even count the number of times we’ve brought you down here for insubordination, or swearing in class, or disruptive behavior.” He pointed again. “But this time you’ve outdone yourself.”
Vickers grabbed a piece of paper on the desk, looked down at it, and said “Can you explain to me why exactly you were staring menacingly at your English teacher?”
Kyle was at a loss. He would’ve laughed if this wasn’t so incredibly pathetic and petty.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Vickers prodded.
“Yeah, I think the circus is hiring for new clowns.” He wondered how long they would waste his time with this before he could resume his compulsory education.
Vickers sighed, rubbing his bald head and looking away, before saying “You’re going to be suspended from school pending expulsion. I’ll call your father and tell him to pick you up.”
Kyle’s jaw dropped. “What? Excuse me?” But Vickers was already ignoring him, picking up the phone and dialing the number. What happened next was a bit of a blur in Kyle’s mind, but he distinctly recalled screaming a number of swears in Vickers face and being led out by the school security guard.
As he sat outside the school and waited for his dad to come get him, he thought ‘This is not the last they’re going to hear from me.’
---
“What do you mean I have no case?” asked Monique Scott. “That teacher slapped my baby on the back of the head with a ruler for sleeping in class and suspended him for two days, and you’re telling me I can’t sue? How many white people get treated the same way?” Her eyes fluttered in anger as she listened to the lawyer lecture her over the phone.
“I apologize Mrs. Scott, but unless you can prove that your son was targeted because of his race, I can’t even file a case on your behalf. Under the new laws passed by Congress, teachers are shielded from liability as long as they’re performing their duties as a schoolteacher. I’m afraid I have to go.”
Monique stared at the phone in furious shock, mouth agape, before slamming the phone back into place, sinking into helplessness.
---
Fifteen year old Grady wiped the snot off his nose and tried to control his frantic breathing through the suppressed sobs. ‘I guess this is it then,’ he thought to himself. ‘My life is over.’ He stared at the cold steel in his hands. Six shots, but he only needed one.
He had considered writing a note, telling his parents that he was sorry for disappointing them, that he wished he could go back and stop himself from making that one, silly mistake in school that got him expelled. It was such a juvenile thing to do that he couldn’t understand why he did it, but for whatever reason he had decided during lunchtime to launch his peas with his spoon. He even remembered laughing, something he felt appalled at now. In an example of exemplary poor timing, the vice principal had seen him just as they were passing through. One dressing down later and here he was, a pathetic, helpless wretch.
Now he’d never graduate, never go to college, get a job, have a real life. He was effectively dead already. Reminding himself of this fact as he worked up the nerve, he pressed the gun to his temple…
---
MILLIONS OF SUSPENSIONS, EXPULSIONS, AS EDUCATORS CRACK DOWN[1]
With the United States still reeling from the effects of the Columbine massacre, educators have taken a hard line on school discipline in an effort to be proactive in the event a would be killer is lurking in their midst. In some schools this has led to an uptick in punishments over underage drinking, bullying, and weapons being brought into school, with the result that policy makers have hailed the crackdown as a success. However, as disciplinary statistics for the school year have blown past previous academic years, many students and teachers have been left wondering if policy changes have been overkill.
While many students have been disciplined over serious misconduct, a large and growing number have been punished over minor infractions that in previous years would have been considered unremarkable. Students nationwide have been handed suspensions and expulsions over utensils such as butter knives[2], harsh language, loitering, bringing in prescription drugs such as aspirin[3], poor attendance, and a litany of other offenses. A student in Springfield, Virginia, was expelled after allegedly glaring at his teacher as a form of intimidation. One student blowing plastic projectiles as a prank was expelled, with officials accusing him of creating a weapon[4]. Another student was expelled in Manteo, North Carolina, after being tackled by school security following a prank with a cucumber wrapped in tinfoil being mistaken for a concealed weapon. Creative writing projects have also drawn scrutiny, as an honor student in Wichita found out after they were suspended for writing a poem from the point of view of a madman[5].
Many hundreds of students continue to face stigma, suspension, and expulsion, partly thanks to new dress codes implemented and enforced in many schools, which ban all black clothing. “I think it’s abusive almost,” says Carmen Lucia, “I should be able to dress how I want without teachers or principals breathing down my neck.” Students like Lucia who are part of underground subcultures, such as “goths”, have faced persistent discrimination by fearful staff and students. One school in New Hampshire even went so far as to ban Marilyn Manson T-Shirts explicitly[6].
But it is not only students who are active in subcultures that have been targeted. Minority students, such as African-Americans, and special needs students have faced disproportionate punishment for perceived misconduct. The Juvenile Offender Act of 1999 holds that special needs children can be expelled or suspended on the same basis as normal children, but only for bringing weapons to school. Despite this, many schools have disciplined special needs children to an excessive degree.
“My son was spanked in the middle of class for talking over the teacher, even though he’s diagnosed with ADHD” said Sandra Brown, whose nine year old son is enrolled at Folkston Elementary School, GA. “When he had a meltdown over this the school decided to expel him.” Folkston Elementary declined to comment for this article.
-ABC News, January 9th, 2000
The inclusion of federal liability protection for teachers in the Juvenile Offenders Act of 1999 combined with the mass adoption of zero tolerance policies proved a toxic combination, as schools felt they could now operate with impunity. In the five years after Columbine, over a million students would be the victims of expulsion for non violent offenses and an estimated ten million more suspended with no legal recourse to challenge the outcomes. But an often overlooked aspect of school disciplinary procedures would be the usage of corporal punishment.
To this day, school corporal punishment is still legal in 24 states[7] in the union, with one state, Oregon, being the only state to reintroduce it after previously banning it[8]. Officially, up to 200,000 children are spanked a year by teachers in the US[9]. But the numbers obscure an even darker reality, and unofficially the tally is higher, with even states that have outlawed school corporal punishment seeing some cases go unprosecuted.
In one such case that went viral in March of 2016, a teacher in the Syracuse City School District was filmed forcing a twelve year old out of a chair after they refused to go to the principal’s office before spanking and verbally assaulting them. While the teacher was ultimately fired, no charges were filed. Despite having outlawed corporal punishment in public schools since 1985, as many as 8,000 cases of corporal punishment occurring in the New York school system were substantiated[10].
Nor is adulthood a shield from such conduct, as one 18 year old in Texas discovered. The young adult was beaten heavily enough to require a hospital visit, but the school avoided all liability[11].
-The Guardian, Why are children still spanked in school? August 13th, 2019
In a twisted example of cultural diffusion, schools in other countries that did not have the same issues with school violence as the United States would also adopt their own zero tolerance policies, and were quick to enforce them.
In a manner similar to practices in the United States, schools in Canada, the UK, and Australia would ratchet up suspensions and expulsions for behavior previously considered unremarkable. Suspensions and expulsions would reach such a degree of severity in the Canadian school system that the country’s Human Rights Commission condemned the practice. In the UK, children would be subject to harsh discipline modeled after some of the country’s strictest schools, which featured punishment for not thanking teachers[12], or talking out of turn, and include practices such as forcing children into isolation booths[13].
Movements against these imported policies would grow with time…
-The Guardian, How Zero Tolerance went Global, March 17th, 2017
[1] For those who think this might be an excessive number, three million kids were suspended and a hundred thousand were expelled in 2021:
https://theconversation.com/million...oesnt-address-the-root-of-the-behavior-164539
[2]
https://www.wlwt.com/article/ohio-school-suspends-1st-grader-for-having-plastic-knife/2502078 https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-school-suspends-girl-for-bringing-butter-knife-to-lunch https://www.foxnews.com/us/massachusetts-13-year-old-suspended-for-bringing-butter-knife-to-school
[3]
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases...-school-student-expelled-taking-pain-reliever https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1991-03-12-1991071118-story.html
[4]
https://archive.is/u0lRu
[5]
https://extras.denverpost.com/news/col0419e.htm
[6]
https://web.archive.org/web/2016100...do-tragedy-continues-to-spark-manson-bashing/
[7] As of the time of this writing, 17 states still legally continue the practice. The OTL states that have outlawed post-1999 it have kept it on the books ITTL.
[8] Proposed, but never passed:
https://www.corpun.com/ussc9902.htm
[9] Double the OTL number:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/19/us-children-corporal-punishment-schools
[10] Up from 1,600:
https://archive.is/euz1H
[11]
https://www.myplainview.com/news/article/18-year-old-student-sues-over-paddling-8675429.php
[12]
https://www.theguardian.com/educati...ct-is-too-strick-great-yarmouth-academy-smile
[13]
https://web.archive.org/web/2022071...lation-national-education-union-a8874396.html
