News, Student Arrested After Cutting Food With Knife. (high school, teach, graduated)

[JD59]

10-Year-Old Charged With Possession Of Weapon On School Property

An elementary student in Marion County was arrested Thursday after school officials found her cutting food during lunch with a knife that she brought from home, police said.

The 10-year-old girl, a student at Sunrise Elementary School in Ocala, was charged possession of a weapon on school property, which is a felony.

http://www.local6.com/news/14857286/detail.html (broken link)

[Dave1215]

The danger of zero-tolerance policies. My oldest graduated high school last year and we saw several examples of zero-tolerance gone bad.

Zero-tolerance is great for the administration - they don't have to think or work thru gray areas - they can just point to the "policy". Its an easy copout for the administration.

In several of the zero-tolerance situations we were close to, teachers that were involved generally didn't like them. The teachers wanted to be able to use common sense to manage through the gray situations, but they couldn't buck the administration who want the black/white so they aren't held accountable to common sense - the administration didn't want to have to defend their actions, they wanted to just point to the "policy".

[notjustamom]

I find it very strange that she often brought a knife to school. I know she was using it to cut food, but she still shouldn't have brought the knife to school.

[BrianH]

Nice. I sure am glad that no school I went to had a zero tollerance for stuff that I did. I can guarentee that id be doing a 25 - 35 stretch! She shouldnt have brought a knife but she ten years old