Comments on: “Third-grader gets week’s detention for possessing a Jolly Rancher”

By: Bumper

Bumper — Thu, 13 May 2010 04:30:32 +0000

ABE21,

Maybe Richard does or does not know, but I do.

Zero tolerance had it’s origin in race. It had been determined that the same idiots that gave us the Jolly Rancher debacle that minority students were being punished more harshly than their white, yellow and brown bothers-in-arms. Of course little consideration was given to the fact that some misbehaving is tad more onerous than others or that the punishment should fit the crime. So to level the playing field ZT was invented and all common sense was stripped from the process. Some administrators loved it, no thinking, all crimes are equal, go do your time. Other administrators chafed at loss of common sense and were often replaced by those less inclined to question the higher and reputedly fairer authority. Some states realized what a failure ZT was and changed/relaxed the laws back to include common sense. Texas, the home of the Jolly Rancher scandal, is one of those states, but old habits die hard. The damage done may never be undone. To some, what has been seen cannot be unseen, let’s hope ZT is not one of those.

By: Bob Lipton

Bob Lipton — Wed, 12 May 2010 23:58:34 +0000

And those who can’t teach administer.

Bob

By: Jim Collins

Jim Collins — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:26:38 +0000

Richard,
While I agree 100% with your statement, if we tested for reasonable judgement, we would soon be out of teachers and administrators. Remember. Those who can do. Those who can’t teach. No insult intended to Ted and Walter. There are a few exceptions.

By: Richard Nieporent

Richard Nieporent — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:55:37 +0000

Bill Alexander, you are correct. That is exactly what I meant. If a school administrator is incapable of exercising reasonable judgment and using some common sense he/she should not be in charge of a school.

By: Bill Alexander

Bill Alexander — Wed, 12 May 2010 02:21:02 +0000

I believe Richard means that a zero tolerance policy on weapons has been interpreted to mean butter knives and holding your hand like a pistol.

By: Aidan Cole

Aidan Cole — Wed, 12 May 2010 02:08:04 +0000

I’m sure FOX will continue to provide us with Fair And Balanced coverage of the events, and maybe even what flavor Jolly Rancher it was.

By: ABE21

ABE21 — Tue, 11 May 2010 23:52:31 +0000

For richard i have one comment, not so much related to the jolly rancher topic but, why would u say that its bad enough when a school has a zero tolerance policy on weapons? Do u even know what that means?

By: George Lund

George Lund — Tue, 11 May 2010 20:25:33 +0000

This article claims that the school district bans candy because it creates messes that they don't want to clean up: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/6995782.html. Of course they muddy the waters by also saying that candy does not meet the required nutritional guidelines, so it not clear if one or both reasons are why they don't allow candy at school. The article in the Huston Chronicle has a dateline of a day after the KHOU article, so it might be spin after the school district started looking bad. Could also be that KHOU and the mother spun it to make the school district look at bad as possible for their own reasons (ratings and moral high ground respectively). The level of punishment seems mind-boggling though. Unless these two girls are repeat offenders, this is a major overreaction regardless of the reason for the policy.

By: panthan

panthan — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:30:26 +0000

Richard,

I followed the link that gave me this:

“The Texas Public School Nutrition Policy (TPSNP) explicitly states that it does not restrict what foods or beverages parents may provide for their own children’s consumption. ” (emphasis mine). The formal policy allows for schools to adopt more restrictive rules, but not less.

I’m sure you’re correct, and it’s nice that the Texas Dept of Agriculture promptly came out with their statement. This should lead to a relaxation of the rules. But I didn’t see anything in the policy as stated that would have allowed for “this particular incidence of candy possession” being allowed.

By: Richard Nieporent

Richard Nieporent — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:57:39 +0000

Panthan you are incorrect. If you follow the links in the article you will see that the state does not consider this incident to be a violation of their rules. This was an overreaction by school administrators who are incapable of being able to use common sense.

In a letter to the school system Friday, the Texas Department of Agriculture wrote, “This particular incidence of candy possession as it has been reported by KHOU-TV would not be considered a violation of the state or federal nutrition program and therefore would not have jeopardized your district’s food service funding.”

http://www.khou.com/home/State-responds-to-Jolly-Rancher-incident-93171189.html