Delware School Board Uses Common Sense

Hi Everyone:

By now I'm pretty sure you have all heard about the Delaware first grader who brought his favorite camping utensil to school; to eat his lunch with. The utensil contained a folding knife, fork and spoon. To make a long story short, he got into a whole lot of trouble. He faced 45 days of suspension from his regular school and to instead attend 45 days in an alternative school for troublemakers as punishment.

The Christina School District has 17,000 students, which includes parts of the city of Wilmington and its suburbs. Due to what has previously happened in schools, it was no wonder that a zero-tolerance took hold and that there was no deviation allowed from the punishments handed out. Last year, a fifth grader in the Christina School District, was ordered expelled after she brought a birthday cake and a serrated knife to cut it with.

Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and the expulsion was overturned and that led to a new state law that gave school districts more flexibility on punishments. Unfortunately, the new law only applied to expulsions and not to suspensions. So the same school board now faced a vote on whether to instead suspend the first grader.

The seven member Christina School Board, using some good old common sense, voted unanimously to reduce the punishment for kindergartners and first graders who take weapons to school to a suspension ranging from three to five days. The first grader would be allowed back in school asap.

I really hope for just three things:

1) That each case is individually looked at and not just rubber stamped with "the" punishment.
2) That common sense is part of the equation.
3) That more school districts adopt a similar policy.

Common sense rules.

Til next week.