yea but a knife used to cut my steak its a utensil not a weapon. yes its a word game but its still there.

the point is zero tolerance is stupid because it removes all common sense. you can just say this is the law no exceptions ... it doesnt work. theres always exceptions to every rule

and they damn well should take at least 30 seconds to find out why a kid brought a knife in. and so the kid lies ... you take the knife, explain he cant do it and that if he does again what will happen. next time you throw the book at him. at 6 its awefully hard to expect a child to fully understand these things.

a kid who's bringing a knife to school to hurt someone isnt going to be stopped by a 5 day suspension ... and 45 days in alt ed. i know plenty of kids who got sent to alt ed and within a week of being back got sent again for the same thing. if a kids bringing a knife to hurt someone he'sgoing to keep bringing it till he gets the job done or he gets expelled permanently. so should we permanently expel every kid on his first offence? harsh no?