Zero Tolerance

The Sun's recent coverage of zero-tolerance school suspensions has exposed a shameful double standard in our community. I have taught in Baltimore City Public Schools for nine years, and our students face similar suspensions when they bring dangerous things to school. But neither Liz Bowie nor The Sun's editors have come to their defense. So what's the difference between the children The Sun defends and the ones it ignores? Race and wealth. Middle-class white students are portrayed as innocent victims and receive sympathy and public support.

State troopers on Friday will begin a new enforcement effort targeting truckers and other commercial vehicle drivers who illegally park along Interstate 83 in Baltimore County, according to the Maryland State Police. The practice, which has increased in recent years, creates "extremely dangerous conditions" for other drivers on the road, police said. Troopers will be enforcing the new "zero tolerance" policy by issuing a citation to any commercial driver parked on the highway's shoulders for a non-emergency reason, police said.

With the country fighting armed conflict overseas, the economy still foundering and national unemployment hovering near 10 percent, one would think candidates for public office in Maryland and elsewhere would have more substantive issues to discuss than the trumped-up controversy of whether an Islamic center and mosque should be built two blocks from Ground Zero. Yet state Sen. Andy Harris, a Republican candidate in Maryland's First Congressional District, chose to release a written statement this week attacking the project as "blatantly disrespectful" and that Ground Zero would no longer be a place where the events of Sept.

The Baltimore County school board voted Tuesday night to get rid of a zero-tolerance approach to discipline and replace it with a policy that will give principals more discretion in deciding how to handle serious offenses. The county has one of the highest suspension rates in the state, and school leaders hope to reduce the number of times a student is sent home from school for minor infractions. The new policy will also give school leaders more discretion in cases where principals have no choice about what punishment to give a student.

I am writing in response to the article "School's zero-tolerance policies criticized" (May 19). As a high school student, I feel that students are being punished too harshly for small infractions. I think it is ridiculous that a student gets suspended for carrying something to protect herself while walking back and forth to school. I agree that schools have an obligation to create a safe and orderly environment, but this student did not even use the spray in school. I don't think it is fair that this girl may be charged criminally for not even hurting anyone.

Lyndsay Benefiel's mother gave her pepper spray for protection during her long walk to Severna Park High School. But after she was turned in last week by a former friend for having it on school property, the 16-year-old was suspended, is being referred to juvenile authorities and could be charged with possession of a weapon on school property. Her suspension and a case involving two Talbot County lacrosse players last month have focused attention on the zero-tolerance policies enforced by some school systems in Maryland.

Talbot County residents are no doubt sleeping easier after the school system used a policy of zero tolerance for deadly weapons to crack down on two high school lacrosse players who were caught with a small penknife and a lighter used to repair their sticks. However, we feel it important to warn them that they still may not be safe. After all, we hear that the baseball and softball players bring dozens of long, aluminum clubs with them to games and practices. For that matter, children as young as kindergarten routinely carry sharp, wooden sticks, and there are even special machines in virtually every classroom to hone these "pencils" to murderous points.

I don't know where Harry Calloway is these days. But five summers ago, when I first met him, Harry was a recovering heroin user/dealer trying to do the right thing. He'd pulled out of the drug scene that had nearly cost him his life — he'd survived nine bullets to the face and body as he walked out of a late-night club in 1998 — and he had enrolled in a culinary training class by day and college courses by night. Then came ArrestFest, and Harry ended up back in jail.

Former President George Bush sent an unmistakable message to the zealots at the National Rifle Association when he resigned his membership in protest over its description of federal agents as "jackbooted thugs" who harass and kill innocent citizens.Mr. Bush, a gun owner and avid hunter, said that while he agreed with many of the NRA's aims, he could not stomach the "vicious slander" of federal officials that is becoming a staple of the group's extremist rhetoric.The description of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms officials as Nazis and criminals was contained in a fund-raising letter sent by NRA executive director Wayne LaPierre to the group's 3.5 million members.

State school board members still don't know her name, but a Dorchester County girl who was denied access to an education for a year is the pivotal figure in their push to abandon long-held zero-tolerance discipline policies across Maryland. The 15-year-old's suspension for fighting drew little attention at the time. But it so angered board members that they launched a statewide review of discipline policies. This month, the board is expected to propose regulations that would keep students, even those with behavior problems, in school as much as possible.

Concerned about the high numbers of student suspensions, state school board members are proposing an overhaul of discipline codes that would move away from zero-tolerance policies. School board President James H. DeGraffenreidt Jr. said Tuesday that the board will propose a series of regulations next month that will require school districts to form a plan to reduce nonviolent offenses in the next three years as well as the number of suspensions of special education and minority students.

At City Springs Elementary and Middle School in Baltimore, where 99 percent of students are from families with incomes below the poverty line, there were 86 student suspensions in 2008-09. In 2009-10, there were only 10 suspensions. Twenty students at City Springs were suspended for fighting in 2008-09 and 16 more for insubordination. A year later, only two were suspended for fighting and none for insubordination. In that same year, the number of City Springs students functioning at grade level tripled.

I am writing in response to the article "School's zero-tolerance policies criticized" (May 19). As a high school student, I feel that students are being punished too harshly for small infractions. I think it is ridiculous that a student gets suspended for carrying something to protect herself while walking back and forth to school. I agree that schools have an obligation to create a safe and orderly environment, but this student did not even use the spray in school. I don't think it is fair that this girl may be charged criminally for not even hurting anyone.

The Sun's recent coverage of zero-tolerance school suspensions has exposed a shameful double standard in our community. I have taught in Baltimore City Public Schools for nine years, and our students face similar suspensions when they bring dangerous things to school. But neither Liz Bowie nor The Sun's editors have come to their defense. So what's the difference between the children The Sun defends and the ones it ignores? Race and wealth. Middle-class white students are portrayed as innocent victims and receive sympathy and public support.

In response to "Schools' zero-tolerance policies criticized," as an educator for more than 20 years I know that schools are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Had someone been hurt by the mace in Severna Park High School student Lyndsay Benefiel's bookbag, we would have questioned why she was allowed to have it in school. Same goes with the lighter and the knife in the lacrosse players' bags in Easton. Schools have rules for a reason, and it may have a little something to do with our litigious society.

Lyndsay Benefiel's mother gave her pepper spray for protection during her long walk to Severna Park High School. But after she was turned in last week by a former friend for having it on school property, the 16-year-old was suspended, is being referred to juvenile authorities and could be charged with possession of a weapon on school property. Her suspension and a case involving two Talbot County lacrosse players last month have focused attention on the zero-tolerance policies enforced by some school systems in Maryland.

The unbelievable turn of events pertaining to the Sun's editorial "Zero tolerance? Zero common sense" (May 10) is something so Kafkaesque that one would never believe it could happen in the good old U.S. of A. Franz Kafka's "The Trail" is a chilling portrayal of society that has gone totally amok and parallels the ridiculousness of Talbot County's school system findings that weapons of mass destruction are inclusive of a cigarette lighter and...