The first example is about a high school boy in Florence, Arizona who saved a picture of an AK-47 on his laptop computer. A teacher noticed it, turned him in to the teacher's superior, and the school suspended the boy for three days. The student said he did not consider the picture a threat to anyone, it did not show anything violent or anybody getting shot, the gun was not pointed at anybody, it was just a picture he found on the internet.
Here's another school event about the policy of zero tolerance. A six-year old girl in Sumter, South Carolina was expelled from kindergarten for bringing a clear plastic gun to class. When the kid arrived at the Alice Drive Elementary School, she took the plastic gun to the teacher for show and tell, and told the teacher what she had. The gun was designed to shoot plastic pellets but was not operational. The teacher notified administrators, who then sent the child home. The superintendent then expelled her from kindergarten. After this story received statewide publicity, the child was allowed to return to school.
Of course, school officials are over-anxious after the terrible killings of children that have been so widely featured on TV news, but what do you think about these examples of zero tolerance? Did the students' actions justify being expelled from school?
Listen to the radio commentary here: