Zero Tolerance case study
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Grand Canyon University *
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505
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Philosophy
Date
Feb 20, 2024
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docx
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Uploaded by hudnalldanielle
Zero Tolerance Case Study
This case involves Becky Skutter at Rancho Elementary school. For a history project in Ms. Idleman’s class about the history of their town Becky ended up bringing in an old pistol that her dad had found that was tied to the town’s history. The Carterville Unified School District has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to students having weapons at school. Ms. Idleman took the pistol from Becky, after it was returned to the bag, and held it for the rest of the day without notifying anyone that the incident had even occurred in her classroom. At the end of the day Ms. Idleman returned the pistol to Becky and told her that it needed to go back to her father. A parent
from the class contacted administration the next day to report that the weapon had been brought to school and that she wants some sort of disciplinary action to be taken against Becky. In addition to wanting disciplinary action to be taken against the student she will be reaching out the district leaders, newspapers, as well as other parents in the class to see what their students’ experiences were with the situation. The issues that need to be resolved in this case is that the school district has a zero-tolerance policy for weapons being brought to school and a student brought a weapon to Rancho Elementary. The stakeholders who are going to be involved with this case are all of the parents (parents of students in the class and Becky’s’ parents), all of the students (mostly Becky), all of the staff (most of all Ms. Idleman), and administrators at Rancho Elementary as well as district level officials. In Florida Statute S.1006.13(3), F.S. requires expulsion for a student who brings a firearm to school or makes certain threats/ false reports. Also, in the Brevard County Schools Student Code of Conduct it states the Florida statute and says that the student should be expelled, with or without continuing educational services, from the student’s regular school for a period of not less
than one full calendar year, and that the student shall be referred to mental health services identified by the District and to the criminal justice or juvenile justice system. When thinking of this case the situation would fall under this statute because it does not state that the student must have the weapon in use or intend to harm others with the weapon they just must be in position of the weapon. I think that there could be a couple different solutions to this issue. 1) Talk with all parties involved and let Becky know the severity of her actions. 2) Since the policy is a new district policy be sure that the family is aware of the new zero tolerance policy and let them know that moving forward there will be no exceptions to this rule. 4) Adhere to the districts zero-
tolerance policy and expel Becky from the school. After thinking about this case, I feel that I would choose option 4 to resolve this case. The school district has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to students having weapons on campus. I know that this student did not have any ill intentions with bringing the weapon to school, but zero-tolerance means just that no exceptions to the rule. In order to implement my solution, I would first notify the proper district level officials to let them know of the situation that had occurred in our school as soon as I was done speaking with the parent who voiced their concern. Once district level officials were notified, I would call Becky’s parents and let them know that I need them to come down to the school so that we could have a meeting about an incident that occurred. Now that parents have been asked to come down to the school and district officials have been notified, I would find someone to go down to Ms. Idlemans classroom and cover her
room so that I could then have a conversation with Ms. Idleman as to what happened on the day that the incident occurred and find out why she did not report the incident to any administrators. I
would idly be able to have this all done within a couple hours of finding out that this incident had
occurred. As soon as the parents arrive at the school, I would want to make sure that they are aware of the incident as well as the school districts zero-tolerance policy on weapons at school. Now that I have had the chance to have this conversation with the parents and explain that the consequences for a weapon at school is that the student is expelled from school, I would have Becky come down and explain the whole situation with her. It is important to make sure that Becky understands that even though she did not intend to use the weapon at school to hurt anyone it is still illegal to bring a firearm onto a school campus and if the weapon had somehow made its way into another student’s hands things could have gotten bad and someone could have ended up accidently hurt. I know that this conversation will be difficult but I will make sure to give the parents options as to places that Becky can go in order to continue her education while she is expelled from our school. This case is a hard situation because Becky does not have any intent whatsoever to hurt anyone, she simply brough the weapon to school to show as part of her history project for class. If this situation was not treated seriously and it was just written off as, oh she is a good kid who had no ill intent, that leaves the door open for other students to then do the same and it makes for
a very unsafe school. As school leaders we will be faced with hard decisions to make every day and we may not always like the outcome of these decisions, but we have a responsibility to uphold district and state policy to protect those that we serve. Morally I think that this solution would be hard on me as a principal because like I said Becky seems like she is a good kid who just made a choice without thinking it all way through and now she will be out of her school and away from her friends and teachers. However, if I went with any other solution there would be a whole different legal issue to think about because I would not be adhering to the district policy, or if we were in Florida, the state policy.
In adhering to the districts zero-tolerance policy on weapons in this case I am showing parents,
students, staff, and district leaders that I am committed to keeping everyone at Rancho Elementary safe from any and all harm that could come due to a weapon being on campus. It is important to make sure that all students and staff feel safe in school so that they are able to have the best chance at academic success. Since some of the students did not feel safe due to a gun being in their classroom, no matter what the reason was, the situation needed to be resolved in a way that the students did not need to have that obstacle of feeling unsafe at school on their minds
and worry about the student bringing another weapon to school with another project. This case showed that the weapon was not intended to hurt other students but kids are curious and all it takes is one student finding out that another has a weapon, taking it from the student, and someone could end up very badly hurt.
References Brevard public schools policy manual
. (2023, October 10). Retrieved November 8, 2023, from
https://go.boarddocs.com/fl/brevco/Board.nsf/Public#
Hanson, K. L. (2009).
A casebook for school leaders: linking the ISLLC standards to effective practice.
3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J., Pearson/Merrill/Prentice Hall.
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