My first encounter with Fairfax County’s “zero tolerance” policy happened several years ago when my son’s high school English teacher tried to pull a fast one. Three weeks before graduation, she suddenly informed me that even though he went to class, was not disruptive, did the work and passed the tests, he would not be passing this core subject. She wanted to punish him for sauntering into her first-period classroom a few minutes late by preventing him from graduating with his class.
Although I readily agreed that students should be on time, the punishment was way out of proportion to the offense. Furthermore, the school rule she cited was directed at chronic truants, not seniors with an attitude problem. I was angry that she wouldn’t make that distinction.
But I was absolutely furious I hadn’t been informed earlier — when there was still time to fix the problem. After an extremely adversarial meeting at which the school counselor and the department chairman both defended the teacher’s failure to notify me, I fired off a scorching letter to the principal — and the matter was quietly dropped.
Educators must be able to maintain discipline, but too many are ignorant of the primary meaning of the word, which comes from the Latin verb discere, “To learn.” More than mere punishment, discipline lies at the heart of a true education because it teaches youngsters valuable life lessons. But parents must be involved in the process from the start.
That still doesn’t happen in Fairfax County Public Schools. In fact, taxpayer-financed lobbyists for the school system even helped kill a parental notification bill sponsored by Del. Kaye Kory, D-Falls Church, that would have required educators to notify parents whenever their children were in danger of being suspended, expelled or criminally charged for breaking school rules.
Kory’s bill, which was supported by the Family Foundation, passed unanimously in the House of Delegates, but died in a 28-12 vote on the Senate floor, thanks to a coordinated lobbying campaign led by the Virginia Education Association and the Virginia School Board Association.
The VSBA’s “Legislative Alert” expressed fears that parents would “interfere with investigations of student misconduct and … challenge disciplinary decisions on the grounds that the notice … was not given early enough.”
Heaven forbid that parents question decisions that will directly affect their children’s future!
“My bill said that if it was serious enough to go on a student’s record, they should call the parents,” Kory told The Washington Examiner. “I thought this bill would codify what schools were already doing. But I was surprised and disappointed because none of the educators opposing the bill said it wasn’t needed because this is something they already do.”
Under current state law, parents must only be notified if their children are about to recommended for suspension or expulsion. By that time, the teaching opportunity is long gone. Nevertheless, three state senators from Northern Virginia — Chuck Colgan, D-Manassas, David Marsden, D-Burke, and Toddy Puller, D-Mount Vernon — voted against Kory’s bill.
“I was infuriated that so many people who work for the school system say they don’t have any discretion or flexibility when discretion and flexibility is specifically built into the Virginia Code,” Kory added.
And substituting rigidity for discretion, flexibility and common sense is counterproductive for schools in the long run. “There would be less disciplinary hearings and appeals if parents were involved early on,” the veteran Fairfax School Board member pointed out.
What we really need is zero tolerance for policies that needlessly ruin children’s lives and turn public schools into penal institutions by deliberately keeping their parents in the dark.
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Examiner’s local opinion editor.
