School policies on weapons and drugs have reached absurdity

Every few weeks comes a tale from one school or another so unbelievably stupid that it makes one shudder with disbelief at the lack of judgment in the administration of the American education system.

We should collectively ask whether the people we designate to teach and look after our children most of their daylight hours have ever been tested for common sense. The answer would be obvious.

What in the world am I talking about? Well, it is called zero tolerance, and it treats every incident — no matter how innocent or incidental or actually threatening — the same. It is as if the Queen of Hearts has taken over the school and is constantly shouting, "Off with their heads!"

The latest example of this disreputable policy instituted in a number of school districts around the nation to prevent such actual incidents of chaos as the Columbine High School tragedy is so pathetic that it utterly discredits the practice by doing more harm than the damage it is designed to avoid. It would be almost laughable if it weren't so tragically flawed.

Until a public outcry forced his school board to back down, a 6-year-old boy in Delaware faced 45 days in reform school because he had the temerity to bring his new Cub Scout all-in-one knife, fork and spoon rig to school so he could eat lunch with it. He was so anxious to be a Cub, he just had to try it out. It might as well have been a lethal switchblade or a hatchet under zero tolerance and in the eyes of those "educators" who administer it. The boy's age and intentions were irrelevant.

The young man was forced to appear with two adults who could testify to his character during a hearing on his appeal to be forgiven. The mental giants, presumably including his principal, were told, among other things, that he was so fond of school he insisted at times on wearing a coat and tie, obviously making him a person of interest to the same kind of authorities who the Supreme Court recently decided had violated the constitutional rights of a seventh-grade girl when they strip-searched her over ibuprofen pills under a similar policy. She didn't have any pills.

According to news accounts, some in Delaware think that officials should have case-by-case discretion in applying the law, and a bill was introduced in the state legislature to accomplish that. But apparently, it was too radical an idea. The incident that prompted the proposal involved a third-grade girl whose grandmother had baked a birthday cake for the girl's class and unthinkingly sent a knife along to cut it. The teacher called the principal to report the girl but not until after the teacher used the knife to cut the cake. Now that is really being practical. One wonders if she got a raise for such ingenuity.