Following a bullying episode at a rural Alberta junior high school, staff created a zero-tolerance policy (of automatic suspensions or expulsions) toward future incidents. Administrators should be proactive in dealing with student violence, use a multifaceted approach, form an advisory program, consider group dynamics, refrain from…

In 1995, Texas adopted the Safe Schools Act, designed to allow disruptive students' removal from class, while ensuring a safety net for students who otherwise might evolve into undereducated criminals. Participating staff report successes with individual students who function better in the disciplined environment of an alternative educational…

The 11th Circuit Court upheld a Georgia district's termination of an exemplary teacher who refused an immediate drug test after a police dog sniffed out a marijuana cigarette in her unlocked car. This case illustrates application of zero-tolerance policies to teachers and other personnel despite employees' signed contracts. (MLH)

Educators face the dilemma of zero tolerance versus zero rejection. The pressure to maintain safe classrooms while simultaneously educating all students is a challenging proposition. This article is used to share data that were collected as part of a larger study on teachers' beliefs about their own self-efficacy regarding general classroom…

The 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act (GFSA) requires a minimum one-year expulsion for students who bring firearms to school. Although GFSA is not a zero-tolerance law, many school policies enacted in response to GFSA are often referred to as "zero tolerance." Zero tolerance generally is defined as a school district policy that mandates predetermined…

In this article, the author discusses the effects of zero-tolerance policies in schools and depicts how the policies no longer make schools safe, even though many educators see them as the backbone of school discipline. A 2000 study by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) confirms that stringent zero-tolerance policies, though…

The implementation of zero tolerance policies raises important questions. In this article we explore how zero tolerance policies are interpreted, implemented, and enforced differently in urban, rural, and suburban districts, and how this results in unequal numbers of expulsions and suspensions. Using a policy analysis framework, we explored how…

The authors observe that students in school who exhibit challenging behaviours are given labels such as "severe behaviour," "troubled," or "violent" and that these negative labels have repercussions on students. School administrators also employ zero tolerance policies without addressing the root causes of negative…

Concerns about school safety and disruptive behavior, as well as increasing use of zero tolerance policies, have resulted in escalating rates of exclusionary disciplinary practices (out-of -school suspension and expulsion) in America?s schools. The present study examines suspension rates in Kentucky middle schools (N=161), using both quantitative…

In this article, the author discusses the Student in Good Standing Contract (SGS), a program designed to help the students at Ocean Township High School in Monmouth County, New Jersey renew themselves, rebuild their self-confidence, and commit to learning. Once a student is identified as violating the school disciplinary policy and is suspended…

The purpose of this article is to analyze and explore the various uses of zero-tolerance among youth in the United States. The authors illustrate the origin, goals, problems, and perceptions associated with this "crime-control measure" among youth within educational settings.

This document summarizes the findings of a series of three briefing papers that were produced via the collaboration of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy and the Indiana Youth Services Association in an effort to create a dialogue between the education and juvenile justice communities on effective methods of school discipline: (1)…

This brief examines the effects of media coverage of school violence on school violence. The news media take notice precisely because shootings in a school are unusual. The media did not take much notice of shootings in the 1980s and 1990s in inner city communities because these infractions were not judged to be anomalies; they did not measure up…

Discusses problems with the zero tolerance policy and exclusionary discipline in schools, describing how one Kentucky school district formed a continuum of services to support students with behavioral problems, using exclusionary models as a last resort. Students are taught the skills they need to solve their problems and get along with others…

School officials should adopt no-tolerance policies that require educators' discretion in punishing misbehaving students (based on due process and fundamental fairness), rather than relying on the zero-tolerance approach, which fails to differentiate among different levels of offenses. Even disruptive students deserve due process and appropriate…