When Discipline Goes Overboard

Over spring break, a trespasser installed a series of electrical equipment on my back patio while I was at work.

Nobody overreacted and called the police.  No consequences ensued.

The trespasser was my boyfriend. The electrical equipment was “Prom?” spelled out with Christmas lights.

If my home were a school in today’s world, my boyfriend would have been fined for trespassing and posing a safety risk. Suppose it rained? Those outdoor outlets are tricky pieces of work.

Needless to say, that hooligan would not have been attending prom.

Or at least that would have been the case at’s school (or really any school, for that matter).  The senior was almost banned from prom after he put up cardboard letters on the outside of his high school at 1 a.m. on a Friday to ask a girl to prom.

Tate received an in-school suspension for trespassing and the safety risk involved.  In his Connecticut school district, an in-school suspension after April 1 means no prom.

Though that decision was later reversed, this case is a reflection of how outrageous schools have become.  In a world of crazy parents and lame attempts to keep kids off the streets, schools have become hung up on technicalities.

This occurred in Fairfax County during the (ongoing) “Zero-Tolerance” policy- under which students who came to school with advil faced the same consequence, expulsion, as students who came to school with cocaine.

If schools are becoming hung up on technicalities, they must also look at the specific technicality of what is actually occurring.  Advil vs. Cocaine.   

The headmaster at Tate’s school decided the rule about in-school suspensions and prom applied only on a case-by-case basis.  Much ado about what should have been nothing.

Much of this decision was, in my opinion, based on the national attention the case drew.  Had the nation not gotten involved on the side of Tate, Tate would not have attended prom.

While no one at my own school has put up cardboard letters at 1 am, students have done things that bend the rules.  One senior boy fetched a banner from his car during class to hang in the cafeteria of his date’s lunch.  Another junior boy used his friends to blocked the staircase into the senior class locker boy so no one could come down while he asked my friend to prom.

My boyfriend trespassed in my home; no one called the cops.

Schools getting hung up on technicalities of the rule book should remember to pay attention to the details and context of the situation at hand.