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Eddie Evans – Father of a 12-year-old Conroe ISD 7th grader whose son was a Boy Scout, church youth leader, church praise team member, and winner of his school’s Outstanding Student Award. Mr. Evans’ son had all exemplary conduct grades and had never once been in trouble at school before.
Mr. Evans found his son’s and family’s life upended when on one of the first cool mornings in December his wife prodded their son to wear a jacket to school. Mr. Evans’ son was headed out the door to the bus stop in shirt sleeves when his mom noticed he didn’t have his jacket on. Mrs. Evans called her son back and insisted he wear his jacket. Mr. Evans’ son didn’t think it was cold enough for a jacket that day and he did not want to wear his jacket and told his mom this. After his mom persisted that he wear the jacket his son dutifully obeyed his mom and wore his jacket to school. Unfortunately in his 3rd period class Mr. Evans’ son realized that he had left his pocketknife and whetstone he used at Scouts which he had earned a Scout permit for in the interior pocket of the jacket. Unsure as to what he should do he consulted a friend at lunch about the predicament he was in. After consulting with his friend he put the pocketknife and whetstone in his locker to get it off of his person. The friend decided to inform a teacher about the situation his friend was in. From that point on Mr. Evans’ son’s and family’s life would never be the same.
The principal called Mr. Evans’ son out of class and had him interrogated by police without his parents present. Mr. Evans’ son requested to call his parents but was not allowed to. Mr. Evans’ son tried to tell police and school officials what had happened but they would not let him say anything. For an honest oversight the principal had the Evans child arrested and sent to juvenile detention. Mr. Evans’ wife wasn’t notified that their son had been sent to juvenile detention until a half hour had passed by when their son’s school bus normally ran by their home. Mrs. Evans was panic stricken that someone had kidnapped her son when he didn’t get off the school bus that day. Her son had never once failed to get off of the school bus before in all the years he had been attending school. Mrs. Evans frantically began searching the neighborhood trying to locate her son. When she could not locate her son in the neighborhood she got in her van and proceeded to drive to the school. On her way to the school she was contacted by the school’s assistant principal on her cell phone telling her what they had done with her son. 30 minutes of not knowing where her son was at seemed like an eternity to Mrs. Evans.
Mrs. Evans explained to school officials how the pocketknife had inadvertently wound up at school. All of Mr. Evans’ son’s teachers knew that his son had just made an honest mistake and several teachers wrote letters stating this. A Federal DEA officer who was also a colonel in the United States Army that knew Mr. Evans’ son’s character well tried to reason with the principal that the incident was just an accident and an honest oversight. However, accidents & honest oversights aren’t permitted in Conroe ISD. The truth made no difference to Conroe ISD officials. Your child better be perfect or there will be hell to pay in Conroe ISD. No charges were ever filed against Mr. Evans’ son yet Conroe ISD still expelled his son and sent him to a JJAEP boot camp for juvenile offenders for 45 calendar days where he was physically and mentally abused according to Mr. Evans.
Mr. Evans’ son has Tourette’s syndrome & adhd and was listed as a child with disabilities with his school. The school was required to hold a manifestation hearing to determine if the incident was a result of his son’s disability before expelling him. Since the incident was an accident the ARD committee upheld the expulsion and Mr. & Ms. Evans were informed that there would be no detrimental consequences to their son as a result of him having to attend the JJAEP school for 45 calendar days. Mr. & Mrs. Evans could have little envisioned the physical and mental abuse that was about to be inflicted on their 12-year-old son all in the name of “zero tolerance.”
The first day that Mr. Evans’ wife arrived at the boot camp with her son she was told that she could shave her son’s head or they would. While Mr. Evans’ son was attending school at the boot camp he was required to exercise for extended periods of time in nothing but a tee shirt and sweat pants in sub freezing temperatures (28° F/19° F wind chill factor). He was required to do ground exercises on top of rocks, roots, and in a concrete sand pit. He was also forced to run to the point of complete exhaustion on numerous occasions. Mr. Evans’ son came back home from this hell hole disguised as an alternative school bruised, battered, and barely able to walk on more than one occasion. Mr. Evans son took medication when he was at school for Tourette’s syndrome and adhd. Mr. Evans had to have his son’s medication discontinued because when his son would try to take his medication the drill sergeant at the boot camp would not let his son have any water to drink until the medication began to melt in his son’s mouth. His son almost choked to death on several occasions due to this inhumane treatment. Mr. Evans’ son was also required to go to a jail to visit a convicted murderer and view a film of convicted murderers being executed before he had finished his time in the boot camp.
During the time Mr. Evans’ son spent at the boot camp he was unable to play his guitar in his church’s praise band or participate in church activities due to being so bruised and battered that he could barely stand up when he returned home from the boot camp school each day.
Mr. Evans’ son told him after he got out of the boot camp that he had thought about running away from home and also about committing suicide while he was being abused at the boot camp. His son could not understand how God could let something like this happen to an innocent kid. It would be a long time before Mr. Evans’ son would believe in God again.
Mrs. Evans described the whole experience as “like a death in the family.” “The bright eyed innocent kid we had before was destroyed forever.” “We didn’t realize that school districts were allowed to abuse children.” “They tried to destroy him.” “They completely destroyed our son’s childhood over an honest mistake.” The world would never look quite the same to the Evans family after the 2 month ordeal their son and family were so senselessly put through.
After witnessing first hand the devastation zero tolerance can inflict on an innocent child and family Eddie Evans vowed to try to prevent something like what happened to his son and family from ever happening to another innocent child and family again. Eddie contacted everyone from Governor Rick Perry to his local state representative, Representative Rob Eissler, & local state senator, Senator Tommy Williams, about what had happened to his son and family.
In 2005 Mr. Evans testified before the Texas House and Senate Education committees in favor of discipline bills designed to reform zero tolerance to try to bring some semblance of common sense back into the equation. At the conclusion of Mr. Evans’ testimony before the Senate Education committee about the ordeal his son and family were so senselessly put through chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, Senator Florence Shapiro offered Mr. Evans a public apology for in her words the “despicable” treatment of his son and family by his son’s school district. The Executive Director of Texas Juvenile Probation, Vicki Spriggs, was also at the bill hearing that Mr. Evans testified at in the Senate and heard Mr. Evans testimony regarding the abuse that was inflicted upon his son in the boot camp. Ms. Spriggs had her abuse and neglect department contact Mr. Evans about the abuse the Montgomery County JJAEP inflicted on his son. In the spring of 2005 Texas Juvenile Probation investigated the Montgomery County JJAEP “boot camp” and the “boot camp” program was discontinued after the investigation.
All of the cases mentioned in this article occurred in six different Texas school districts reflecting the truly state wide nature of this problem. The cases mentioned in this article also have a lot in common: In most of the cases the children were referred to the Juvenile Justice System even though there wasn’t sufficient evidence for prosecutors to bring charges. The parents of the children involved were only contacted after their child had been found guilty by school administrators and referred to the Texas Juvenile Justice system. No student or teacher was remotely threatened or harmed in any of the incidences yet some of the children involved in these incidences were punished as if they were convicted criminals. Sadly there are a substantial number of similar cases that occur in the state of Texas each year.
Did the Texas legislature in 1995 really mean for school districts to have honor students, Boy Scouts, citizens of the month, and other exemplary students that had not threatened or harmed anyone arrested, removed from school, and automatically punished before parents are even notified of a problem? This author doesn’t think so. The original intent of Chapter 37 was to remove disruptive students that exhibited criminal behavior at school and place them in an alternative learning environment. Unfortunately under the current system Texas public schools have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Innocent children that have never had an evil intention in their life are treated like hardened criminals whether or not they are ever even charged with a crime.
The message from Texas public schools is clear ~ your child better be perfect or they could find themselves in jail and banished to an alternative school.
