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What do Texas public school teachers & Texas Education Agency (TEA) officials think about zero tolerance?
Zero-tolerance policies, which apply inflexible penalties for certain infractions, are widespread among Texas schools and often controversial, said Eric Hartman, legislative director for the Texas Federation of Teachers. Hartman said that unless an item is clearly illegal under state law, districts have the discretion to show leniency to students who don't intentionally violate school policy. But when schools use discretion, they run the risk of being accused of bias and discrimination, he said. "Their lawyers advise them to treat everyone exactly the same." The more rigid and detailed the policy, Hartman said, the more chances for unintentionally punishing undeserving students. He said the federation believes that school districts should have fewer rules with serious consequences, but that those should be applied to all.
Richard Kouri, spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association, said controversy was inevitable once districts began adopting zero-tolerance policies. "It happens in any system where discipline is based on a formula," he said. Such policies are too inflexible at times, Kouri said.
According to Billy Jacobs, former senior director of the safe schools division of the Texas Education Agency, “We hold children to higher standards than we hold adults. We don’t leave any room for children to make mistakes.”
In 2003 an organized effort by Texas parents to reform zero tolerance laws in the state of Texas began. After numerous cases similar to the ones in this article kept reoccurring in Katy ISD Katy Zero Tolerance was formed. Katy Zero Tolerance’s elected president was Fred Hink. None of Fred’s children were ever involved in a zero tolerance incident yet because of what Fred witnessed happening to other innocent children in Katy ISD he felt compelled to try to help the parents that had their children ensnared in this mindless system.
Fred decided to pull his children out of Katy ISD and send them to a private school as a precaution after hearing from parents about the numerous zero tolerance nightmares that were happening in Katy ISD.
Katy Zero Tolerance became Texas Zero Tolerance in 2006 reflecting the statewide problems that zero tolerance has inflicted on innocent children all across the state. Fred Hink partnered with 2 other co-directors, Eddie Evans, and Kurt Lane to lead Texas Zero Tolerance.
Fred Hink has devoted a good portion of his life since 2003 to helping Texas parents that have found their children ensnared in this draconian system. Fred worked endlessly leading up to the 2005 & 2007 legislative sessions lobbying the Texas legislature to do something to try to stem the tide of overzealous administrative disciplinary decisions that were destroying young innocent lives. Fred and his co-directors have helped numerous families that have had their children’s lives upended due to zero tolerance in Texas. A sampling of the hundreds of cases that have been reported to Texas Zero Tolerance can be found on the group’s web site www.texaszerotolerance.com. A cursory look at the reported cases section on the TZT web site shows the magnitude of the lives affected by zero tolerance in Texas.
In 2005 some legislative success was obtained on the zero tolerance reform front when state representative Rob Eissler (The Woodlands), authored legislation designed to rein in some of the abuses of the current system. Representative Eissler’s school discipline reform bill HB 603 was passed unanimously into state law in the 2005 legislative session. HB 603 allows school districts to consider mitigating factors such as disciplinary history, self-defense, disability, and intent or lack of intent before punishing a Texas public school student for any offense except for a firearm related offense.
Since HB 603 was enacted into state law a Texas court (The 9th Texas District Court of Appeals in Beaumont) ruled in Tarkington ISD vs. Ellis that Texas public schools do have complete discretion in disciplining students even in mandatory expulsion decisions provided the school district has written in their code of conduct that “intent” is to be a consideration in expulsion decisions.
While HB 603 gave Texas school districts complete discretion in the disciplinary process most Texas school districts have refused to write HB 603’s language into their student codes of conduct even though state law requires them to according to the Texas Education Agency (TEA). One thing HB 603 did was to show that Texas school districts really don’t want discretion. Most Texas school districts prefer to continue to implement a draconian system that is geared for punishing the innocent as well as the guilty. In 2007 several bills to reform zero tolerance were introduced in the Texas legislature. One bill requiring Texas school districts to consider intent or lack of intent, disciplinary history, self-defense, and disability before implementing punishment for any violation of the student code of conduct passed the House unanimously. Unfortunately for Texas school children the Senate Education Committee elected not to act on this bill.
