Fort Worth ISD
INCIDENT:
"According to a story in the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram this past May (2004), administrators at Diamond Hill-Jarvis High School were peering into students' cars in the school parking lot, when one of them spotted an eight inch wooden bat inside a car. They tracked down the driver, sophomore Cory Henson, and pulled him out of class, thus disrupting his educational process. They then ordered him to unlock the car and searched it thoroughly, as more students ignored their education and watched from the windows."
FWISD RESPONSE:
"Upon discovering that the bat had fallen off a baseball trophy -- Cory is a junior varsity baseball player, mind you -- they dropped their flashlights, declared the mini-bat to be a weapon, and immediately suspended him. He was suspended for four days, under Texas' Zero Tolerance scheme, which was hatched in 1995.
Zero Tolerance is the mantra of school administrators who insure their schools are safe from plastic butter knives, anti-PMS medicine, and students who say "hell" or "gay," as I have mentioned in previous columns.
Since Cory is a baseball player, he was also carrying a regulation-sized aluminum bat in his trunk with other baseball equipment. However, school administrators ignored this, because they had focused on the mini-bat with laser-like precision.
That's why Ignacio Torres, the school's assistant principal, said the mini-bat, and NOT the full-sized bat, was considered a weapon."
OTHER:
