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Zachary Christie is a normal six-year-old boy, bright and outgoing and active. He’s being sent to reform school for committing the unspeakable crime of… bringing a Cub Scout pocket knife to school to eat lunch with. This, apparently, violates his school’s zero tolerance weapons policy.
Zachary is six years old and was a first grader at Downes Elementary School in Newark, Delaware.
He is a smart, happy, outgoing child who plays Little League Baseball, is a Cub Scout, studies martial arts, is actively involved in his church youth group, and is actively involved in school activities. Last year he participated in the school talent show, the science fair, and the PTA “Reflections” Art Contest, for which he won first place in the State of Delaware for his film, “What Is My Job?” Zachary reads above grade level and has very advanced math skills as well.
His mother is the Co-President of the Downes Elementary PTA, the Director of the Youth Ministry for Skyline United Methodist Church, was the homeroom parent for his class, and a full-time Project Management consultant. His step-father was the director of the school talent show, producer of the school yearbook, and coordinator for the Downes Elementary Mom’s Breakfast. His father is active and involved in Zachary’s life, helps out with school fundraisers and appeared with Zachary in the talent show in June.
Zachary’s education and emotional well-being have been impacted because of the zero tolerance policy of the Christina School District. He is not the only “collateral damage” that has happened due to the “zero tolerance” rules set forth in the Christina School District’s Code of Conduct. Numerous cases are heard each month which end in expulsion or “alternative placement” into the Douglass School. Many of these children are innocent victims of decisions being made based on extreme, zero tolerance rules.
On Tuesday, September 29th, Zachary brought his camping utensil to school to use at lunch (spoon, fork, bottle opener, and knife). As he was getting off the bus, a teacher asked him what he was holding in his hand. Zachary showed it to her and explained why he had brought it… to eat his lunch. The teacher gave the utensil to the principal, at which point Zach was suspended from school pending a school district hearing.
The School District committee recommended that he be alternatively placed at The Douglass School, a reform school for juvenile delinquents. This is the same school where they place children who have severe behavioral problems and who are guilty of such offenses as assault and battery, rape, drug offenses, concealing a deadly weapon, and more. Since there is absolutely zero chance that we will allow that to happen, the only hope for Zachary being able to rejoin his friends at Downes Elementary is if Christina School District Superintendent Marcia Lyles or the Christina School Board intervenes to overturn the committee’s decision.
Did you catch the fact that HE IS SIX YEARS OLD?!?!?! We haven’t spoken to anybody who believes that the zero tolerance policy is either rational or reasonable, but the District continues to follow it in spite of legislation (HB 120) that calls for school districts to use sound judgment in reviewing these cases.
Please help! Please send emails and letters to the Christina School Board and to Christina School District Superintendent Marcia Lyles (contact info listed below)… MOST IMPORTANTLY, Please come to the School Board meeting on Tuesday, October 13th. Our goal is to have 10,000 people there to make the School Board listen to reason and stop victimizing the same innocent children they are supposed to be protecting.
Apparently, taking disciplinary issues into account on a case-by-case basis to determine what the appropriate level of discipline taken should be is just too much work for teachers these days. Isn’t it just so convenient to have a zero tolerance policy? No thinking required, no work involved… must be really nice and easy for teachers and school administrators. Any adult in their right mind wouldn’t have a blanket disciplinary policy, and they especially wouldn’t send a six-year-old to a reform school with rapists, assaulters, and drug dealers simply for bringing a Cub Scout pocket knife to school. A Cub Scout pocket knife set — which comes complete with a spoon and a fork — is hardly a weapon, but what does it matter to an educator? Just stick to the blanket zero tolerance policy, no thinking required. Makes their lives real easy, and who cares if it makes the kid’s life a living hell or not?
Help get justice for Zachary. Contact the members of his school board below. Be polite, but firm.
Dr. Marcia Lyles, Superintendent of Schools for Christina School District and Executive Secretary of the School Board
302-552-2630
LYLESM@christina.k12.de.us
Dr. Sharon Denney – Supervisor, School Climate and Discipline
302-552-2711
DENNEYS@christina.k12.de.us
Dr. Freeman Williams – Assistant Superintendent, Administrative Services
302-552-2667
WILLIAMSF@christina.k12.de.us
Mr. George Evans – School Board President
302-658-1922
evansg@christina.k12.de.us
Mr. David Resler – School Board Vice President
302-737-4884
dresler@verizon.net
Ok, I know this is crazy. The law is stupid. However, people know the law. You CAN’T bring that to school. Period. We check our kids pockets every day before letting them leave because they are always trying to sneak things to school. Gameboys, YuGiO cards, Pokemon toys, you name it. You have to know what your kid is taking and you have to follow the rules even if the rules are dumb. You have the right to not follow those rules, but when you do you are at the mercy of the idiots who passed the dumb rules and they’re not going to be nice.
Bob says: They can’t do it on a “case by case basis” because then the black & hispanic kids that are responsible for 75%+ of the gang crime in the United States will cry raaaaaaaaaacist, and the Democrats will back them right up.
Justin says: This is what happens when you give idiots a position of power. What is that clown being paid for? The drunken homeless man down the street would do a better job as principal (passed out drunk would be an improvement).
This isn’t some sort of isolated incident. This kind of crap is cropping up all over the country. There was a teenager who was expelled from school (thus having his entire academic future ruined) because he kept a pocketknife in the glove compartment of his car. And of course everyone knows about the girl being strip searched because of an advil she didn’t even have.
And kids are indoctrinated to have respect for the inbred cretins, just because they have “authority”. Bah. Every single kid in that school is without a doubt smarter than the principal in charge. They’d have to be.
mj says: There is an exception permitted under state law that allows them to handle this with common sense. Tonight is the board meeting. Hopefully, they have seen the light.
I’m getting old. When I was in elementary school, kids were permitted to bring tableware in their lunchboxes.
Edward Richardson says: If anything happens to this boy it will be a classic example of “the law is an ass.”
Rules such as this are crass and stupid anyway. It’s rather like gun laws. I was a teacher for a year in Brooklyn at a predominantly black and Hispanic school. You can pass all the rules you want about no guns and no knives and what have you, but the real preventative measure is simply raising kids properly. A kid was just beaten to death with 2x4s in Chicago. In 1988 there were more murders in Chicago committed with baseball bats than guns. You could do serious injury to someone with a pen if you’re motivated enough. Violence must be stopped in the mind, not from prohibiting everything that someone can use to inflict violence.
Chris M-G says: Yeah…right… not going to happen while democrats allow differentiated disciplinary standards for blacks and hispanics.
SicSemperTyrannus says: Looking at the contacts names given, I have to ask, how low is the threshold for a doctorate in education these days?
“I don’t HAVE to think, I have a doctorate!”
Stephen J. says: The whole logic — insofar as that’s an applicable word — is, “Better a dozen Zachary Christies in reform school than a kid stabbed and dead because a teacher’s judgement was wrong about whether a pre-adolescent child could ‘responsibly’ handle a dangerous tool.” Which a Swiss Army knife is, incidentally. You *can* kill people with it.
Zero tolerance is not the problem. Kids should not have knives at school: period. (Even the trustworthy ones can lose them or have them stolen.) Zero flexibility in appropriate disciplinary options is the problem.
Rob Moscato says: I have but one question:
WHEN DOES HOMESCHOOL START FOR THIS KID???
Justin says: “The whole logic — insofar as that’s an applicable word — is, “Better a dozen Zachary Christies in reform school than a kid stabbed and dead because a teacher’s judgement was wrong about whether a pre-adolescent child could ‘responsibly’ handle a dangerous tool.” Which a Swiss Army knife is, incidentally. You *can* kill people with it.
Zero tolerance is not the problem. Kids should not have knives at school: period. (Even the trustworthy ones can lose them or have them stolen.) Zero flexibility in appropriate disciplinary options is the problem.”
Do me a favor. Find some statistic on the number of people killed by 6 year olds with swiss army knives.
What? There aren’t any? Shocker.
Scissors can be used to kill people as well as any small blade. I guess we should ban them from schools as well. After all, someone might decide to stab someone with them.
There’s another story going around where a young man in high school was suspended for two weeks because he had a 2″ knife in the glove compartment of his car. Yes, that right there is a huge risk to student safety. You know what’s a more serious safety risk? The freaking CAR HE’S ALLOWED ON CAMPUS. Or his bare hands. Oh, did I mention he’s in the national guard?
If we can trust a kid to drive, why on earth can’t they be trusted with a small blade? America is being taken over by the safety police, and it sickens me.
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