Just as I’m finishing a story on the harm zero-tolerance policies have done to school children, I hear that Sen. Sampson Jackson II has introduced a bill in the Legislature that would require certain appropriate conduct from public school students.
It’s curious why Jackson, a Democrat from Preston, thinks more codes are needed when kids can already get suspended for being sarcastic or wearing the wrong shoes. I wonder if Jackson ever talked back to a teacher or if he ever got caught with his shirt not tucked in properly. Like most kids, he might have. (Full disclosure: I sure did.) If he did act like a kid when he was a kid, I wonder if he got the harsh punishment doled out to today’s public school students, the kind of zero-tolerance that destroys souls and kills futures.
It could be some kind of funding is attached to his proposed policy, or maybe Jackson’s intention is to come up with more uniform policies. Right now in Mississippi, school districts vary in conduct codes and consequences for minor students who do not act like mature adults in a professional work setting while they are in school.
My story on zero-tolerance policies comes out in tomorrow’s issue of the JFP.
