School arrests student for doodling on desk. "Zero Tolerance" going too far.
 

Ok, so I recently read an article on CNN.com that relayed the misfortune of a female middle school student who was arrested on campus in front of students and faculty for doodling on a desk.

This isn't the first reported case of a student being arrested for such a trivial matter.

So what is my point? This all ends up falling into the category of the "Zero Tolerance" policy of the public school system. How far and ridiculous have people gone with this policy that students in all age groups (elementary, middle and high) are being arrested for such trivial things like doodling on desks and bathroom walls?

I doodled on desks and bathroom walls in middle school (I never was caught though). And now I just doodle with an expo marker every now and then on my high school's smooth desks. I clean it up afterward and there. The end. No drama.

I want to know your thoughts on this matter and how to better the policy.

I'd say to limit the Zero Tolerance to illegal matters such as drugs, weapons, as well as fights. The typical cliche matters, but those are the ones schools should be concerned with.

I say her punishment should have been to clean up tables, walls, floor after school, or a detention. Not arrest.

To read the article follow this link --> Girl's arrest for doodling raises concerns about zero tolerance - CNN.com

what the deuce??

how in hell would doodling on one's desk earn you a one way ticket to a Juvenile Facility?

Sure i understand the whole vandalism thing and such, but doodles? What the deuce, man!

If i were the parents of this child, ill sue the Education Board's Arse off to freakin' oblivion!

You can be arrested for it because it's vandalism of property. Which is a jailable offense.

I don't think they should be arrested, but they can be.

Totally wrong. Some type of school suspension or reparations should have been in order not an arrest of a 12 yr old. Whoever instigated it should have been arrested.

They've arrested a kid for cell phone usage..so yeh...
It's wrong..

I'd have to agree with Keyori. Yes, it would be much better if they judged things on a case by case basis, but they rarely do so. Graffiti, for instance, is a crime. You are punished the same regardless of whether what you did was beautiful or intentionally obscene. It is destruction of property that is not yours. In the case of the desks, it is destruction of school property and while arresting her was not the best option in my opinion, they were fully justified in doing so. This will sound harsh, but if you don't like the way a law works, work to change the law; don't just complain when an attempt is made at enforcing the law.

I agree with what they did. Yes it is extreme, but consider your own nonchalant attitude towards what is vandalism. If they show that it will be dealt with so swiftly and to such an extreme more students will be dissuaded form doing it. For everyone who does that someone has to be paid to clean it up. Not only that when they go as far as to carve racists images in the desk it has to be replaced. That is MY and YOUR tax money being wasted by people who think it is ok to hurt what is the property of the education system.

If someone I invited in to my house came in and started drawing on my 150$ coffee table I would probably flip out. Those desks are not cheap and need to last for students for years to come. Respect them.

There was a guy back in high school that wrote stuff on the bathroom walls and they arrested him after catching him do it. It was a little scary, but it is vandalism and it is pretty annoying to have all over the place. I always hated when people wrote on the desk that I was sitting in.

We have paper for doodles.

Vandalism is a jail-able offense, but I don't understand why the school would apply that method of force especially when it makes -them- look bad, having students who have been arrested. I don't think it was at all necessary. They obviously don't care about their students.

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I agree, I hate vandalism, but doodling is different from completely destroying or defacing something. They should update that law so that there are only certain levels that can result in prison. :3

Now wait a minute, this really does depend on the school that girl went to. I've seen public schools warn students if they make an annoying noise in class, but arrest the kids if they do that in a delinquent school. There are schools that pepare kids for prison because their records are already messed up enough for them to go to prison. Depending on the news channel, they may not say what kind of school this girl was in. Some of those kids in those delinquent schools really should be arrested for doing such small, incessant things. It's just basically to teach those kids that they have to shape up and if they think they can get away with the smallest things, they can try aand get away with things like that on a larger scale. I do not believe, however that if she wasn't in any school for ne'er-do-wells she really shouldn't have been arrested.

What would you say doodle art is then? It would start a lot of fights about what type of things being written/drawn would count as vandalism. Just stopping kids while they're ahead is better I think.

I do agree vandalism is wrong and a punishable offense. Even though I vandalized a bathroom wall in middle school and pencil/expo marker doodled on my desks, I should have been punished for doing so. However, for a student to be arrested over it is ludicrous. The max should be an indoor suspension and to help the janitors clean the soiled desks after school. At least that was my school's punishment for it.

I'm not trying to say based on types of art, but I mean there is a difference between purposely causing harm and not, there is also a difference between setting a desk on fire, throwing it out a window, rendering it completely unusable, and doodling on it, or drawing on it in any form. All of the above still constitute as vandalism (although I supposed setting one on fire is also arson, but we're talking about danger to the desk here).

it has really gone to far. i would never do that if i had stdents.

I would have it not even punishable. I would also have drugs not punishable, and only weapons have the zero tolerance policy. (real weapons, not toy ones, some schools have zero tolerance on that too)

Well, I do want to impart a respect of other people's property in my children, but drawing on desks doesn't need much more than the student to clean the desk and maybe detention or suspension. Actual arrest in front of his or her peers is going way too far.

Yes, those desks are pretty expensive and are needed by all of the students of the school, but anything short of carving into the wood/plastic can be cleaned. Heck, you could even plaster the carvings too.

I think that was too far. I'm sorry...arrested for doodling on a desk. What the hell? There are much worse crimes that a middle school student should be arrested for...that just seems a little much. I mean...what the hell? I mean...they could discipline the kid if they feel it's necessary...like a day's detention or something...I don't know...But to go as far as to have the kid arrested for it? Why? It's such a trivial thing to arrest someone for........

=/ Too freaking far for merely doodeling on a desk.

yeah, it is a jailable offense...but this was a 12 year old girl writing that she loves her friends. She didn't write anything bad or hateful or anything. I would say at most that she should be made to clean it up...maybe a detention at the harshest.

If she had written something really bad...something racist maybe (or along those lines), I would say she'd have to clean it up and be suspended for 2-3 days maybe, and get a good talk to about why saying things like that are wrong. But that isn't the case.

I know why the school system is trying to be harsh towards vandalism...they want to try and keep these kids from ever doing it. But it's not just a black and white situation...you have to understand the intent of it. She was probably bored in class or something like that and wrote on the desk...it doesn't mean that she's going to go around where she lives with spray paint and write/draw stuff on buildings.

I don't think vandalism is such a cut and dry case. And just because someone wrote something on their desk because they were possibly bored in class doesn't mean the kid will go and doodle on someone's coffee table at someone else's house. Yes, doodling on the desks isn't showing respect for school property...but just doodling with pen or pencil (which can be easily cleaned off) is a far lesser crim than actually physically destroying the desk. I find arresting a 12 year old for an offense that could easily be dealt with through suspension or detention (along with having the child clean the mess up), and having a talk with the principle about it. Yes, these kids shouldn't be doodling on the desk...but they're just kids. If I were in that girl's shoes, I'd probably not want to go back to school. I'm saying yes, the child needs to be punished for it, but going to such extreme measures is going too far. She wasn't trying to do anything bad...she doesn't sound like a bad kid at all. She didn't deserve to be treated the way she was. I think vandalism needs to be looked at case by case. You need to look at the intent of the vandalism before you go and make a decision like calling the police and having a child arrested.

I do think that arresting the girl (especially a middle school student) is going too far. Giving the kid detention might straighten them up more. Then again, I can see where the school is getting at with disciplining the student by arresting her. I know that schools do not tolerate vandalism. And by arresting the girl, it would show to the other students that vandalism is NOT tolerated at any level. I'm sure that they released her like, a day later or something. But say if they were going to keep her in jail for quite awhile. Then that's just wrong. Though I would say that detention is a better punishment than jail.

There are better ways of disciplining a 12 year old than having them arrested in front of the other students and teachers. I don't think it's right to humiliate a child like that. They could have had her clean up the writing off the desk, given her detention, and the principle could have had a talk with her. It didn't have be turned into this huge drama. If this were my kid, I would have gone after the principle's ass, and I would have sued the school so fucking hard. I know that schools hate vandalism of school property...but this girl wasn't writing on the desk in something that could come off with some cleaning solution. She didn't carve what she wrote into the desk or anything. And just because a kid goes and doodles on their desk...maybe she did it during a class when she was bored, I don't know...it doesn't mean that they're going to become a person who paints graffiti on walls or something.

Hell...when I was her age, I doodled on my desks on occasion as well. And I'm far from being someone who vandalizes buildings.

giving a child a criminal record at 12 is not worth the lesson they were trying to teach the students by having her arrested.

I didn't say that I agreed with all that. Yes, all of that would of come off with something, she could of cleaned it up, or had a much more lenient punishment. I was stating how I see that school's point of view on zero tolerance. But I would of been really mad if I had witnessed that too. And yes, there are better ways to deal with that kind of situation that arresting the girl. I think that you should only arrest a student for graffiti, fighting, harassing a teacher, and things like that.