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To the Editor:
Thank-you to the Times for its news report and editorial supporting
17-year-old honors student Jennifer Coonce against an organized
syndicate of Pinellas county school district administrators
mindlessly misapplying their ‘zero-tolerance’
(‘zero-sense’) policies. I was sickened when a ‘spin
doctor’ from the School District explained that this exaggerated
and harmful policy makes sense: “These three things (guns,
alcohol, drugs) ... Kill kids”. Yes, abuse of these vices can
kill, but so can abuse of school admnistration authority (is this
17-year-old outcast on a suicide watch?). So our school board claims
to “protect” this child by forcing her out of school and
denying her a possible scholarship or entrance to a top-echelon
college. I thought America was done with the double-speak of “We
had to destroy the village to save it”.
School Principles, Administrators, and Board Members are entrusted to
be the guardian of our social institution, and this guardianship must
cut both ways. You must enforce that students not committed to
learning (bringing weapons to school, possessing illegal drugs,
attending drunk or providing liquor at a school function) receive a
swift, appropriate and escalated response of reprimand, suspension
and expulsion. But you must also protect the innocents, these 16 and
17-year-old children making the confused and uncharted transition
from child to adult. You must protect these children from the
crushing power of your own institution, from non-sense policies and
from ego-maniacal administrators. The Nuremberg trials put forward
every American’s expectation that mid-level bureaucrats do what
is morally right, not mindelssly follow harmful policies. The
Pinellas School system is in the process of ruining a young
child’s life, all in the name of ‘following procedure’
and protecting a ‘concept’ (alcohol can kill kids).
This leaves only 2 positions for each School Principle, District
Administrator, and Board Member: Either formally go on record that
you consider appropriate the ridiculous punishment of this girl-child
or stand up and fight for her as if she were your own daughter. Sleep
with your conscience either way, but don’t hide from it and from
your responsibilities to our children. Either support banishing
honors students, especially the ones that pursue off-site jobs and
report back when employers don’t follow county standards or
STAND UP AND FIGHT for Jennifer. Act like parents, not lemmings.
Every parent in the county begs you to champion her cause and protect
her from this devastating unthinking and unthinkable exaggeration. Go
before the board, speak to the press and parents, and if this harm is
going to be perpetrated over your protest, then RESIGN you position.
Take responsibility and show empathy for this child, not this
regulation. We all learned in grade school that the victory of evil
simply requires that good people do nothing.
To the Times, thank you for publicizing this travesty, and please do
not lose interest in Jennifer’s case in the coming weeks.
Pinellas taxpayers and parents need to know what is being done, in
their name and by their representatives, justified with the tired
saying ‘just following orders’. Also, if you dig a little
deeper you will find dozens of stories like Jennifer Coonce (I know
of 2 myself), where individual children are ground up and spit out by
the caretakers of the Pinellas Country’s education ‘machine’. |
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Re: Zero sense, editorial, Oct. 31.
The Times editorial writers are the ones who have "got to be
kidding." There is not a "universal response" to
17-year-old Jennifer Coonce being thrown out of school for taking a
sip of sangria. It is an important rule she broke and she deserves
the punishment she got.
Ask the parents of a teen killed by alcohol poisoning or whose life
has been ruined in an alcohol-related tragedy and you will get cheers
for a tough school policy that needs to be tough. Your
ill-thought-out statement that "Zero tolerance makes zero
sense" shows you don't understand this issue. Zero tolerance
laws for young drivers have been shown to reduce the numbers of teens
killed and injured in alcohol-related crashes. Zero tolerance
drinking laws for students are the right message to send.
Underage drinking is a major local and national problem. Surgeon
General David Satcher recently reported that "Among teenagers,
alcohol is used more frequently than all illicit drugs combined.
Recent data show that more than 30 percent of high school seniors and
25 percent of 10th-graders reported binge drinking. Alcohol-related
car crashes are a major cause of death for young people ages 15 to
24. Adolescent drinking has been linked to risky sexual behaviors
that can lead to AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and unintended
pregnancies." Why isn't his important message on the front page?
The fact that this news is missing is what makes no sen
The point is that alcohol for teens is the most lethal drug of all
and our society is virtually ignorant of the true magnitude of this
issue. East Lake High School principal Rick Misenti should be
commended for his courage to enforce a much-needed and
well-thought-out rule designed to save the lives of our children.
Like most principals who have lost students because of drinking, he
knows well that alcohol and teens are a deadly mix that cannot be tolerated.
The Times spent a lot of space over the plight of an irresponsible
17-year-old honors student who made a dumb choice, but it was her
choice. She knew that she was breaking the law as well as school
policy. Hopefully, she and other students will learn an important
lesson. The business, Interiors by Terry D, should have been
prosecuted as well. How come it wasn't? Providing alcohol to minors
is a form of child abuse.
Instead of telling the public via Charles Dickens that those who
enforced the zero tolerance rule were "a ass, a idiot" for
rigidly applying school policy, perhaps the Times could spend some
front-page space taking a good hard look at why so many of our
children abuse alcohol and what more needs to be done about it. How
about reporting the rest of the story?
-- Sandy Golden, president, the Campaign for Alcohol
Free Kids, Clearwater Beach |
