Former Student Sues District Over Right To Defend Yourself

[KBCraig]

Excellent, Baytown! It's good to see some common sense out there.

We don't have SROs in Texarkana; instead, each ISD has its own in-house police department. There might be some exceptions, but mostly they've got the attitude of mall security guards, except with guns and arrest authority.

We had some experience with with Texarkana ISD's "zero thinking" nonsense. We've found out that they are indeed tolerant, but only of the problem kids; they've done everything they can do to them, so they give up. They'll come down like a ton of bricks on an "A" student for talking in class, though.

When we first got married and moved my step-kids here, our oldest was a big, strapping, good-looking 8th grader, which instantly earned him points with the girls, and resentment from the boys. He was assaulted several times, and always took the "rules obeying" approach and didn't fight back. Once he even came home with a visible boot print-shaped bruise on the side of his face after getting jumped by a gang on his way to school in the morning. And the school never even called us!

Then when he was in 10th grade, his best friend (who lived around the corner and spent more nights at our house than his own) had a really bad day and started punching Nate on the bus. Nate stood up and held his own. Now, these are both big strong teenagers, full-grown man sized, but neither one had a mark on him, not so much as a red spot. But TISD's solution was to suspend them both and send them to 30 days at "alternative" school. That's 30 school days, not calendar days, and the time starts over for any infraction (tardy, talking out of turn, chewing gum, anything!)

We said no way, and home-schooled Nate for the rest of his high school education. His buddy never did complete the program. Nate earned his GED six months before he would have graduated, and is now at Ft. Knox for basic training.

I've always supported homeschoolers, but this has made me a strong advocate for the separation of school and state. Public schools are not only a waste of tax money, they are designed to turn out indoctrinated drones. Students who excel do so despite the school.

Kevin