Minnesota school district threatens to cut student

Meet Tony Richard, 17, and -- for the moment anyway -- a senior at Blaine High School in Blaine, Minnesota, a town of about 45,000 people not far from Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Richard faces expulsion because he allegedly violated the school's zero tolerance weapons policy.

Oh my, you say. What did this boy do?

Did he bring a loaded pistol into school? A rifle? Did he threaten a teacher? Another student?

Well, no.

According to Abby Simmons' article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Richard left a box cutter in his car -- a box cutter that he uses at his after school job at Cub Foods, a job which sometimes requires that he cut up cardboard boxes.

The box cutter, in plain sight, in a cup holder, was "spotted" by a security officer when Richard pulled into the parking lot.

Astonishingly, this -- just this and nothing more -- is the violation which has already resulted in young Mr. Richard being suspended for 10 days and, according to Simmons' article, school officials recommending "to the Anoka-Hennepin school board that he be expelled."

In a saner world, the high school disciplinarian would have urged Security Guard Barney Fife to calm down, then given Mr. Richard a pass to excuse his being late to class. The disciplinarian might have also suggested to Mr. Richard that he leave his work tools at work. And that would have been the end of the incident.

Zay N. Smith picked up the story for QT this morning, another amusing story in his continuing series, "The Case for Zero Tolerance of Modern School Administrators." In the Sun-Times, it was funny.

But it may not be funny for young Mr. Richard, not if he really does get booted out of high school. And it's not just the local school district that seems to be treating this ridiculous case as if it were a potential tragedy averted by vigilant security work.

Abby Simmons interviewed Charlie Kyte, executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, for linked Star-Tribune article. She quotes Kyte as saying, "While schools have zero-tolerance policies, you must also allow judgment to come into play." For a brief second, hope flared: Perhaps, I thought, here's where a grownup enters the conversation and shuts this silliness down. But Mr. Kyte continued, "The board's gotta look at this and say, 'Hmmm, did this kid really create a horrible act?' The second thing they have to ask themselves is, by giving a less rigorous punishment, are they also opening the door to kids thinking they can get away with this stuff?"

Create? Horrible act? Giving a "less rigorous punishment" might "[open] the door to kids thinking they can get away with this stuff?" What might some future miscreant hope to get away with? Having an after school job?

Here's my suggestion for a punishment: The Blaine school board should apologize to Mr. Richard.

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Photo obtained from the linked Star-Tribune article. Entirely off-topic thing I learned while looking into this story: Blaine, Minnesota is also the off-season home of White Sox GM Kenny Williams.