TRI In The News

Zero Tolerance Derails Student's Plans

5/26/2011

TRI IN THE NEWS: ZERO TOLERANCE DERAILS STUDENT'S PLANS

From OneNewsNow
Original article available here.

A Virginia honor student has become "the latest in a long line of victims" of zero-tolerance policies in schools, says The Rutherford Institute.

A Virginia circuit court judge has upheld the expulsion of a 14-year-old student who has been charged with "violent criminal conduct" for shooting spit wads. The Rutherford Institute president John Whitehead says the judge was reluctant to uphold the charges against his client, Andrew Mikel, now a former student at Spotsylvania High School in Virginia.

"[The judge] basically said it was egregious; [that] it's not something he would do. He thought the school went too far," the attorney explains. "But he said under state law, his hands are tied."

The ninth-grader is charged with using the body of a pen to blow small, hollow plastic balls at fellow students last December in the hallway. After school authorities grabbed the teen, they charged him with criminal assault -- under the school's zero-tolerance policy -- and recommended felony charges for possession of a deadly weapon.

Whitehead said the balls are harmless -- but the three misdemeanor charges against his client are not.

"He said he wanted to go to the Naval Academy -- his dad's a Navy SEAL [sic; Andrew Mikel Sr. is a former Navy Seabee]. That's all gone now," says Whitehead. "If he wants to go to the Virginia Military Institute, he probably can't go there either. The public schools are not taking into account the long-term effects on students of these [policies] -- both psychologically and academically."

He points out that Mikel is an honor student active in junior ROTC and in his church. Nonetheless, the Spotsylvania County School Board voted to expel him for the rest of the year.

Whitehead says the next step is to try and expunge the charges in the Virginia State Supreme Court.