Rather than promoting a safe environment of learning, and opportunity, schools have made it almost impossible to tell the difference between a school yard and a jail yard. Due to “zero tolerance” policies, police presents, and relying on suspensions and expulsions for minor infractions, students are missing out of their education. There once was time when disciplinary issues could be resolved by school administrators, but now students are either suspended or expelled on the spot. Students who have never been suspended or expelled are at less of a risk for incarceration than those that have been. There are approximately 3.3 million suspensions and over 100,000 expulsions each year. Zero tolerance policies were first adopted in the mid 1990s, since then the rates have been on a constant climb. Even though, the rates of school violence has been declining, suspension and expulsion rates are still rising. Zero tolerance policies have especially affected elementary and middle school children. “Seven of every thousand pre-schoolers are expelled from preschool programs, over three times the rate of expulsions in grades K-12” according to SentencingProject.org. This is not just bad for the students that get expelled but for everyone. Turning schools into “secure environments”, with school police, and staff that looks down on every mistake you…