Zero-Tolerance Policy In Schools

The second major issue with the school was the zero-tolerance policy. My previous schools had been bad in this regard, but this one took the cake. The teachers punished all 'crimes' equally, with several days in ISS (In School Suspension) where children would frequently get behind in their schoolwork. Dropping a pencil during a test and having the audacity to pick it up was met with the same punishment as pushing me down a flight of concrete stairs with a twenty-pound baritone. Usually, in my class of twenty-four to twenty-six students, at least four students would be gone every day due to minor in school suspension infractions. The third major issue with my old middle school was the under/over policing that took place there. The over-policing of the zero-tolerance policies took time and resources away from teachers and students that could have been used to correct the rampant bullying problems in the school that I theorize stemmed from the frustration of the entire student body being subjected to such poor treatment by academic professionals.
I dropped out of that middle school, “slipping through the cracks” as my math teacher outwardly predicted we would. With the issues in the school and Oakland being so similar on the surface, it's no wonder why I could choose to make a comparison between the two. I believe, like Dr Rios, that the school and Oakland would both benefit from the elimination of zero-tolerance policies and the over and under policing of said zero tolerance policies, as would the majority of the