Just when I thought that Zero Tolerance stupidity couldn't get any more extreme, I encounter this little gem from the Atlanta area.

Two seniors at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. High School will miss their baccalaureate -- but make their graduation -- after a stink that started over a cake knife.

Because of the school's zero tolerance policy on weapons, Ashley Pickens and Candace Grier, both honor students, were suspended from school for 10 days and told they would not be allowed to attend their baccalaureate ceremonies. The DeKalb school superintendent upheld that punishment but decided to allow the girls to walk with their classmates during graduation.

The trouble started when the girls brought a cake to school and looked for a knife to cut it. They say they found a butter-type knife in the school's band room and tried to return it, but the door had since been locked.

One of the girls put the knife in her book bag. Then a teacher saw it.

"He said it really didn't matter [that it was used for a cake]," Pickens said. "[He said] it's a knife on school grounds, and you have to be written up for it -- you ought to be glad we didn't have you arrested."

Now let me get this straight -- they used a school utensil and for that have been punished. Someone must be out of their mind!

But there is some hope.

School officials claimed they enforced clearly written codes of conduct. Wednesday, a school tribunal will hear the girls' appeal to attend baccalaureate ceremonies.

Maybe someone will recognize that a butter knife is not a weapon, but is instead a tool that they were using appropriately.

Posted by: Greg at 02:07 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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