Minnesota Girl Could Be Expelled After Pocket Knife Found During Drug Dog 'Lockdown'

via Facebook

More zero tolerance run amok, via KEYC, a CBS-affiliated station in Minnesota:

On Tuesday Wells Police reportedly found a small pocket knife in [high school junior] Alyssa Dresher's purse during a routine locker search.

Which led school officials to suspend her for three days. The school has a very strict weapons policy and according to that, the punishment could lead to a 12 month suspension after further advisement from the school board. The superintendent was not able to speak specifically to the case concerning Drescher but did tell KEYC that in any situation the safety and welfare for all students is their primary concern. 

The school board will decide on Thursday whether to kick her out of school for mistakenly (according to her) bringing a pocket knife used to complete farm chores to school. Her father says the schools superintendent, Jerry Jensen, wants to push for a 12-month suspension or expulsion at Thursday's meeting and that his daughter had never had any disciplinary problems before.

The knife was found while the school was put on "lockdown" so a drug dog could sniff students lockers for drugs, according to The Albert Lea Tribune, which also reported that police said they found no drugs in the school during the search. Drescher's locker was nevertheless singled out.

Her family and friends set up a Facebook page in support of Drescher on Thursday. It's garnered about 1,100 fans.

Thanks to Anthony Sanders for the tip

Comments

[anon]

On Tuesday Wells Police reportedly found a small pocket knife in [high school junior] Alyssa Dresher's purse during a routine locker search.

Uh, what?

Sure, Government Education Camps don't exist solely to induce compliance...

[Rich]

Drug Dog Lockdown

Nice band name.

Seriously, fuck these zero tolerance clowns.

[Brett L]

I think its time for a zero tolerance bill for administrators. Any administrator found applying rules without discretion shall be immediately terminated and forbidden from working in schools again.

[LiveFreeOrDiet]

How about getting rid of jackass rules?

[Francisco d'Anconia]

This

[The Late P Brooks]

a routine locker search.

Goddammit this pisses me off.

[anon]

Glad I'm not the only one.

That's really the bigger story to me.

[Rich]

Yep. But I thought the science was settled on students not having rights.

[Pro Libertate]

You know, maybe this bullshit is ultimately a good thing. The demand for private alternatives, including home school (or even non-private options like virtual school), will only increase.

[John]

It will. It makes us feel good about ourselves to think that people will forever be manipulated into accepting abject failure like this. It is not true however. If the public schools don't get better, people will eventually refuse to fund them anymore.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

It wasn't just a locker search. They found the knife in her purse. So the knife wasn't in plain view, they had to root into her purse to discover the knife. Someone must have snitched that she had a knife in her purse.

[Restoras]

Probably.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

the punishment could lead to a 12 month suspension after further advisement from the school board.

So, they do have the ability to look at each situation individually?

[Brett L]

The administrator's hands are tied, the school board may choose to inflict further injury if you don't go hat in hand and thank them for for their wonderful policy that got your kid suspended.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Of course, my mistake.

[Austrian Anarchy]

The leftist response: "Farm chores? Who works on farms anymore besides corporate goons? We get our food from Whole Foods, not farms!"

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

They will invoke child labor laws

[LiveFreeOrDiet]

What ever happened to End Childhood Unemployment? That was my single favorite screen name ever! I no-shit envied that guy's handle.

[Drake]

What ever happened to "obligation to educate" the children of taxpayers?

[LiveFreeOrDiet]

No, I mean there used to be poster here using that name.

[Swiss Servator, K?se, K?se!]

He was on a couple of days ago.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Child labor laws are the biggest reason for minority youth unemployment.

[Auric Demonocles]

Just the same kind of racist hicks who go to tractor pullz.

[The Late P Brooks]

I wonder what would happen if a student "boobytrapped" his locker with porn and sex toys, or a My Little Pony diorama? Off to re-education, I suppose.

[anon]

Man, you got me so excited to start. I was thinking mace, explosives, shotgun to the face, etc.

[Brett L]

See, I'm going to keep this in mind. And when some idjit calls to tell me this, I'm going to go down there, raise hell, plant a dildo and some barely legal porn, and let them find out what its like to have your life arbitrarily interrupted by officious pricks.

[anon]

My idea did involve planting a dildo... firmly up some administrator's ass. Until it reaches his teeth.

[John]

The public schools have to die. There is just no fixing this nonsense. The only way to fix it is to end them. Let people pay for and by extension control their kids' education. If you want to help out the poor by giving them aid in the form of vouchers, fine. Whatever your do, the government should no longer be allowed to run a primary or secondary school. Relieved of the need to appeal to customers, our education school overlords immediately turn into the worst tyrants. Since school is mandated by law and paid for by taxes, there is effectively nothing most parents can do about it.

[Rhywun]

Well, that's fine by me but there's more to this than just "public schools!" I went to all public schools and this shit didn't happen in the 80s.

[John]

It didn't happen in my experience either. I am open to suggestions as to how it got this way. My guess is that once Leftists took over the teaching and administrator profession they destroyed it like they do everything else.

You tell me how you fix an institutions once Progs have gotten their fangs into it because I sure as hell don't know how.

[Brett L]

People were "getting away with stuff", because principals and administrators knew the good kids and the bad kids. So a "good kid" shows up with a shotgun in his car because he was out dove hunting and gets nothing. A "bad kid" waves a letter opener at a teacher and gets expelled. Or worse, the "bad kid" got a break and actually did hurt someone next time. Then it got sensationalized by the news and "there oughta be a law!"

[John]

That is pretty much what happened. Basically, society decided that there should never be any consequences to your actions. It is just not fair that the kid who chooses to do well and not make trouble gets the benefit of the doubt while the ones who chose to make trouble and be a pain in the ass don't.

And clearly the proper response to any judgement call you disagree with is to sue the person making it. Of course also, my child could never be at fault.

Put it all together and you end up with this nonsense.

[Brett L]

Totally unrelated to the decline of men both in the home and in the school, I'm sure.

[sarcasmic]

So a "good kid" shows up with a shotgun in his car because he was out dove hunting and gets nothing. A "bad kid" waves a letter opener at a teacher and gets expelled.

What's worse is that often the "good kid" was white while the "bad kid" was not.

Along comes a trial lawyer demanding that the administrators prove the decisions were made not solely on skin color. Zero tolerance is the only acceptable solution.

[Square]

^^ This. They are trying to save themselves from their own racism by stripping themselves of any agency whatsoever.

[Zeb]

The leftists/progressives are responsible for a lot of the problems with public schools, but I'm not sure they can be entirely blamed for this. I think a lot of it comes from the security obsession that people started to develop after Columbine. And that is hardly limited to the left. I think it is a particularly nasty combination of the left's wanting schools to manage every aspect of their students' lives and the more general tendency to freak out about small risks and go way overboard with security.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I would guess it's the liability.

The school's lawyers warn that, unless they build up a record of applying rules uniformly and consistently, there will be racial-discrimination lawsuits and Department of Education investigations.

And of course there's the risk that the girl you caught with a pocketknife is a potential school shooter, and when the shooting is all over the papers, you don't want to be the one who has to explain to reporters (and lawyers for the dead kids) that you had a chance to deal with the offender early but dismissed it as "oh, just a pocketknife."

And informal disciplinary procedures risk being denounced by courts as violating due process, so many schools basically say to the courts, "OK, you want discipline to be court-like? Very well, we'll institute court-like procedures!"

And once you're going to the trouble of a full-on trial for alleged infractions, why not impose stiff sanctions, so that you'll be able to point to your records and show you're applying discipline consistently.

[Zeb]

Yeah, I'm sure that's part of it too. But it does seem like it all really got going after Columbine happened and every incident of serious violence at a school became a national headline.
As lots of other people have said, this sort of thing didn't happen when I was in school.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

If we do not have public schools, who will babysit the children?

[LiveFreeOrDiet]

Even my late bloomer was fine alone before adolescence.

[GroundTruth]

We were left alone (for short periods) even as four year olds, and walked to kindergarten (alone!!!).

This is not about babysitting, it's about brainwashing.

[Brett L]

Remember when your mom could leave you in the car if she was running in for milk and diapers?

[lap83]

Babysitting is the real reason public schools exist.

[LiveFreeOrDiet]

I spent a whole day at my daughter's school to see someone to change a class they had been promising she could change since before summer break. Still, they were essentially ignoring me until one of them gave me a routine semi-apology for my wait and I replied, "It's OK, I can come back tomorrow." Suddenly everyone was available.

[John]

Oddly, officials at private schools tend to hold the parents of their students in less contempt. Funny how being a customer changes things.

The only way to fix this is to give parents leverage against these assholes. Without that, it will never get better.

[sarcasmic]

The only way to fix this is to give parents leverage against these assholes. Without that, it will never get better.

That is exactly why public schools are so hostile to school choice.

[John]

Yup. And the ones who are the most hostile are the ones in the inner city. The last thing they want is a bunch of uppity brown people thinking they deserve to be listened to.

[sarcasmic]

That and they like their do-nothing jobs. They don't want to be forced to improve. They like things the way they are.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

But teachers can't focus on teaching if they have to worry about results and possibly losing their jobs!

[Drake]

I've had the "Why would I pay for this crap?" conversation with the principle of my kid's private school. Amazing how fast things got fixed.

[LiveFreeOrDiet]

A pocket knife is a weapon kind of like 7? is money.

[anon]

A pocket knife is a weapon like public teachers "teach" kids.

[Rich]

Another aspect: "These *hands* are registered lethal weapons!"

I will never understand the proggy disconnect between this kind of shit on the one hand and "it's all about the intentions" on the other. 8-(

[LiveFreeOrDiet]

Intentions and objects become crimes, rather than actions?

[Rich]

Well, that's one rationalization, I suppose.

My somewhat poorly-worded point was: "It doesn't matter what the girl's *intentions* were, because she had a *knife*", while "it doesn't matter what the actual *results* of our legislation are, because it was *intended* to help".

[Dances-with-Trolls]

+1 hate crime

+1 paraphernalia

[Zeb]

Traditionally, it's actions + intentions that make a crime.

[Zeb]

7 c is money. A small pocket knife is no more a weapon than scissors, a brick, a fork or a pencil are.

[The Late P Brooks]

If you, as the outraged parent of a student in this school, showed up at a school board meeting and demanded to know who instituted such an asinine and flagrantly un-American policy, they would gape at you in utter incomprehension, then smirk and snigger as their pet "school resource officer" escorted you from the building.

[anon]

At least I'd get the chance to slap the shit out of at least one power hungry fuck.

[sarcasmic]

If they have a police officer there for security, as many of those meetings do, they would cheerfully kill you.

[Rich]

This.

I've never seen an actual killing; but I've seen situations escalate like wildfire.

[Auric Demonocles]

Is that photo actually the girl from the story? She does not look like a high school junior.

[Brett L]

Also, that drug dog is probably not her bestie anymore.

[Swiss Servator, K?se, K?se!]

The "school resource officer" shot it?

[Brett L]

Oh, I just assumed it narced her out and that's why they opened her locker.

[LiveFreeOrDiet]

She does not look like a high school junior.

As the father of a high school junior, yeah, a lot of high school juniors look just like her.
Some of them can make you feel like you're a real pervert. Thankfully, most of them take half a dozen words to flick that switch right back to "nope, she's a kid."

[Zeb]

I bet she'd look younger from other angles too.

[Freedom Frog]

I don't know the family's financial status, and I also wouldn't want to hurt the girl further by taking her away from her friends, but were this me there'd be no chance my kid went back to that school ever.

[GroundTruth]

A

pocket

knife

is

a

tool

!

Many things are dual duty, belts, shoes, hands, etc. Are you going to outlaw everything that has always been listed as a dangerous weapon, as in "assault with a dangerous weapon, his elbow"? Mr. Superintendent, get over it!

[Drake]

I believe the answer is "yes".

I wonder how vocation High Schools are run these days?

[The Late P Brooks]

Any administrator found applying rules without discretion shall be immediately terminated and forbidden from working in schools again.

Why do you hate DUE PROCESS?

These people are devoted public servants, doing their damnedest to turn the children of America into good subjects.

[Raston Bot]

If this happens to my kids in a decade+ (in the post-age of the intertubez and all the other technical marvels), I'd probably just say fuck it and not contest a year free of public school. There's enough going on outside of school, I'm not sure a year would be missed. They can spend that time studying online whatever awesome subjects are available instead of compulsive english, history, foreign language.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

If the superintendent's hands are tied then the superintendent is obviously no longer necessary. The tightly written rules can certainly be enforced by mindless underlings just as well as by highly-paid management.

[Swiss Servator, K?se, K?se!]

Heh - I'd love to see someone say that to the school board!

[kinnath]

The tightly written rules can certainly be . . . . .

Coded and executed on a machine.

[Brett L]

if (item == weapon || item == weaponShaped || item == imaginaryWeapon)
{
suspend();
}

[AlexInCT]

Where is your else case or error handling? This kind of code is only good enough for government systems.. Oh wait..

[Rhywun]

Government doesn't make errors, duh.

[Brett L]

As best I can tell, it appears to have come from the same theories as the NYC "intensive policing" efforts. It was intended to give firm, immediate, and consistent consequences to actions that were never okay (usually drugs, violence, and weapons). However, it has mostly been ineffective.

[Rhywun]

I was thinking "liability" is the major culprit myself. Once someone figured out you could make the taxpayers pay for any little thing that happens when you're not watching, that opened the floodgates.

[Brett L]

So, moral panics about the "epidemics" of drugs, violence, and weapons in schools that mysteriously led to unionized bureaucrats having less responsibility.