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A high school student gets caught popping a pill at the lunch table. Had she been taking an illegal drug, Fairfax County's "zero tolerance" policy would have called for a 5-day suspension. But she was taking birth control prescribed by her doctor and purchased by her mother. A student who brings a "controlled substance" into a Fairfax County high school is subject to the same penalties as a student carrying a gun. So the girl was suspended for two weeks and "recommended for expulsion." Last Thursday, The Washington Post reports, "a long table full of school officials weighed her case at a hearing."
I don't doubt that Ortho Tri-Cyclen is extremely dangerous to a certain social order—far more so than is, say, heroin. But it seems like the kind of thing public high schools should be encouraging.
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Dahlia's recent article on "sexting" asked whether it makes sense to charge teens who exchanged naked photos with producing or possessing child pornography. Apparently, that's not the only cell phone behavior that can leave a kid in cuffs. According to this report from the Smoking Gun, a 14-year-old high-school student in Wisconsin was arrested for disorderly contact for texting during class. Long story short: A teacher called a "student resources officer" after the girl refused to hand in her phone. She denied not only texting in class but also having a phone at all; a female police officer searched her and uncovered the Samsung Cricket in her "buttocks area." The person she was texting during class? Her father.
It must be maddening for teachers to deal with students texting during class. But arresting a kid for disorderly conduct? Wouldn't a suspension be a better approach than arresting and strip-searching a 14-year-old for a cell phone?
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