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Each year in Texas, at least 100,000 students are punished under the mandatory guidance of Chapter 37 of the Texas Education Code. Passed in 1995 as the Safe Schools Act, it promised to make schools drug, tobacco, and weapon free zones. Unfortunately, it has done nothing to make our schools safer but it has undermined parental rights.
Parents are encouraged to be active in their children’s learning development but when it comes to disciplining your child, government school administrators have disappeared under the umbrella of Chapter 37 (commonly called Texas’ Zero Tolerance law) and have claimed full rights over your child.
Of the roughly 100,000 children punished under this law, we estimate that at least 10% (roughly the entire population of Brenham, Texas) are either innocent or severely punished beyond common sense. You think a bread knife in the back of a teen’s pickup truck bed is harmless? Not in Texas.
Imagine, for a moment, your elementary-aged child playing on the school’s playground and finding a liquor bottle next to a fence. If your child picks this up and a teacher sees him doing so, that is enough evidence to have your child arrested for possession of alcohol.
Under state law, school districts can authorize the detainment and questioning of children by police before parents are notified. This means you do not have a right to be present when this interrogation occurs. We do not believe that the police should be allowed to question our children before we arrive to exert our parental rights.
There are many groups in Texas that are seeking wide spread reforms of Chapter 37 and we wholeheartedly agree with them and fully support them in their effort.
But we are also realistic. Government moves slowly and so incremental change seems to be all that the legislature can manage. Because of that, our group primarily supports immediate parental involvement in our children’s discipline. We want our children to be afforded the same rights as we do from self-incrimination and want to be present when the police find it necessary to question them.
We also find it necessary to have an appeals process for certain punishments meted out by school districts that will result in a fair and non-biased hearing.
Our website is dedicated to the parents who have fallen into this draconian system and to taxpayers who need to know what is happening in our public schools. We offer cases of reported abuses of this system as well as news and research for those to have an educated opinion. As we push for our goals in the legislature, we ask you to assist by emailing us your thoughts on zero tolerance to be shared with the Texas Legislature during this 2007 session.
