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Nathan Steel Suspended After Taking Over-The-Counter Med While His Mother Drives Him To SchoolBelow is another classic example of ZT Lunacy. A disaster that could
happen to any family in America today that has children in a public school
with Zero Tolerance Policies. Read this and have someone with children
that thinks ZT is a good thing read it and see if they still think it
is such a good thing! Scott County Public Schools Disciplinary Action Towards Nathan: (The Gate
City High School Principal's
Recommendation) (The Scott County School
Standard Violated)
During the week of December 9th, several boys in the classroom mentioned below told me that a certain female student was giving one of the male students a hard time by telling him “you’re stupid,” “shut up,” and “I hate you.” I was told every time the male student says anything; this one certain female student harasses him. On December 15, 2003, a teacher at Gate City High School began the morning, first class of the day, by calling the above mentioned male student out of the classroom. He will later testify he was threatened with “slam you up against the locker.” And that he lied to the teacher about telling him he “snorted” a LorTab once. He later will testify that he made this story up in hopes this would make the teacher leave him alone. Shortly after they left the room, the above mentioned female student turned in the direction of my son and two other boys stating “you’re next.” The teacher then called my son outside of the classroom. He took him to the back steps and chitchatted a minute about the drug problem at Gate City and asking my son if he knew what all was going around. My son answered as best he could. The teacher then proceeded to intimidate him by using the remark “ I know what you did in my class” and “if you were my son I would slam you up against the locker.” When asked if he had ever taken a drug, my son answered freely that he took a” sleeping pill “once before he got to school and his knee medicine before basketball. (doctor’s excuse on this) My children have had little if any father influence in their life and being intimidated by this male teacher and later two male school officials, he would have admitted to shooting President Lincoln if asked. This teacher would later suggest to my son, “if you want a really good drug, you need to try some LSD.” On the day of the school board hearing, my son had to be in this teacher’s class one last time before he was handed down his punishment by he school board. The teacher strutted into the class in a suit as the young girls told him what they thought of his appearance. (Oddly, it was the same girls whose name will be announced at the school board hearing later that night) As a parent, I don’t believe I would appreciate my child being singled out as a tattletale or perhaps they were just mentioning names to make a child look more guilty which must to be what happened in my son’s case. After all, there were two school officials who stated and verified twice that no one saw my son do anything that he just admitted to taking a pill) My son was not the only “boy” called out of class this day. There were five all together that I know of from this teacher’s classroom. Only one boy was searched. The teacher gave his reason for questioning as “I heard some chatter.” I took my son for a drug test only to be told by a school board official that a drug test was useless and he had witnesses who could prove it. Needless to say, there were no witnesses available to discus this with at my son’s hearing. I was told I could not know who accused my son of anything. I found out later I have the right to question my son’s accusers. I received my first note from school, now they have my son down as admitting to taking a sleeping pill (Ambien) OR a LorTab . Although two boys will testify the first boy mentioned the LorTab and my son said only a sleeping pill the officials chose to ignore this. Actually, the testimony was quite erratic. A school official when testifying that “no the Steel boy didn’t say LorTab it was the “first” boy but when a School Board official promptly stated “are you sure it wasn’t the Steel boy, he took the LorTab too didn’t he?” This official will then say no, I’m not sure, maybe he did. I then asked if my son just sat there nodding and he said he wasn’t sure. The School Board would then re-call the other official who would state my son said both and he was “verbal.” A child that does not say ten words in a week, I find the term verbal, inappropriate to say the least. A teacher actually told my mother it took her until the end of the school year to get Nate to talk. Actually, no one who knows him believed the remark that he was verbal and most certainly not in the situation he was in. Actually the school official who said my son was verbal, testified under oath that he had never seen an infraction of the zero tolerance “alcohol, drug, and tobacco” that he had not taken action against. This is puzzling in that I was in the football building, twenty feet from this person, December 14, 1:30 AM, along with hundreds of other parents and fans, as minors and coaches smoked cigars. This is an infraction of zero tolerance and it is against the school policy as described on page 54 of the school handbook. Why an official lie under oath or did he feel that his cigar smoking was ok since they just won the state? Why is a football team allowed to break the rules and nothing is done? I have yet to find that exception in the student handbook. The punishment, although the aleve was not taken at school and the second drug was not taken by my son, Nate was given ten days suspension by the school with a 365 day recommendation and reduced to 80 days by the school board official after stating to my son “are you the golfer?” “Well, not anymore you’re not, ´then stating “ I can take away sports for 12 to 18 months and send you away for 365 days.” This comment is nothing more than harassment added to the cruel and unusual punishment of a minor child. This prompted my son to say, “I will kill myself.” This was of no concern to the School Board official. I believe whether he felt this was a true threat or not, there is a policy regarding “threat of harm to self or others” delgated by the states. I had to demand my son see the school psychologist. After obtaining permission from the principal, we saw the psychologist. She felt my son was depressed. That’s a shocker! Who wouldn’t be with the treatment my son had just undergone at the hands of the school system. She wanted to see my son twice a week in counseling. So far they have shown four drug tapes to the 12 kids in alternative school. I am not sure if this is counseling or if the counseling will take place after the alternative school since they are not allowed on school property except to catch the ride home. One child was made to stand outside in the rain and cold because he was not allowed inside the school. This injustice has no doubt cost my child a scholarship and quite possibly financial aid for college next year. The punishment handed down by the Scott County School board does not fit the crime of taking an Aleve in the car with his mother. I am ashamed of our school officials and school board. Five lawyers have said you can't do anything with “that bunch at the school board.” I have written my Attorney General, Jerry Kilgore, and was told “no jurisdiction over schools.” I never received an answer on the “cigar smoking on school property.” I wrote my State Representative, Terry Kilgore, I have not received an answer. The ACLU turned me down. The State Board of Education, Margaret Roberts, said they have no jurisdiction over the issue with my son or of the cigar smoking in the field house. The VHSL (Virginia High School League controls sports in Virginia) said they viewed the tape that was being sold from the Gate City High School office and saw nothing wrong with it. We evidently did not view the same tape as you can see students smoking and breaking the law from page 54 of the student handbook that my child and all others is forced to follow. Tobacco is part of the zero tolerance and I anticipated that the school board would hand down the same “unreasonable” punishment to the players and to the coaches who witnessed the breaking of a Virginia statute 9 and the law regarding minors and tobacco. I expected to see many new faces in the alternative school program for the next 80 days. (80 days is them minimum so three of us parents were told but of course that was another “untruth.”) To date nothing has been done by the local School Board in Gate City and the supervisor told me that he “knew nothing of any ruling taking place on this.” There are 12 students sitting in alternative school, suspended 10 days immediately as they awaited their fate. I was told you get two chances at hearings. This is wrong. If there is a unananimous decision by three school officials, that’s it, you get nothing more. I do not know of any case that made to the second hearing. By not handing out “disciplinary action” as stated in the handbook to the “tobacco violators” the School Board is not following it’s own rules. I am asking for equal treatment of the children at Gate City High School. Zero Tolerance is out of control and local school boards are also out of control. They need to either follow the student handbook to the letter or they need to be releasing my son from their alternative school. They are denying my son the right to a fair and equal education. This is a right that is guaranteed by the state of Virginia and the state of Virginia doesn’t seem to care. Total control of children does not belong to the state, it belongs to the parent and Virginia is violating my right to be a parent.
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