Young teacher strongly regrets expelling student who smelled of pot.
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Harsh punishment and “no excuses” policies have long-term negative consequences for our students, and disproportionately affect minorities
There are few moments I regret so profoundly as one of the decisions I made in my second year of teaching.
In the fall of 2011, I was an optimistic 22-year-old teacher at a public charter school in a low-income neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana. I had just finished a challenging but great first year of teaching. Despite becoming slowly aware of some of the systemic problems affecting our low-income communities, I clung to an attitude of fierce idealism towards education reform and poverty mitigation. As simplistic as it sounds, at the time I genuinely believed that good teaching and instilling a strong work ethic in students were the silver bullets to many of the problems that perpetuated the cycle of poverty.
This story is about one of my former students, who I’ll call Marcus for the sake of his privacy. Marcus was a quiet, hard-working, 15-year-old black student in my Geometry class. One September morning, Marcus walked into my classroom reeking of marijuana. Doing what I was required to do, I notified the school behavior dean, essentially passing off the problem to someone of higher authority.
In retrospect, my referral changed the course of Marcus’ life for the next year —and perhaps the distant future — for the worse.
Our school officials searched him. It turned out that Marcus was in possession of a “substantial amount” of marijuana (a violation of state law) which meant that the school was required to call the New Orleans Police Department. Marcus was also expelled and had to re-enroll in an alternative school which specifically accepts students kicked out of traditional public school environments.
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