Zero Tolerance Run Amok
This "crackdown" is only the educational system's latest instance of cowardice. The so-called "fairness" principle is a way for the powers that be to squirm out of having to think ethically, intelligently, compassionately. I ask that all grown-ups go back to high school for a day-- no, a week. Try to do it undercover, if at all possible. At the end of that week, after you have dealt with the real bullies, burnt-out teachers, busy-work curriculums, and arbitrary rules that punish folks who are simply trying to get through the system in one piece, let's readdress this issue of zero tolerance. Read Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War while you're at it. Do whatever you need to do to find compassion. (It is not synonymous with leniency, but it is a first cousin to empathy.)