Teachers who work at schools with a "Zero Tolerance" rule, what's the most ridiculous thing you've seen a kid get suspended for?

1. Not a teacher but did attend an alternative school as a student and it was some of the stupidest reasons. One kid had a bag of protein powder in his backpack. A girl had been with a grouo at a football game at a completely different school and the leader of the group got into a fight with another group, the girl didnt even participate in the fight. She got expelled. One had a box cutter in his truck that he used for work. It was in a locked tool box in his locked truck. His saw was ok but the box cutter was a big no-no. One kid had shotgun shells in the back of his truck from hunting over the weekend. Most of the other kids deserved it. After so many fights they were expelled (3 or4) or had drugs.
   — rattlesnail08


2. In primary school, we were doing a dance number for Mother's day and we couldn't point at the audience because "it could be misinterpreted as a finger gun and that promotes violence". We ended up doing a "talk to the hand" gesture to the crowd but one kid forgot about it and pointed. He was suspended for 2 days
   — RegularLegsBabyLegs


3. Complete opposite of what you are asking but I teach for a supposed "zero tolerance school" and an 11 year old threatened to take his fathers rifle and shoot up the school. He got called into the counselors office and was basically told "Hey. Don't do that" Scared the shit out of me.
   — Lost_my_other_pswrd






4. You'd get in trouble for *getting* bullied.
   — hakubarudo


5. A kid at my school was expelled for sexual harassment for being spotted with an involuntary erection in class.
   — NicolasGuacamole


6. When I was in HS, there was a kid that got expelled for flexing his arms and saying "I got tickets to the GUN SHOW".
   — cmillard12






7. In high school a kid got suspended because he had a butter knife in his truck. Supposedly someone saw the metal shining through the window and told the staff. They pulled the kid out of class and made him open the truck. Due to zero tolerance they considered it a weapon and the kid got suspended.
   — LikeGoldAndFaceted


8. I'm not a teacher but my mother was. This was in the news a long time ago but there was a kid in my school who had a pony tail or a rat tail in elementary school. I went to school in a small town in Texas in the 80's, zero tolerance for long hair or ear rings on boys etc. They put him in In-school suspension for half of the school year and demanded he cut his hair. When his family refused, after a lengthy court battle, they expelled him entirely. He may have been in the 3rd grade.
   — totspur1982


9. Not a teacher (sorry), but the entire high school band was almost suspended after we stole our own cell phones. We were traveling to an away game, and one of the parent chaperones didn't like that we were on our phones instead of staring out the window quietly. She suggested to our director that he take all of our phones once we got to the location so we would have no distractions while we played. Our phones had never been a problem before, our director was usually laid back, but since the chaperone was also a teacher at school he decided to enforce it. Imagine our faces when he walked down the bus aisle, ordering us to put our phones in a plastic bin. We get off the bus and see him lock the doors with the bin inside, effectively locking our phones away from us. This was a big deal because a lot of us had parents who wanted to know if we had arrived safely, and we couldn't tell them we did because of this. Also, we all hated that chaperone and knew the rule was bull crap. Fortunately, one of the tuba players managed to open his bus window a bit before leaving the bus, so we had a way to get our phones back. I was in color guard and on the skinny side, so I was pushed through the window during the second quarter while our director was in the bathroom. I get the bin, pass it through and hop out. Everyone got their phone back before halftime, and everyone texted their parents to let them know what happened. Some other parents had made the trip too and were told what happened. The chaperone was pissed, our director apologized, but we were all sent to the principals office on Monday to receive our "suspension." It was originally going to be just me and the group who had gotten the bin, but everyone else in band was rounded up by the chaperone as "accomplices" for "distracting" our director. I was a senior with a perfect behavior record, most of the band kids were, which cued a flood of parents coming into school that day to complain about the risk to their children's safety and why this was grounds for suspension. The principal wasn't going to suspend the entire high school band, so we all got a stern talking to about "respecting adult decisions" and sent to class. The chaperone was reprimanded too, and wasn't allowed on away trips anymore. Good riddance
   — socksandpoptarts






10. Some kid had to go to the loo really bad and asked the teacher and she says to him in a very angry tone that he was not to leave his chair. Around 10 min later he pissed his pants. The teacher was about to explote and he got suspended for a week.
    — Maroll


11. I went to a school that was strict on chewing gum, they then expanded it to pen cap chewing, biting nails, candy and a few other chewable things. I got four days of detention for chewing on a pen cap
    — xDommy