Must Zero Tolerance Erase This Teen’s Prospects?

Sixteen-year-old Caleb Hale sits on a park bench in Fullerton, trying to convince me he’s not a menace to society. He’s telling me that what had begun as “basically, a normal school day” at Buena Park High School on Sept. 29 has turned into a pivotal moment in his life. As he sees it, his future is up for grabs right now.

“Until now, there was no doubt what I wanted to do,” he says. “I wanted to be a fighter pilot. Since seventh grade, I’ve known what I wanted to do, and I’ve worked toward that goal. I read books on fighter pilots and their tactics and maneuvers. By eighth grade, I was finding out about what programs I could take, what I could do about applying to the Air Force Academy.”

Although he lived in Westminster when he began high school, Caleb enrolled in Buena Park because of its Air Force ROTC program.

But as we sit and talk, all that is on hold. Caleb is suspended and facing possible expulsion.

Then, he tells me his version of how he got into this fix.

I don’t know Caleb, so I can’t vouch for or against him. But as we chat, I’m thinking: What kind of a school policy is it that would leave a high school junior feeling this perilously close to the edge?

That policy is known as zero tolerance and is the rage in certain quarters around the country, including Orange County. Adopted as an counterattack against student drug use or weapons possession, it attempts to deter both by threatening violators with expulsion or transfer.

On its face, it makes perfect sense. Drugs and weapons don’t belong on any campus, and students who put them in play should face consequences.

That’s where we pick up Caleb’s story of that fateful Tuesday 12 days ago:

“I was walking from the gym to another class and it caught my eye, over in the grass.”

“It” was a knife, about 7 inches long, including the 4-inch blade with a curled tip. “It was like, what a find,” Caleb recalls thinking. My thinking was, put it in my pocket, leave it there, take it home, no harm done.”

But when it didn’t fit in his pocket, he stuck it in his boot. Later that day, he told a friend what he’d found. Outside a classroom door, his friend lifted Caleb’s pant leg to see the knife. Unfortunately, a teacher was five feet away.

At first, Caleb says, he played dumb. He shrugged, he weaseled, he tried to give the knife to a friend. “I knew lying would make it worse, but the kid in me didn’t want to fork it over if he [the teacher] hadn’t seen it,” Caleb says. “I’m very ashamed of that. I couldn’t even stand up as a man and face it.”

The teacher recovered the knife, and Caleb went to the principal’s office. Police came and arrested him for carrying a concealed weapon. He was cuffed, fingerprinted and booked. He hasn’t been charged, but the school district has acted more quickly.

Caleb lives with his father, Don, who works with abused children at the Florence Crittenton shelter. Don Hale says an assistant superintendent in the Fullerton Joint Union High School District told him and Caleb earlier this week that he favors expulsion.

Supt. Michael Escalante told me, however, that a “hearing panel” of former administrators is the group that recommends action in such cases. That hearing will be Oct. 21.

Escalante told me he wasn’t familiar with Caleb’s case but said the Hales “may be jumping to conclusions.” The hearing panel, Escalante said, “frequently comes back, in fact, more often than not, for a recommendation of some other kind of punishment. . . . “

I asked Escalante about zero tolerance and a young person’s occasional propensity for using bad judgment. “A 16-year-old knows that a knife is not to be held on campus,” Escalante says. “He knows right from wrong, and a 16-year-old knows that pocket knives or any kind of weapons are not acceptable.”

Don Hale fears that school officials may not believe his son’s version of how he found the knife. He is also worried that the skinhead “bible” Caleb had been reading might work against him. Caleb and his father both scoff at the idea that the teen is a skinhead.

But they fear that possession alone will sink his son.

That’s why I’ve always disliked zero-tolerance policies. In most walks of life, details do matter.

Escalante says Caleb’s rights will be protected. In other districts involving zero tolerance, however, parents have not always agreed that happens.

The irony is that Caleb says he understands, sort of, the zero-tolerance policy. “I totally understand where they’re coming from. Kids are crazy nowadays. They got no conscience. My biggest problem with the policy is it’s kind of a cop-out, that teachers can blame all their decisions on the policy and don’t have to make any kind of choices.”

Don Hale says he’s phoned other districts about accepting Caleb, in case he is expelled. None seem interested, he says. Meanwhile, the district has directed an independent studies teacher to set up home schooling for Caleb.

What should happen? I ask father and son.

“I would understand a very large suspension with some kind of community service to help the school,” Caleb says.

Don nods in agreement. “I understand consequences,” he says. “Have him paint the school, clean the grounds, wash the teachers’ cars every weekend to teach him a lesson. But don’t destroy his life.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com