SMYRNA, Ga. — Mrs. Ellingsen, the French teacher, was Cosmo's favorite. "She was the funniest," the 13-year-old honors student said. "She was the nicest." On his A-average report card last December, she reciprocated. "A pleasure to have in class," she wrote. "Enthusiastic."
Every Christmas, Cosmo gives his favorite teachers a present. He sits down with his parents--a renowned telescope designer and a veteran flight attendant--and they decide on a gift tailored to the special tastes of each instructor. This year, it was a teapot for his social studies teacher. A set of salt-and-pepper shakers for his English teacher. And for his French teacher, French wine--Baron Philippe de Rothschild's Mouton Cadet, courtesy of the Bordeaux region, to be exact.
Cosmo put the bottle in a box and wrapped it in elf-spotted paper and a bow. He gave it to her, beaming, two days before winter vacation. "She opened it up and said, "Merci beaucoup,' " the eighth-grader recalled. "I thought it was a great gift. I mean, she told us she had lived in France. I assumed she would at least drink a little wine."
When it comes to drugs and alcohol, however, the Cobb County School District here in suburban Atlanta is guided by a policy of "zero tolerance," not joie de vivre. As she is required to do, Betsey Ellingsen turned over the contraband to the Griffin Middle School principal, Shirley Bachus. Bachus (a name shared, coincidentally, with Bacchus, the Roman god of wine) summoned the offender to her office. And Cosmo Zinkow--college-prep student, All-Star first baseman, blues guitarist, scratch golfer, aspiring astronaut--found himself in the deepest trouble of his young academic life, slapped with a two-week suspension.
"Zero tolerance means zero tolerance," explained Jay Dillon, the district's director of communications. "In matters of student safety, we can't take chances."
All across America, educators are embracing that absolutist philosophy--no slip-ups, no exceptions, no excuses. In a growing number of celebrated cases, no common sense also might be added to the litany. But with schools everywhere feeling besieged--by disruptive students as well as by litigious parents--many administrators see zero tolerance as a last line of defense, a tough and consistent response to the fraying fabric of their communities.
