USA - did your school or your children’s school have a 0% tolerance policy for fighting, including defending yourself?

My high school was dumb asf one year we were waiting outside for the bus and a guy tried to push me in front of the bus that was coming so I shoved him back and I got in school suspension and all he got was a warning ☠️ and other time this kid kept pulling other boys pants down in the boys gym class and they did nothing about it so one day one of the guys had enough of it and told the guy to stop and he didn’t he then tried to even pull due underwear off so the guy beat him up and the school expelled the guy who beat him up but the guy who was pulling other guys pants and underwear down didn’t get in the slightest bit of trouble

Yes & no. Not every school I went to did , but my middle school & high school did. If one kid was getting suspended from an incident involving another student both got suspension for the same length of time

My high school best friend had this happen. A group of girls decided my friends boyfriend should date one of them and it devolved into her being physicall assulted, bullied in class, and bullied online. Administration did nothing due to "lack of proof" even after multiple friends and teachers reported bullying plus we had cameras everywhere, including when she was kicked in the leg so badly it dislocated her knee. When she pushed a girl off of her she got written up for "trying yo cause trouble". She had to change schools twice because the bullying followed her to the next school.

She lost her faith in everyone before she even graduated, became paranoid, angry, bitter, and cruel to the point it was no longer safe to be her friend. Admin did NOTHING. She was the kindest person when i met her. She pulled me out of a horrible depression when we met, she was top of her class with grades, and brought fucking muffins and cupcakes and homemade fudge to school just to be nice and admin took that away fom her.

my schools were so fucked honestly so idk. the vice principal of my middle school (he had to be at least 350lbs) SAT on a girl who got in a fight. there were 13 fights that week. i also skipped so much in high school and never had any truancy issues. my brother skipped a whole bunch too and never had truancy issues and then “dropped out” when he turned 16 but he didn’t ever officially drop out he just quit going and they never like called to have him come sign papers saying he’s dropping out or anything. they would also expel seniors who weren’t on track to graduate because they wanted to keep their graduation averages up. i never heard of people getting suspended from self defense but most fights were mutual and the ones that weren’t the victims were beat up pretty badly so idk if they were suspended or just gone for a while recovering.

I think policy at my schools was both kids got the same punishment, if both were fighting, defending yourself wasn’t an excuse…supposedly bc they want you to run to the nearest person of authority and tell so it can then be a thing that goes on for the rest of your time at the school…brilliant right?

Technically that was the policy, but there were more than a few times that the person who stuck up for themselves wasn’t punished

There was a no bullying policy but if someone was defending themself they didn’t get in trouble unless they caused serious harm or injury . My husband’s school was allowed to defend themself too without getting in trouble

We were always told zero tolerance, but it's just not realistic. What I'm going to tell my daughter is that in situations where you ABSOLUTELY have to respond and have no choice, say clearly and confidently, "STOP. I don't like what you're doing, and if you continue, I'm going to get an adult / have to reciprocate (the last part dependent on age and comfort level). If that doesn't work, then she has my permission to defend herself in any way she has to, and I'll deal with the school. Because she gave a clear warning without violence and it was ignored, she'll have that to fall back on when I bring it to the school board.