Slap 'n' tickle

Late last year, the local high school received a bomb threat. It turned out to be a hoax, but it's still the kind of conduct that calls for swift and sure punishment.

The student who made the threatening call was administered an appallingly mild dose of punitive medicine -- a four-day in-school suspension.

I rolled my eyes when I heard that -- four days? I mean, our younger spawn got three last week for throwing a couple of retaliatory punches. Besides, what the hell is an in-school suspension?

The reasons behind school officials' slap-on-the-wrist weren't clear, but I recall commenting to my wife that they'd sent a message that would only encourage similar acts in the future.

Looks like I was right. In the last six weeks, the same school has gone into lockdown four times -- all bomb threats, all phoned-in hoaxes.

And on Monday night, two vans parked in the school's parking lot were torched, two buildings broken into and walls spray-painted with graffiti. The local Miscreants Club definitely got the message and is holding regular meetings.

Whatever happened to the "hot stove" approach? While I acknowledge the value of discretion and proportion, the stove of punishment has to be hot enough to persuade an offender (and any associates) not to touch it again. Pretty simple stuff.

Take the case of our 13-year-old, suspended from school recently for fighting. I don't know about the other kid (who was booted for five days, by the way), but the school's penalty and two weeks' house arrest from us should be enough to make our spawn think twice before getting into another tussle unnecessarily -- and if it's not enough, stiffer punishment is in order.

And then there's our 17-year-old. When the CarChip we'd planted revealed that he'd been driving 90mph in a 25mph zone, we grounded him for a month. Apparently our stove wasn't hot enough, however, because a few months later he got a ticket for 75 in a 65. His excuse?

"Other cars were going a lot faster than I was. It was totally impossible for me to drive any slower."

Right...

Naturally, we grounded him again. The county's penalty was a nominal fine, a few trips to traffic school and a pair of essays -- no license suspension. Call me a hard-ass, but it didn't seem like a very hot stove.

Sure enough, last Friday he got clocked by a state trooper and pinched for 77mph in a 60mph zone. When he broke the news to his mom and me -- four days later, which is a whole 'nother story -- he had a new excuse this time around:

"The sun was in my eyes. I couldn't even see the speedometer, so I didn't know how fast I was going."

At that moment I got up from my chair, walked to the bathroom and checked my reflection in the mirror. Just as I thought, I don't look quite that stupid.

Yes, he's grounded -- not so much for having a lead foot (he's a teenager, after all) as for refusing to be accountable for his actions and their consequences. Now we'll see if a county judge has the stones to suspend his driver's license for six months, which is exactly what should happen.

Look, I'm not begging the county or our school district to impose idiotic "zero tolerance" policies, the kind of knee-jerk rules that slap a 14-year-old with a year's expulsion for coming to class with a Nerf dart pistol.

I'm simply asking for common sense -- and a hotter stove.

* * *
Update, 10:26am: This text message just arrived on my phone:

The high school has received a threatening note. Police Depart are conducting a full search. All students are secure in their

I'm guessing that the third sentence would've ended with the word, "classrooms." Or maybe "beds." (Probably not "sexual identity.") As long as the district's communications genius is still on the job, it's hard to say for sure.

Anyway, let's review, shall we? The high school was hit by arson and vandalism Monday night. A threat yesterday morning and another today makes a total of five lockdowns since the first of the year.

Somebody needs to turn up the heat, dammit.