My name is Fred Hink. I currently serve as President and spokesman of this group named, for lack of something better, Katy Zero Tolerance. In October 2003, I wrote a letter to the Viewpoints editor in the Houston Chronicle stating that I disagreed with the Loughs and their stance. I have, obviously, changed my opinion. All of this is documented already on this website so I won’t go into details here.
There was a night, probably in mid-November, that I sat in a home surrounded by 20 to 30 people and listened to their stories. It was a good-old fashioned gripe session. At the beginning, I didn’t feel like I belonged. My kids hadn’t ended up in A-school (Opportunity Awareness Center or OAC), they hadn’t gotten a ticket or been hauled off to the KISD police department. But the more I listened, incidents that had happened to my two children came flooding back and I realized how close they had been to being one of these children, one of the statistics.
We’ve had our kids in KISD since the beginning – my daughter started Kindergarten at Cimarron Elementary, we moved and both kids continued at Hayes Elementary. Both now attend McMeans Junior High along with the Loughs’ children and the Nemecs’ daughter. When our kids were young, it was a very naïve time for us – anything the school administrators and teachers said we believed.
When my son was in forth grade, he began being targeted by one child by constant taunts and bullying. My son was raised to be gentle and kind and to always stick up for the underdog. My thinking was, and I guess still is, a little stone age. I told him to beat the crap out of the kid. Well, my son felt he couldn’t do that – he said it was wrong. So, we compromised: I told him that if a kid hit him, to tell him to stop. If he did it a second time, tell him to stop and tell a teacher. If he did it a third time and the teacher did not do a thing (which had already been the case several times in the past), to pop the kid in the stomach.
Two days later, as the students were returning from the library to their class in single file but without a teacher escort, the kid behind my son kicked him in the back of the calf – obviously hard enough to leave a bruise – and my son told him to stop. The kid did it again. Since there was no teacher around, he improvised. My son told the boy if he kicked him again he would hit him back. So the boy, I guess considering it a challenge, did in fact kick my son again. My son turned around and, going by my instructions, popped the kid in the stomach.
The first I heard of the incident was two days later when my son brought home a very lengthy form explaining that for no reason, my son turned around and hit the child – completely unprovoked. The form explained that the offense was a Level III or Level IV infraction – which I had no clue what that was – but that this time, they would let it go with a warning. All they wanted me to do was sign the form and return it.
I interrogated my son for the next four hours. Not once did his story change. I then talked to several neighborhood children that are in his class and their stories were consistent with what my son reported.
I sent my son to school the next day with the form unsigned and a letter basically telling them that I had talked to my son and several of the other kids in the class and that my son acted in self-defense.
My reply triggered a call from the Assistant Principal in charge of discipline. She told me that my signing the document was not an admission of guilt but rather signifying that I had read and understood the charges against my son. I responded that I never sign my name to untrue allegations. As we spoke, I realized that the person on the other end of the phone did not know my son’s version of the truth and really didn’t care. She had questioned only two witnesses to the incident – the boy who had been picking on my son and another little girl. My son had already told me the girl was the boy’s “girlfriend.”
So I confronted her with my son’s version. I asked her if she had even called my son in to question him?
“Well, no, but…”
I asked her if she had spoken to other kids that were in line when the incident occurred.
“Well, no but…”
Did she know that the girl who backed up the “victim” in the crime was the victim’s “girlfriend” (which at this point I have to say it’s silly to let your kids have boyfriends and girlfriends at that age but to each their own) and would probably tell you whatever the boy wanted her to say?
“Well, no but…”
So, I told her: when you wrote in your form that after a thorough investigation you found my son was guilty, you didn’t really conduct a thorough investigation?
“Well, no but…”
The fact that they accused my son of something without gathering all of the facts was appalling to me but I heard all the stories I was hearing that night and was thankful that my son escaped.
Then there was the time my daughter was accused of skipping school, though it was later found out that the substitute didn’t mark her present because she had missed the previous two days with the flu and assumed that she was not there that day.
Recently, my son was involved with horseplay in the locker room and was taken into the assistant principal’s office. My son was pushed into a larger child who then turned and pushed my child back. Somehow, my son was blamed for the incident and was told that if the kid who my son had been pushed into sustained any injury – which would have included a deep bruise or scratch – that there would have been no alternative than to call the police to issue a ticket to my son. I don't necessarily blame the administrator because they are following what is reported to them as policy.
In a way, I feel I should be at school the entire time my kids are there, shadowing them to make sure that they do not break any of the discipline codes. Sometimes, I do wish that we had never gotten away from corporal punishment. A trip down to the coaches’ office and it was all over with. What has happened to our society that this convoluted chaos has ensued?
Fred Hink
Katy, TX
An update - I removed both of my children from KISD. Both are attending local private schools and are happier than they ever were in KISD.
