Chris Petrilli noticed this story on the kid who was suspended for.. well read it:

I can’t imagine why he was disorderly when you’ve just made him hang up on his mother, who could be killed at any point. That’s just irrational behavior on his part. Oh wait, no, these shmucks, who pass for “principals,” need to lose their job for not giving one iota about the child, and only about the rules. This is why our school system sucks. It’s become nothing but an amalgam of rules and regulations, punishment and retribution, testing over learning, and what we are creating are proto-drones for the workforce, not vibrant individuals.

Arrested? For talking on the cell phone? And you think you’re being “nice” by just suspending him? Asshats. So what would have been the “right response?” That’s hard to say, but likely it would have been a warning, or something similar.

All they care about at the schools now are rules. There's absolutely no room for judgment at all - which has to make you wonder about the tacit lessons that kids are learning. At my daughter's school, kids can be suspended for bringing cough drops or aspirin without a doctor's note - one from the parents won't suffice. She was terrified that the school was going to kick her out when my wife gave her a pseudofed in the car, since the car was in the school parking lot.

The origins of this are an extreme aversion to risk, and - most especially - an aversion to potential legal liability. The perceived risk of suits is apparently so high that we've ended up with absurd regulatory regimes in the schools. Note I said the perceived risks - I have no idea what the actual risks are. While there's a lot of reporting about stupid lawsuits, it's dangerous to assume a lot based on that kind of anecdotal evidence. Either way though, it's a very bad thing.