Yes punish these kids when they screw up but don't cripple them.
Where would you have admin draw the line? They have a zero tolerance policy because they don't want to be sued by allowing some indiscretions to be okay while others got the full ramifications. If you are arrested you are off any and all extra curricular teams.
What if he was arrested for a violent act? Non violent? White collar crime? Cyber crime? Could the argument be made that more frequently females got away with these crimes and that males were unfairly persecuted? Could a case be made for gender bias, race bias, sexual orientation?.....how can the school draw a line other than at square one and say ZERO tolerance?
The reason why zero tolerance exists is because it's easy. No muss no fuss put up with angry parents / people for a couple of days then you move on. You hope that everyone else learns to fear a rule / law instead of understanding why it's there. What's worse is nobody is there teaching them what good decisions are and how to make them. That is the outcome of zero tolerance - more problems.
Where should the admin draw the line? The line needs to be drawn on individual cases. If it's a violent crime then drop a hammer and have severe consequences. The powers that be need to look at all aspects of the case and even the history of that person before handing out punishment. If the person has a history of trouble them don't let there be any doubt as to what the punishment is. But still teach what right from wrong is. People don't want to do case by case because it's too hard to make decisions. Plus it does open up people to criticism but at the end of the day what is best for that kid in that situation to learn right from wrong while being punished.
Today I helped our asst. principal investigate how a window got broken in a door to our gym. We watched video and talked to some people and figured out who did it. He supposedly told one of our coaches and the coach told him to tell the principal this morning. Well I verify with our coach that he did come to him and that conversation happened. We pulled the kid in and he admitted to it and the reason he hadn't old the principal is because he hadn't found him yet. The principal was off campus at a meeting. So this kid comes in and admits to it, said he would pay for the replacement and would accept being suspended if that would the punishment. We asked him what happened (we already knew) and he told us exactly what we already knew - he was racing another kid and couldn't stop in time and hit the door. Complete accident and no harm was intended on his part although he destroyed school property. By definition of the law we could have had him arrested. So what did we do?
I asked him what did he learn from this. He said not to goof off around the school buildings and if he wanted to race then to go to the football field where it's meant to have people run. Then we asked him what could have been possible bad outcomes of this. We got him to realize if his hand / arm had went through the window he could have been in some serious trouble with cutting his wrist where major blood vessels are. The kid got it and understood. He was scared and nervous. He learned a lesson and we let him walk out of the office with nothing else to happen. We aren't going to make him pay for it, he's not going to be suspended or anything else. Will he make more mistakes of course but he's going to start putting more thought into what decisions he makes.
What good would it have been to suspend him and make him pay the $250 to replace the window? Now if he had come in with attitude, lied, did it on purpose or had a history of things like this then the outcome would have been much different. Suspension and paid for it because he hadn't got it yet.
Zero tolerance is lazy. Do what's right for these kids and treat each situation on their own merits.