Jeanette Hartwell, 47, moved her entire family from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., to the neighboring town of Ontario to live with relatives after her son DJ was expelled from Ruth Musser Middle School for joking with a classmate about opening fire in school with a Glock semiautomatic handgun. The Hartwells shelled out $15,000 in lawyers' fees to fight DJ's expulsion. When the board wouldn't allow DJ to return, the family coughed up an additional $13,000 to pay for private school tuition for DJ and his two younger brothers -- fees they couldn't afford on Jeanette's husband's salary as a police officer. The Hartwells were forced to sell the home they'd purchased a year earlier.

"It was a nice house, and we'd just begun to think of it as home," says DJ, now 16. He knew the conversation with his friend was inappropriate, says DJ, a self-described loner who loves books and politics. But "I was kind of starved for any sort of friendly interaction," he says. "So if he wanted to start a conversation about it I wasn't going to stop him. I didn't think it was harmful to anybody." That was the last conversation he had with his friend. After his expulsion, DJ says, "I felt very betrayed and very hurt. I was in shock. I felt very alone."

("We're not going to comment on this," said Cathy Preston, administrative assistant to the superintendent of Central School District in Rancho Cucamonga. "That was a private matter and we don't discuss students.")

Besides battling school districts, these parents also struggle to keep their children mentally healthy. As Dustin Seal's case illustrates, expulsion can have a deep effect on a child's emotional state and sense of self. "I see anxiety and depression becoming almost the most powerful things in their lives," says Jerry Wyckoff, a former school psychologist now in private practice in Overland Park, Kan., who has worked with about 15 children embroiled in zero tolerance cases. "The kids just can't understand why this happened to them. They feel completely, totally wronged. Adolescents have trouble trusting adults anyway, and this just confirms that all adults are against me; there's no one in the world who can help me."

For kids who are both expelled and arrested, finding a way to move on proves especially hard. Since he had a felony on his record, Dustin Seal wasn't able to find a job after his expulsion. "He wanted to be an attorney," says Dennis Seal, "but he couldn't even work at McDonald's."

And since expulsion means that the student is not only barred from school, but from all school events, activities that might have helped the child -- sports or clubs that could raise self-esteem or foster positive relationships with other kids -- are now off-limits. Hastings' son, the wrestler, was forced off the team since they trained at the local school.

Rohman's son, Anthony, always loved baseball, she says; playing for the school team was his passion. "After he left," she says, "I found his team jersey in the trash in his room. He was so proud of that before [his expulsion]."

For Brown and his wife, who were active school volunteers and supporters, their son's expulsion meant that they ended up ostracized as well. "Once your kid is no longer going to school with other kids, we no longer saw our friends," he says. "We didn't go to the games, we didn't go to the plays. We were totally isolated from people we'd known for years."

"But it's not just the parents who suffer," says Brown. "It's his older brother, too, because you have to focus all your attention on one kid."

Jeanette Hartwell's two younger sons were doing well in the public school when her oldest son, DJ, was expelled. Wary of the public school system, she enrolled them all in private school. "[My middle son] was in the band and played for the school's roller hockey team. He had to leave all that," she says. "It hurt him. He had a lot of friends and was well liked."

While parents like Dennis Seal have thrown themselves into fighting against zero tolerance -- Seal says he gets about a call a week from other parents asking for advice -- it's been difficult for parents, like Brown, to take any political action toward ending the policies. "It's hard to form a support group of people who hate the school, because you're also ashamed of your status as a parent," he says. "Your kid reflects on you. You go into the school year thinking everything is wonderful and your kid will be educated. Then you find out -- oh, my kid is one of those kids who shouldn't be in school at all."

Joining Parents Against Zero Tolerance has made Rohman more politically active, she says. She's attended an academic conference about school discipline with other PAZT members, and she presented a lengthy paper to the school board, arguing against her county's zero tolerance policies. The board agreed to start looking at individual cases instead of doling out the same punishments regardless of the details.

After her success with the board, she says, "I do feel like what you say and do can make a difference." But she's not planning to stick around to find out: After the school year is over, she's considering moving closer to her son and finding another teaching position. "I don't feel like I can stay here after this. I love my school; I love my job. I don't want to leave -- but I don't want to stay in a county that would do this to my son."

As for Seal, he's determined to make sure that his son did not die in vain. "I have to have closure," he says. "I don't want anything like this to ever happen again."

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