Posted on 12/16/2004 10:07:18 AM PST by Ellesu
ST. LOUIS -- The board of a St. Louis charter school on Wednesday placed a principal on leave after he had police handcuff a 5-year-old and drive him around the block in a squad car to curb his unruly behavior.
Principal Sam Morgan is on leave from Thurgood Marshall Academy pending an investigation into last month's incident, board attorney Wayne Harvey said.
Morgan declined to comment Wednesday, but last week said he had spent more time on the boy "than any kid in this building, trying to steer him straight."
He said he had police "put the handcuffs on one arm, put him in the back seat of their car and drive him around a little bit."
Morgan added: "This kid is heading for the Department of Corrections at 5. He fights, strikes somebody practically every day on the bus. He's a constant disruption."
Morgan, a longtime principal at East St. Louis High School in Illinois, also spent eight years working in the Department of Corrections.
The boy's mother, Aroni Rucker, said Wednesday her son had trouble adjusting to his first year of school and may have been disruptive, but he did nothing to warrant such treatment.
"They put handcuffs on my baby," Rucker said. "That's for adults who murder and kill. He's 5. He's in kindergarten."
Rucker said she was planning to pull the boy and her second-grader from the school at the end of the semester when Morgan told her last week that the kindergartner could not come back.
St. Louis police spokesman Richard Wilkes said the department was looking into the incident. "Handcuffing 5-year-olds is not a practice of the department," he said.
The University of Missouri-St. Louis announced in August that it would end its sponsorship of the charter school, meaning the school must find a new sponsor by June or close. The university placed the school on probation twice, citing fiscal mismanagement, board corruption, poor academic performance and high turnover in leadership -- seven principals in five years.
University spokesman Bob Samples, part of the sponsorship team, said only that "it's inappropriate to handcuff a 5-year-old."
now if the tyke had a pair of scissors, THEN principal would get a medal
Well if her baby stays on the path ahead...One day the baby will be one of the "adults who murder and kill". Plus that statement is quite ignorant, murdering and killing have the same outcome, dead people..redundant don't you think.
vapid is a word the mother seems to evoke
I smell lawyers in the wing.
I've done more than that to unruly brats. Guess they outlawed the paddle in that district.
FMCDH(BITS)
The University of Missouri-St. Louis announced in August that it would end its sponsorship of the charter school, meaning the school must find a new sponsor by June or close. The university placed the school on probation twice, citing fiscal mismanagement, board corruption, poor academic performance and high turnover in leadership -- seven principals in five years.
Looks like someone else should be in handcuffs.
What a bunch of lily-livered pantywaists we have in our society. The mother should be taking the initiative in disciplining the child. It did not escape my notice that the father in not even mentioned in the story.
Parents will not make their children behave, expecting the school to take care of it. Corporal punishment, however, is out of the question. I am sure the principal and teachers have explored many options with the child. When he uses a creative and possibly successful method of impressing the necessity of good behavior on him - the mother reprimands the school and further enables the child's self-destructive behavior.
The mother is right, handcuffs are for criminals and she is creating one.
This principal should be given a medal.
That's when parents didn't treat kids like the whole world revolves around *them*, and that they never hurt and they must get their wishes (a`la Dr Spock) - which, believe it or not, is a very bad and definitely selfish premise.
Now you notice every parent of every stripe says "not my kid" or "he was just...." instead of a) believing he did something wrong & b) punishing him for it.
Yup, it all goes back to Dr Spock.
"The boy's family lost but it cost the school big money to fight it."
All of this - even when the result is proper - would stop if we'd go back to...
LOSER PAYS ALL.
I just did a Google Search and found that this school is run by the same Management Company as my daughter's school. ChandlerBeacon.
They are one of the companies that I would NEVER have my child attend. They are the cliche of a management company that is all for money.
Edison Schools had problems with this as well.
I gather the police don't have anything better to do either. To protect and serve. Maybe on the way around the block they stopped a few times to write some parking tickets so the kid got a real taste for the system.
Kid needs a serious spanking.
"They put handcuffs on my baby," Rucker said. "That's for adults who murder and kill. He's 5. He's in kindergarten."
Yes. Yes - I think that may be it.
Where is the problem exactly? Who file the complaint? A clueless welfare husbandless loser collecting in three different counties?
I'm really confused these days.
White parents are not allowed to file lawsuits? In this case, would the school rather have 5 lawsuits or one?
Sounds like parents have solid grounds to argue that their children are not being physically protected adequately.
Never mind.
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