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."
Why do I think that things would be diffierent if Aroni had a husband and the boy had a decent father? My kids would have their butts in a sling if they were to act a little like this, I wouldn't even dream of pressing charges or sueing. Of course I don't think everything is always somebody else's fault.
***This principal should be given a medal. ***
Totally agreed!
>>White parents are not allowed to file lawsuits? In this case, would the school rather have 5 lawsuits or one?<<
For some reason, the other parent's never thought of suing.
In my daughter's Kindergarten class, the door was a very heavy fire door on a state required closer. It slammed when not held open. The second week she was there, she and two other girls took the basket of lunch boxes back to the room. One of the girls let go of the door while my daughter's pinky was in the doorjam.
It's funny, although her finger was broken, it took 17 stitches to close the cut and sew the nail back on to protect it, I never thought of suing. I just thanked God that she didn't lose the digit and the nail grew back.
I guess all the other parents were just that kind of people.
I kinda like insipid twit myself.
Spare the handcuffs and spoil the child....
Lovely story.
Brought a big smile to my face.
Thanks for sharing it with us and Merry Christmas.
Cultural erosion, language barriers and educational chaos brought about third world immigration has its consequences, you know.
Let's give the cop some kind of award too./sarc
But ... but ... but I thought charter schools were supposed to be part of the big Educational Choice Plan that was going to "save" American school children.
Guess not.
This reminds me of a friend of mine, who is a member of my Light Opera Society.
A couple of years ago there were kids in a show they were doing, and my friend Brian (who was in his mid-20's at the time), was having trouble keeping one of them (a spoiled brat) under control.
So Brian handcuffed him to a table in one of the LX rooms, so he'd have peace of mind while having a cup of tea.
Except...he forgot about the kid.
He only realised at the end of the show, during the bows, that the kid wasn't on stage.
He found the brat, blubbering, where he'd left him.
Brian bought him off with chocolate. And his parents, didn't complain.
The kid was well mannered for the rest of the run, though.
>>But ... but ... but I thought charter schools were supposed to be part of the big Educational Choice Plan<<
As with any organization, competition is the key. Most Charter Schools can compete with District Schools hands down, however, because of that the parents are held hostage to the whims of the Management Company. If caps were taken off the amount of Charters, they would have to compete with eachother as well. Here is an example.
I live in a decent district. Being in the state I'm in, where we sit very low compared to the 50 states in Education, (lots of money thrown at them but 43rd in the country in the amount spent on children), the education output is poor.
The school my daughter attended offered a full day Kindergarten. They couldn't get enough classrooms for the children and there was a lottery to fill them. In first grade, many of the students took off for their district schools, because they were more convenient. The parents that stayed, really wanted a better education for their kids. (a friend of mine left, when her daughter went to the district school, she was almost a year ahead of the other students). Our charter offered little more than academics. No gym, no extracurricular activities, yet the parents stayed.
Every parent stated that if there was another charter around, they would bail, but because of the cap, the next closest charter was miles away. With competition, this school would have to offer more to say open. Our state will not allow this because they want charters to fail.
See? Every charter in my part of the state has waiting lists. They are doing something right.
The city school districts don't have to encourage the charters here to fail; they've been doing a great job of that all on their own.
Yup, it's selfish and shows cowardice. Yes, it can be gut-wrenching to discipline that child you love more than your own life. But guess what? It's a parent's JOB, whether it's unpleasant or not. So many parents today are far too concerned with being LIKED, with being their child's FRIEND, instead of doing their God-given job.
MM
Hee hee hee hee hee...... I like that!
Excellent point. And it's the same reason other "private" things get away w/murder - they're allowed no-competition, et al. And ironically, they also usually fail in the end - even tho they're propped up by the bureaucrats. Think of your CABLE providers - what competition??? Think also of the root causes of the CA black-outs - our friendly communists tried to say it was cuz of "deregulation" (i.e., capitalism), but the truth was there was still little competition and also too many other regulations on those that existed.
Complete freedom would lead to the best case.
Half-assed freedom like these samples is fascism - private ownership on a limited basis w/total outside government control (just a step away from communism).
Actually, KS has one of the most non-friendly charter laws.
http://www.edreform.com/index.cfm?fuseAction=cLaw&stateID=8&altCol=2
You have a cap of 30 schools.
We have a cap of 150 and there is still no competition.
(I hope I'm reading right that you are in KS and not MO)
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