Unruly Students Facing Arrest, Not Detention

TOLEDO, Ohio — The 14-year-old girl arrived at school here on Oct. 17 wearing a low-cut midriff top under an unbuttoned sweater. It was a clear violation of the dress code, and school officials gave her a bowling shirt to put on. She refused. Her mother came to the school with an oversize T-shirt. She refused to wear that, too.

"It was real ugly," said the girl, whose mother did not want her to be identified..

It was a standoff. So the city police officer assigned to the school handcuffed the girl, put her in a police car and took her to the detention center at the Lucas County juvenile courthouse. She was booked on a misdemeanor charge and placed in a holding cell for several hours, until her mother, a 34-year-old vending machine technician, got off work and picked her up.

She was one of more than two dozen students in Toledo who were arrested in school in October for offenses like being loud and disruptive, cursing at school officials, shouting at classmates and violating the dress code. They had all violated the city's safe school ordinance.

In cities and suburbs around the country, schools are increasingly sending students into the juvenile justice system for the sort of adolescent misbehavior that used to be handled by school administrators. In Toledo and many other places, the juvenile detention center has become an extension of the principal's office.

"The goal is not to put kids out, but to maintain classrooms free of disruptions that make it impossible for teachers to teach and kids to learn," said Jane Bruss, the spokeswoman for the Toledo public schools. "Would we like more alternatives? Yes, but everything has a cost associated with it."

"We're demonizing children," said James Ray, the administrative judge for the Lucas County juvenile court, who is concerned about the rise in school-related cases. There were 1,727 such cases in Lucas County in 2002, up from 1,237 in 2000.

Fred Whitman, the court's intake officer, said that only a handful of cases — perhaps 2 percent — were for serious incidents like assaulting a teacher or taking a gun to school. The vast majority, he said, involved unruly students.

In Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky and Florida, juvenile court judges are complaining that their courtrooms are at risk of being overwhelmed by student misconduct cases that should be handled in the schools.

Although few statistics are available, anecdotal evidence suggests that such cases are on the rise.

"Everybody agreed — no matter what side of the system they're from — that they are seeing increasing numbers of kids coming to court for school-based offenses," said Andy Block, who assisted in a 2001 study of Virginia's juvenile justice system conducted by the American Bar Association's Juvenile Defender Center. "All the professionals in the court system were very resentful of this. They felt they were being handed problems and students that the schools were better equipped to address."

According to an analysis of school arrest data by the Advancement Project, a civil rights advocacy group in Washington, there were 2,345 juvenile arrests in 2001 in public schools in Miami-Dade County, Fla., nearly three times as many as in 1999. Sixty percent, the project said, were for "simple assaults" — fights that did not involve weapons —and "miscellaneous" charges, including disorderly conduct.

Many of the court cases around the country involve special-education students whose behavior is often related to their disabilities, Mr. Block and others say.

In an elementary school in northeastern Pennsylvania, an 8-year-old boy in a special-education class was charged with disorderly conduct this fall for his behavior in a time-out room: urinating on the floor, throwing his shoes at the ceiling and telling a teacher, "Kids rule."

"Teachers and school administrators know now that they can shift these kids into juvenile court," said Marsha Levick, the legal director for the Juvenile Law Center of Philadelphia, which is representing the boy and has asked that the charges be dismissed. "The culture has shifted. Juvenile court is seen as an antidote for all sorts of behavior that in the past resulted in time out or after-school suspension."

Experts say the growing criminalization of student misbehavior can be traced to the broad zero-tolerance policies states and local districts began enacting in the mid-1990's in response to a sharp increase in the number of juveniles committing homicides with guns, and to a series of school shootings.

While the juvenile homicide rate has since fallen, and many studies have found that school violence is rare, the public perception of schools — and students — as dangerous remains. Experts say zero-tolerance policies have created an atmosphere in which relatively minor student misconduct often leads to suspensions, expulsions and arrests.

"The idea that you try to find out why somebody did something or give a person a second chance or try to solve a problem in a way that's not punitive — that's become almost quaint now," said Laurence Steinberg, a professor of psychology at Temple University and the director of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice.

What has also changed, Dr. Steinberg said, is that principals are less able to depend on parents to enforce the discipline schools mete out. "I think in the past the threat of getting in touch with a kid's parents was often enough to get a kid to start behaving," he said. "Now, kids feel parents will fight on their behalf."

In addition, Dr. Steinberg said, schools — particularly urban schools with large numbers of poor children — have been forced to reduce or eliminate mental health services. "In the past a lot of these kids would have been referred to specialists within the school or the school district," he said. "The juvenile justice system has become the dumping ground for poor minority kids with mental health and special-education problems."

The Toledo City Council passed the safe school ordinance in 1968 in response to concerns that schools had become dangerous. The ordinance allows for the filing of misdemeanor charges against students for anything from disrupting a class to assaulting a teacher. Juvenile court officials say relatively few students were charged with violating the ordinance before 1995, when Toledo police officers were assigned to secondary schools.

In 1993, only 314 charges were filed, according to Dan Pompa, the administrator for the Lucas County juvenile court. By 1997, he said, the number had more than tripled, to 1,111.

Arrests in the past year or so include two middle school boys whose crime was turning off the lights in the girls' bathroom and an 11-year-old girl who was arrested for "hiding out in the school and not going to class," according to the police report, which also noted, "The suspect continuously does not listen in class and disrupts the learning process of other students."

The girl's mother, who declined to be named, said, "I told them if she didn't want to go to school, put her in the detention center." The police took her daughter there in handcuffs, in the back of a police car.

Of the Toledo school district's 35,000 students, 47 percent are black, 43 percent white and 7 percent Hispanic. According to Mr. Pompa's figures, minorities account for about 65 percent of the safe school violations.

These higher rates are "something we would certainly want to keep an eye on," said Eugene Sanders, Toledo's schools superintendent.

Ms. Bruss, the schools spokeswoman, said it was the Toledo district's policy that students be charged with violating the ordinance only as a last resort. In addition, she said, most of those cases involve students with long histories of offenses.

Craig Cotner, chief academic officer for the Toledo public schools, said he believed part of the problem was that schools were being called upon to educate a far wider range of students than before. Thirty years ago, he said, students who were not performing well were counseled to drop out, and they easily found jobs at auto plants and other factories.

"For students who did not fit the mold — whatever mold that may be — there were many more options," Mr. Cotner said. "In some cases, those students who found it impossible to sit for five hours in a classroom could function very well in a labor environment." Today, he said, those students, with far fewer options, remain in school, but the school district has fewer resources to handle difficult students.

With a $15 million budget deficit last year, the district laid off 10 percent of the teaching force, or 231 teachers. Class size increased. With a $16 million deficit this year, more cuts must be made, Mr. Cotner said.

In addition, he said, a significant percentage of the district's resources must be used to fulfill federal mandates like the No Child Left Behind law, with its emphasis on accountability and testing.

Judge Ray of the county juvenile court says he sympathizes with school officials. "The schools have been called upon to fix everything that hasn't been working up to this point," he said. However, he said, juvenile court is not the appropriate place to solve adolescent problems.

Judge Ray has Mr. Whitman, the court's intake officer, and other court officers handle minor nonviolent offenses, offering counseling and referrals to the proper programs.

Mr. Whitman, 50, said he believed that no young person should ever be written off. "If a kid's not doing well, I think we need to sit down and find out what we can do to help him or her out," he said.

Mr. Whitman talked at length with the 14-year-old girl who had worn the midriff top and with her mother. "She didn't come across as a major problem at all," he said. "She knew the shirt was inappropriate. She just wanted to show off a certain image at the school. Probably she just copped an attitude. I expect that from a lot of girls."

An official of the girl's school said he could not discuss her case. He referred a reporter to the principal, who did not return phone calls to his office.

The girl's mother, who declined to be named, said she had not objected to the decision to arrest her daughter. "She wants to push authority to the hilt," she said.

The girl said of her encounter with school officials and the police: "I don't like to get yelled at for stupid stuff. So I talk back."

When Rudy Gulliani(sp?) first started arresting pan handlers and having the police give citations to landlords who did not fix broken windows I thought he was crazy. After all New York had too many major problems for the authorities to be dealing with such small concerns. But, Rudy had good scientific theory behind his actions.

Now look at the results. Time Square is cleaned up and the crime rate has dropped dramatically. Deal with the small problems and the big ones take care of themselves. Bravo to the school district for arresting this snotty little twit. I bet she doesn't pull this stunt again.

I am not sure that you can maintain order in any environment,when you are dealing with individuals who have no respect for authority, no fear of authority, and they cannot be humiliated because they have no shame. The question is where do you place sociopaths. We placed one in the Oval Office and society is still paying for that mistake.

We are having a reverse problem at the high school my daughter goes to. New principal with a clearly macho attitude. He came from an inner city area and this is a suburban school so its not going over very well. He has taken to bringing in retired street cops as "safety advocates" and getting them emergency teaching credentials so they get paid at a higher rates, which has annoyed the NEA types (a mixed blessing).

Daughter witnessed one of the safety advocates gratuitously manhandle another student, leaving mild injuries. Turns out it was mistaken identity. He roughed up the salutatorian and well known good kid, thinking it was another kid. My understanding is that a private apology was issued. A number of parents have heard about the incident and are waiting for the next event. If he does something similar to my daughter without cause, we won't sue, but will file a criminal complaint. Some of us are working to run the new principal out at the end of the year.

As a former teacher I know how rough it can be in the public schools, but in some cases the overreaction is just as bad.

I was initially thinking of including a comment about how the court system has some responsibility for this mess, but I forgot.

I like how the author tries to make guns and school shootings responsible for zero tolerance policies, but you can trace the problem with discipline in schools back to the 19660's and the counter-culture BS.

Zero-tolerance policies teach kids that the United States is NOT the land of the free.

It depends maybe on the school and the type of student. If you live in an area of high gang activity, it's best if there is zero tolerance so the gangs are out on the street or in jails and prisons where they belong --- some of these kids don't belong in school at all. If a kid thinks school is where they go to deal drugs or fight --- then they have no good reason to be there and ruin the other kids' chance at an education.

It's good to have zero tolerance plus alternative schools. Here if a kid brings a gun to school, drugs to deal, gets in a gang fight they're kicked out. They can still go to an alternative school --- but then there are some heavy rules --- parents must bring them and pick them up, parents must meet with the teachers any time the teacher requests, the kids must wear uniforms. If the parent doesn't wish to do any of this --- then the kid is out of school.

Bravo to the school district for arresting this snotty little twit. I bet she doesn't pull this stunt again.

Alternative School was called "Reform School" in my day.

Reading, writing and arithmetic
taught to the tune of a hickory stick.

Worked well until the fifties, then liberalism started running amok.

School consolidation removed neighborhood schools and destroyed communities. But then again you have much better football teams. :(

parents must bring them and pick them up, parents must meet with the teachers any time the teacher requests, the kids must wear uniforms. If the parent doesn't wish to do any of this --- then the kid is out of school.

And that's where the real hard questions start. How do you encourage good parenting, and what do you do with the kids who just weren't lucky enough to get it?

"I'm 57 years old and went through 12 years of elementary/junior high/high school without once ever seeing a policeman inside a school building, let alone having a student arrested."

I was a student at Rainier Beach High School in Seattle back in '68 when a bunch a hoods calling themselves "Black Panthers" attempted to invade the school. I saw more than just a policeman!

The 54% minority account for 65% of the problems? Using the courts to fix the problems will not last long with those numbers.

I'd be more interested in the data on singlr parent homes vs. mother/father homes. My bet is that the brave and wonderful single moms that Oprah has deified are doing more damage to our society than anyone has ever dreamed. Want a round of applause on daytime TV? Just identify yourself as having 4 kids and being a single mom!

If you teach kids that they have no rights whatsoever, then kids will eventually view, as they grow older, that their elders and peers are undeserving of rights as well.

Zero-tolerance policies teach kids that the United States is NOT the land of the free.

Very good analysis. What can be done about it? I think US schools have passed the point of no return on this one...

I myself believe that public schooling should NOT be compulsary, but if it is going to be, students should be afforded full rights as citizens under the constitution. If you make someone go to a building all day long, indoctrinate them all day statist propaganda, curtail their rights while they are there, and threaten them with arrest if they fail to attend...

Isn't that basically slavery?

"Expectations matter."

This is true.

It's why the end of corporal punishment has inevitably led to this. If you expect kids to be disciplined and behave and insist on it in ways that lead to certain punishment for unruly behavior, you dont get unruly behavior. I speak as a father of 3 who has kids others marvel at. I am told they behave extremely well. Indeed. I marvel at how parents decide to let kids run wild and ruin their own lives, rather than take a small effort and insist kids live up to certain standards. It is in the end healthiest for the kids, parents, and others. But we dont do it out of a misbegotten 'concern' that discipline will somehow kill the 'spirit' (to do evil, mischief, and nonsense).

If you miseducate kids with Disney movies and other pap that tells them "just do it" is okay and kids are smarter than adults, and that misbehavior is okay and 'expected' ... well, you get what you expect: Kids who think they can talk back to any and all authority figures without consequence.

We've raised millions of kids that way in the past 2 decades , with parents willing accomplices of this mis-education, and the article above is a natural consequence.

"unless you come down on them so hard it breaks their natural rebeliousness." Uh, there is nothing natural about rebeliousness, that's another liberal myth. All behaviors that are not based on self-interest and our innate conscience are learned. When rebelliousness is made harmful to the kid, they tend not to rebel. If you doubt this, just visit other cultures (eg Japan) where expectations are vastly different wrt conformity.

And that's where the real hard questions start. How do you encourage good parenting, and what do you do with the kids who just weren't lucky enough to get it?

Well, once a student is kicked out of his home school district the family has the following choices:

Attend a nearby county and pay the out of county tuition. In my county in rural VA, the amount is $3,330 per semester.

Attend a military/private/Catholic school.

Home-school

BTW, I'd bet dollars to donuts this was not the first time this girl had tangled with the school. She even says she likes to get back in their faces. I agree with the school's action. That child made a conscious decision when she dressed in the morning. As far as her rights? I'd like to see someone who works in an office with a written dress code go to work dressed outrageously and in defiance. Rules are rules whether it's school or work.

You're believing the propaganda, zero-tolerance was put there because priciples and teachers are to lazy to do their jobs and want a one style solution to all problem, which never works.

Zero-tolerance rules are akin to sentencing a starving man to life in prison for stealing a loaf of bread.

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