Posted on 12/14/2004 5:19:10 PM PST by Former Military Chick
Philadelphia public schools chief Paul Vallas and City Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson yesterday apologized for the decision that led to a 10-year-old girl who was caught with scissors in her book bag being handcuffed and taken to the local precinct in the back of a police wagon.
"I'm not going to demonize a fourth grader who brings a scissors to school," Vallas said in a phone interview shortly after calling the child's mother, Rose Jackson, to apologize. "For heaven's sake, you don't need to call in the police on a case like that. I just think that's an overreaction."
Johnson, who said he also had called Jackson to apologize, said his department would reconsider how it restrains young children for transport in future cases.
"As a parent, and grandparent, I do understand that the use of physical restraints on young people, especially preteens, can be distressing," Johnson said in a written statement. "The department will carefully monitor future cases."
Current Police Department policy dictates that all suspects being transported to police stations be handcuffed with their hands behind them, Johnson said. In this case, because of her age, her size, and nature of the offense, her hands were handcuffed in front of her, he said.
Porsche Brown, a fourth grader at Holme Elementary School in the Far Northeast, was pulled out of class Thursday and immediately suspended after an 8-inch pair of scissors was found in her book bag. Under state law and district policy, scissors are considered potential weapons, and students are not permitted to bring them to school.
But Vallas said yesterday that principals must exercise judgment when dealing with students in the early elementary grades, especially when a student apparently had no intent to use the scissors as a weapon.
"I felt good with them apologizing," Jackson said last night. "They're admitting it was wrong, how it was handled."
But she added: "My main concern right now is to get my daughter back to school and back to a normal childhood."
City police chose not to press charges against the girl, and Vallas said the district would not move to expel her either. She will be allowed to return to school today after a two-day suspension, Vallas said.
Vallas' comments reversed a position taken last week by Holme principal Ethel M. Cabry, who through a district spokesman defended her school's decision to call city police, saying she was following policy.
Cabry could not be reached yesterday.
Staff personnel found the scissors while searching students' belongings for an unrelated item that was missing from a teacher's desk. The girl told police she had the scissors to open a new CD.
Vallas said he would not take disciplinary action against Cabry, as Porsche's mother had urged last week.
"I'm not blaming the school. The schools are a little gun-shy. Just last week, the district was criticized because there had been scissors incidents where city police weren't called," he said.
Under the district's zero-tolerance discipline policy, principals are subject to dismissal for failure to report violations to the district's central office.
The incident at Holme comes as the district continues to grapple with violence in and around its schools.
Just last month, an 11-year-old boy was charged with raping a 12-year-old classmate in a stairwell at Stetson Middle School; and a 16-year-old student was fatally shot and three others were wounded outside Strawberry Mansion High School.
But Vallas said each case must be looked at individually - especially when the potential weapon is an item that clearly can be used for educational purposes.
"I'm not saying that you shouldn't report it [to the district administration] as a serious incident. I'm not saying that you shouldn't consider disciplinary action, but you've got to exercise some judgment here.
"Police are real busy. That's not a good use of police manpower."
Porsche's arrest has brought criticism from education and legal advocates.
"Hauling the child off to jail is ridiculous and really is an overreaction and starts the child believing that the child is a criminal," said Judith Browne, acting codirector of Advancement Project, a democracy and justice action group based in Washington.
In 2003, Browne's organization released a report saying that zero-tolerance discipline policies are inappropriately sending children into the juvenile-justice system for acts previously handled by the schools.
But Harvey Rice, the state-appointed safe schools advocate who helps victims of crime in Philadelphia's public schools, defended the school's handling of the case. City police are supposed to be notified, he said.
"We have to look at the whole big picture. It's unfortunate in this day and age that we have to be very careful and cautious and err on the side of no children being harmed," Rice said. "Just one slip-up the other way and someone could be seriously injured, if not even worse."
Hundreds of weapons are confiscated in the schools each year; sometimes police take students to headquarters, and sometimes the case is handled at the school, he said.
This wasn't the first case involving scissors, Rice said. In 2002-03, 125 of the more than 1,100 weapons violations recorded in the district were related to scissors, he said.
Rice said that the district should move for expulsion in weapons cases, and that any extenuating circumstances can be evaluated at the hearing. Parents and students should know not to bring scissors to school, he asserted.
The district's code of conduct, which is sent home to parents, states that non-school-issued scissors are not permitted in school and are considered a possible weapon, he said.
At Holme School, a classroom supply list repeated that scissors were not to be brought to the classroom.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact staff writer Susan Snyder at 215-854-4693 or ssnyder@phillynews.com.
"What's going is too much rules-based thinking based on a society being run by lawyers."
Yep. This is what the John Edwards' of the world have brought us.
To be fair, vets sometimes send pets home with a catheter still in their leg, if they're expected to be coming back soon and needing it again -- saves the trouble of finding a vein again. So it's not totally insane (though pretty close) for someone fairly dimwitted not to realize that when being discharged from the hospital with no instructions to return, that thing definitely needs to come out first. HOWEVER, it is totally insane to go to a lawyer for help, when you finally realize this can't be right. Had she already called the hospital, before she came to you? Perhaps whoever answered the phone at the hospital went off on some rant about "I can't believe those idiots left that in you, they should have known to check, yadda, yadda", thus giving Dummy the impression that she had been the victim of serious medical malpractice.
Well I agree with you on the root cause. But the society IS being run by lawyers and concerns about lawsuits etc which is why this school reacted the way it did. They follow some stupid rule and thus feel they are innoculated from damages. Its crazy.
I do know many conservative lawyers who are great people. But as a group, lawyers have greatly contributed to many of the problems we have and many of them are scum.
No, you would definitely have to be an imbicile, moron or idiot to ASSUME that the device has to stay in your arm, rather than simply ask someone directly.
I thought of something along those lines. :-) Actually I called the hospital and they were shocked, of course, and said to send her right back over there, which we did. Didn't hear from Dummy again.
Nope, that was part of my initial intake with her as well. She had had no contact with the hospital since her release with "the thing" two days earlier. She wanted to sue and had the impression that the longer it was in there, the more she could recoup.
In my case with Dummy earlier, she tried to sleep for two night and every time she rolled over on the shunt, it hurt and woke her up. Waaaaaa! Let's sue somebody!
How to return to the days of our parents when character and personal responsibility meant pride in one's self and control of your own destiny, I have no idea.
In the case of this school, this was a CHILD. Children sometimes do things that are innocent, not realizing some grown up they're gonna run into in two hours has some agenda. In the case of this faculty, they took thier stand to say "we're just not gonna put up with anything, especially children being children. Bah humbug!" It came back to bite them, and I'm glad.
If I was a lawyer for the hospital I'd use that as evidence that she deliberately left without having the catheter taken out, with the premeditated intention of suing.
" Last week a little girl was suspended for bringing what appeared to be jello shots. That school did not apologize and they never tested the jello. "
The jello was tested and it did have trace quantities of alcohol. It was impossible to say where it came from. Sheriff's office said it could have been from the jello spoiling after sitting around for a week before testing. ALso the girl's mother made jello shots with the same equipment at home for sale at the bar she worked at, so it could have been trace contamination.
Yep if you followed my line of questioning earlier, that was exactly my assessment. I ask the adversarial questions going in. Then you already have the answers the other side will want and can decide if you want to invest money in a lengthy contingency case, especially against a hospital whose pockets are deeper than a solo practicioner.
Chick,
It is just the world of morons on parade.
Next they will haul you off for having paper...paper cuts, you know.
I really dunno how much more of this I can look at, before I go off to some deserted island.
This is a direct cause of letting liberals run our government for 50 or more years. We have a total breakdown of moral values and that is why our schools have so much violence. It has nothing to do with zero tolerance and or any other percentage. It has to do with children thinking that they can do what they want when they want. The liberals teachings of "Hey, there is no right and wrong, if you think it is right then it is right for you!" has caused all this. We need to take back our schools and instill values in children again. Take the Government out of schools.
A 10 year old can do a lot of serious harm with 8" scissors concealed in her book bag! She claims she took it to school to open a new CD? What's going on here? What was she going to do with a purported new CD at school?
Sadly, too many people on this thread are so anti-school, anti-govt, anti-society that they are jumping on the "Poor Little Child Victims" bandwagon, raw meat for the ACLU, anti-religion lawyers and other lib radicals.
Right. And it's the liberals that are breeding the victim mindset. They really have screwed up this country.
Right on, we're on the same page. Please read "A Nation of Victims". It's worth the read. And I earn nothing from this advertising. :-)
Thank the DIMS. They killed it.
It's pretty sad when you have to send your kids to private school (or homeschool) in order to give them a safe environment in which to learn and one that doesn't violate their Constitutional rights.
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