By Bill Young / For The Herald
For more than 30 years, school administrators within our nation’s public schools have clamored for educational reform.
Unfortunately, many of the theories that they have attempted to institute have been completely detrimental to our children and teachers. Moreover, the quality of education has diminished and the overall tone and climate within our schools has declined.
Case in point are examples of zero tolerance for weapons in schools in the aftermath of the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. While this is seemingly a common sense approach to combating violence within our schools, we certainly witnessed it run afoul of its intention when a 6-year-old was expelled for pointing a fish stick at a classmate and yelling “Bang, bang.”
A more recent example of these reforms is the attempt to institute a restorative justice approach to school discipline. Restorative justice is a concept that is touted by minority advocacy groups to ensure that minority children are not placed at a disadvantage within society by having a criminal record. While this is laudable, it is not always effective with children whose cognitive reasoning ability is not commensurate with adults.
The central premise within restorative justice discipline is an effort to avoid traditional punitive consequences such as suspension, expulsion, law enforcement intervention or after-school detention in favor of counseling, victims panels, apology essays or simple conferences with administrators. While these can be integral components within a comprehensive, progressive discipline program, they sometimes are simply not enough to demonstrate to the student body and faculty that they are safe and that potentially dangerous students are being effectively dealt with in order to avert a tragedy.
It is imperative that each student comprehends there is cause and effect to their actions, and there will be tangible consequences for their anti-social behaviors. It is crucial for the development and future success of our children that their problematic behaviors will result in adverse consequences. This will help them adapt and become successful in a job, the military and college and in marriage and in staying out of involvement in the criminal justice system.
When a 12 year-old boy screams obscenities at his teacher in front of the entire class, it is a fallacy to believe that a simple conversation with an assistant principal will be adequate to impact this boy’s future behaviors. There must be punitive consequences. While the consequence does not have to be draconian, it must be sufficient that the students and teachers feel supported and protected. As a society, we must move away from being more concerned about the perpetrator’s rights and feelings than the actual victims who are truly negatively affected.
These restorative actions can also skew the discipline and safety statistics within our schools by appearing that there are fewer fights, thefts and cases of disruptive insubordination than are the reality. Many administrators like to point to reduced disciplinary numbers such as suspensions through these restorative measures. In essence, these administrators are cooking the books to make it appear their schools are safer and more orderly than they really are. These measures do not always comprehensively and effectively document school safety and disciplinary matters in an effective manner, which can create liability issues and grave safety problems in the future.
While there are numerous studies to both support and oppose restorative discipline; I can state unequivocally that after spending decades working on school safety and disciplinary issues within our schools, our children do need clear boundaries and consequences. Disruptive students need to clearly comprehend that if they punch another student or threaten a faculty member they will be suspended, and that the police will be involved and they may be arrested. This also gives the other students and faculty members a sense of reassurance that the appropriate measures are being taken to ensure a safe environment within schools.
One very outspoken opponent of these restorative measures is Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow died in the horrific school shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018. He asserts in his new book “Why Meadow Died,” that these policies were directly instrumental in this calamity and his daughter’s death. He also points to the administration’s negligence in not taking appropriate action against the perpetrator to avert this tragedy. The gunman had made numerous threats to kill, rape and unleash carnage at the school; but the district’s policies allowed him to attend school far longer than he should have been allowed, and dissuaded administrators from involving the appropriate law enforcement interventions.
It is imperative that all of our stakeholders within our schools and especially parents, demand that our public school administrators hold children accountable for unsafe or illegal behaviors. We must insist that these administrators keep copious records, statistics and documentation of all significant safety and legal matters within our schools. The police should always be contacted when a crime has been committed.
It should also always be remembered that these administrators are only stewards of our children’s schools, and our taxes provide their jobs.
Bill Young spent 15 years working as a school safety officer and has spent more than 25 years researching and consulting in this field. He lives in Lake Stevens.
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