School to Prison

 School to Prison

 

There is a new superhighway that folks are worried about.  It is the road from school to prison.  The wisdom in this approach is that by suspending students for aggressive behavior their next destination will be prison.  Quite a leap but then these are visionary thinkers.

One of the consequences of this type of thinking is that we do not suspend students even if their behavior is quite egregious.  On the other hand, we talk about putting school resource officers (SOROs) in schools, some of whom are armed or police officers.  In some states there is a push to arm the teachers themselves, not sure where target shooting shows up in teacher preparation courses, but that could be added.

We are told the current spike in school violence is still another negative outcome of the pandemic and kids being out of school so they have forgotten how to socialize in person. 

It is entirely true that there is too easy access to guns in our culture.  Perhaps it is a holdover from our early cowboy days.  On the other hand, we also know that the kids who do commit gun violence in school usually feel they are outliers and unknown to their teachers.

Is there a reasonable way to stop violence in our schools without sending all those "bad apples" to prison?

The best way to stop school violence is a two- pronged approach, a carrot and stick policy.

First of all secondary schools are just too big.  With 1,500 to 3,000 students in a school, there is no way that EVERY child is truly known by a staff member.  So the very first step in preventing violence of any kind in a school is for there to be a connection with a staff member for EVERY student.  A real connection so that the teacher, counselor, custodian, administrator- knows when something is off for that child.  There is a caring adult that is connected to the child.  That’s the carrot, and it needs to be a very big sweet carrot, not a perfunctory little sliver of a carrot.

Secondly, the stick needs to be swift and dependable.   If a student misbehaves, even a small infraction, there needs to be a consequence.   Not a suspension for all offenses but a consequence.  Profanity is not allowed.  If a student uses profane language or is disrespectful to a teacher there is a consequence, maybe having lunch in a room with a teacher monitor rather than peers.  Whatever, the consequence needs to be uncomfortable but not fatal.  Students need to learn that rules WILL be obeyed and if they are not the punishment will fit the crime.  An act of physical aggression is met with suspension. Verbal aggression that makes someone feel unsafe also warrants a suspension.  Those consequences are given with the warning, our school needs to be safe for everyone and you made people feel unsafe so you need a break.  The other important piece of the suspension is that it is short and re-entry requires a parent or guardian to appear and for there to be a discussion about what the unacceptable behavior was, why it happened and what’s the plan so it won’t happen again.   Yes, family members NEED to be inconvenienced because unfortunately sometimes that is the only way to get families invested in school behavior.  

School needs to be a place where kids want to be not where they are MADE to be.  Teenagers are relationship anchored.  We need to anchor some of those relationships both with staff and with the safety of the community.

Armed teachers, school resource officers and sworn police officers in schools do not set the tone for a safe community. They set a tone of us against you. Making a full on commitment to care about each other does.

School suspension can be a superhighway to prison.  But superhighways have many off ramps and educators need to identify those off ramps and make sure kids use them.

A safe school is a better school for everyone.