Coming to a school near you

 Coming to a school near you…

The law requires that all children in Maryland under the age of 18  attend school.  That age was recently increased from sixteen.   

Who are the children in your child’s school?  The Juvenile Courts of Maryland regularly release students to attend public school with hours of community service as a consequence of a variety of bad behaviors.   These behaviors range from something like shoplifting all the way up to what would be felonies in the adult system.  

Those felonies include the use of a weapon in the commission of a crime, murder and sexual offenses such a rape.

School systems are not notifying families of the other students because that would be an obvious violation of the juvenile’s privacy.  However, if that person were a couple of years older, he or she would be listed on a sex offenders list to which the community would have access.

Let’s take the case of a teenager who cornered a girl student in the stairwell of a public middle school.  The girl, who was in a special education class, was pushed up against the wall and the boy touched her inappropriately under her sweater and rubbed his pelvis against her.  The girl was not even sure what was happening.  The consequence of that behavior was that after a 2-day suspension, the boy was transferred to another county middle school.  End of story.  None of the famiies at the receiving school were aware of the disciplinary situation.

In a Baltimore City high school there is a boy who has been convicted of second- degree rape of a 3-year old cousin.  He is currently in the 9^th grade at the school.  As part of the disposition of the case, the juvenile magistrate said that he could not be around any child younger than 15 unless there was close supervision.  In a ninth grade there are lots of kids that are not yet 15.  It is next to impossible for any student in a large comprehensive high school to have constant supervision unless there is a dedicated aide.  Neither boy in these two examples has a dedicated aide.

Both school districts have refused to discuss the particular cases because they are protecting the privacy of the juvenile offenders.  In each instance, the districts have offered the legal and constitutional right of the boys to a public education.  That is totally true.  What they do not say is that there are non-public state approved schools that have closer supervision and programs to deal with students who have been sexually aggressive.   Of course, that would mean the school district had to pay that tuition.  But they do that for lots of students for different reasons.

Who are the kids in your child’s school?   Do parents have a right to know?