Criminalizing kids in Chicago
Lawndale school having too many kids arrested, group says
A community coalition is protesting excessive student arrests at Lawndale schools. Things came to a head when they brought their protest to Roswell B. Mason Elementary during a school board meeting on Wednesday. The principal denied that too many students are being arrested at the school and then had two of the protesters arrested.
The North Lawndale Accountability Commission has been picketing Mason, at 1830 S. Keeler, since last week, citing information the coalition says it received from the local police district. That data purports more than 250 children were arrested at the school in the past few years. Chicago Public Schools officials dispute that figure.
…
“They’re literally prosecuting these children, fingerprinting and mugshotting them and locking them up before even calling parents. What they’ve done is taken away parents’ constitutional rights,” said the Rev. M.G. Hunter, whose 12-year-old niece, an honor roll student, was arrested at Mason last month after arguing with a substitute teacher.
School district security supervisor Edward Ryan reported that there were 37 serious discipline incidents at the school this year; 17 of them resulting in arrests. He did not have data on previous years.
“Their information is incorrect,” an angry Mason Principal Vivian Hudson-Davis said of the coalition’s claim. “The Uniform Discipline Code tells us when to call police and when not to. If a child is disruptive, if a child pushes a teacher, I have to act. I don’t think CPS is criminalizing children. Until discipline is under control, learning cannot take place.”
8,539 Chicago Public School students were arrested in 2003 according to a recent study by Advancement Project, Northwestern University and the Southwest Youth Collaborative. Thirteen percent of the arrests were for disorderly conduct. Just under ten percent of the arrested students were twelve years old or younger.
Does not Ms. Hudson-Davis realise that theNEA ensures that learning will not take place even if discipline is under control?
> The principal denied that too many students are
> being arrested at the school and then had two
> of the protesters arrested.
I wonder if the principal knows how to spell “irony”? (Yes, I know the protesters in question weren’t students. That’s beside the point.)
I wonder what the charges were?
Don’t automatically assume the principal is wrong, here. Maybe discipline is a problem at this school and he’s just trying to get it under control. We all know parents who believe their little ‘demons’ are angels and can do no wrong. This reminds me of the liberal paradox; they can’t understand why jails are so full if crime rates are decreasing. All these arrests at school, it can’t be the kids fault, can it?
Bob: I’d think a principal that has to call the cops to deal with a student arguing with the teacher is just plain incompetent. It certainly was never needed when I went to school.
OTOH, the elementary and grammar school principals in my youth had wooden paddles, 18 inches long and 4 inches wide, with holes in them, hanging on their. Most kids would see that and decide right there to never make the principal reach for his ultimate weapon. The liberals have taken away that option, now.