Schools and Law Enforcement/Security

I thought this might be an interesting topic.

How should schools handle internal matters like school discipline?

Students act up and won't listen to the teacher. Now what? And I don't mean students with disabilities or little kids. Middle school or higher. Timmy won't sit down and do his class work. Janet wants to protest something. LaShawn wants to fight Corey. Teacher can't lay hands on them.

LDSman said:

I thought this might be an interesting topic.

How should schools handle internal matters like school discipline?

Students act up and won't listen to the teacher. Now what? And I don't mean students with disabilities or little kids. Middle school or higher. Timmy won't sit down and do his class work. Janet wants to protest something. LaShawn wants to fight Corey. Teacher can't lay hands on them.

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For the former two issues, you follow standard procedure. Ignore them and impose punishments such as detentions, lines, suspension and in extreme circumstances expulsion. You can also impose more minor punishments on the class as a whole - students rarely want to piss off all of their peers and incur their wrath on top of whatever punishments they get.

for the latter, I think you'll find that it is perfectly legal to restrain a student who is a danger to themselves or others. It is here anyway and to the best of my knowledge also in the UK. You can also evacuate the classroom and have the police called in if it is needed.

As a general rule there's usually pretty specific policy, regulation and laws in place for problems like you mention.

gimmepie said:

For the former two issues, you follow standard procedure. Ignore them and impose punishments such as detentions, lines, suspension and in extreme circumstances expulsion. You can also impose more minor punishments on the class as a whole - students rarely want to piss off all of their peers and incur their wrath on top of whatever punishments they get.

for the latter, I think you'll find that it is perfectly legal to restrain a student who is a danger to themselves or others. It is here anyway and to the best of my knowledge also in the UK. You can also evacuate the classroom and have the police called in if it is needed.

As a general rule there's usually pretty specific policy, regulation and laws in place for problems like you mention.

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Ignoring them means they keep disrupting class and if not immediately stopped can spread. "If they can get away with it,why not me?"
I'm not a fan of collective punishment. And it can backfire. "Well Debbie caught a beat down at recess because the teacher punished the whole class." Or "if we are all going to get punished over her, then we all might as well join in."

Some schools want the teachers contacting the school resource officer (usually a cop) to handle any physical interventions. While a teacher could possibly legally restrain a student, not all are physically capable of doing so.

What I'm trying to ask is if people think cops should have anything to do with class room issues below a certain point?

LDSman said:

Ignoring them means they keep disrupting class and if not immediately stopped can spread. "If they can get away with it,why not me?"
I'm not a fan of collective punishment. And it can backfire. "Well Debbie caught a beat down at recess because the teacher punished the whole class." Or "if we are all going to get punished over her, then we all might as well join in."

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I'm not a fan of collective punishment either as a matter of principal, but speaking as someone who has actually worked with kids in and out of a classroom setting, it's quite effective when it needs to be and chances of major backfires like you're talking about are basically 0.

When I say ignore them, I don't mean you don't give out punishments. You make the consequences of disruption clear and then continue teaching as best you can until they burn themselves out or get tired of not getting the attention they want. Then you put those punishments in place.

Some schools want the teachers contacting the school resource officer (usually a cop) to handle any physical interventions. While a teacher could possibly legally restrain a student, not all are physically capable of doing so.

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If there is someone on campus better trained and readily available to intervene in physical altercations then the correct course of action is to evacuate students to get them out of harms way and have one of them notify that someone while you do what you can to de-escalate the situation and prevent further harm from coming to anyone. It's generally frowned upon to just stand there letting your charges get hurt until help arrives because you have a duty of care. You could even get sued for inaction.

What I'm trying to ask is if people think cops should have anything to do with class room issues below a certain point?

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Police should only be involved when there is a risk to the safety of a student or students. I see no reason not to involve them if here is a real and immediate risk.

XIII said:

Due to the last thread you participated in which got locked, I highly suspect you're asking this question in bad faith.

Although, I'll still humor you with a reply / answer.

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. It's not in bad faith but whatev.

There are a myriad very, very good reasons teachers are not allowed to put their hands on kids. I think it is obvious without saying why, but I'll give you a list.

• harm that may come to the student by even "gentle" handling
• no one should be grabbing or manhandling kids just because they don't obey
• giving the teacher absolute authority over touching kids when they "misbehave" allows for many situations where the teacher could be predatory and claim the child was misbehaving to get an excuse to touch said child in a harmful way, sexually abusive way, etc

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Mostly valid reasons.

When you say "middle school or higher, not disability kids" I'd like to inform you that kids with disabilities can, and very, very often do graduate middle, high school, and college. Excuse my "sjw" but this is a sort of ableist thing to assume. It is just as likely that the child acting up is abled, as it is likely that the child acting up is disabled.

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Your "SJW" is excused. I was not stating that kids with disabilities don't graduate. I was trying to differentiate between a neurotypical person willfully acting out and a person who has been overstimulated or upset to the point of losing control. Different issues to address.

Timmy won't sit down, does this mean it gives the teacher the right to "call campus cops"

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Eventually it all depends on Timmy. Should he be allowed to continue disrupting class? Eventually the teachers going to decide that he needs to be somewhere else. Who makes him leave?

Janet wants to protest something, is there a real, actual issue with this?

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Courts have restricted the rights of students. Can't disrupt class to protest. If Janet decides that she has the right to continue protesting, who removes her from the class?

LaShawn wants to fight Corey. Now, obviously, the best you can do in this case is tell the two to settle down, if they don't do that, and they do fight, the teacher does have the right to pull them apart, as he's preventing the students from harming each other. However, doing anything more than putting hands on their shoulders and telling them to knock it off pre-fight, is excessive.

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Unfortunately, teachers who have tried to separate students before a fight have gotten hurt. And when teachers stand back and let them fight, they get vilified for not stopping it. I had a principal who was big enough to separate fighting students through picking them both up in each arm and shaking them. Not many can do that.

I don't know what your obsession is with wanting military-type control over kids with cops in the school, but there really is no reason for it. Unless there is someone physically assaulting someone else at the school, and there is immediate risk of harm to someone, there is absolutely no reason for a cop to hang around and get paid to manhandle kids.

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I don't want military type control and I have never said that. Cops get paid to deal with kids who the teachers can't, won't or aren't able to handle.

Also, I'd like to point out that you're not really even using real arguments here, you just keep saying "but what if" everytime someone gives you a reasoning. If you'd like to actually debate this, you can consider what we're saying before typing.

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People keep using "well the teachers should have this plan" and I want to know about when the plan fails.

Edit. Cops are also in schools due to school violence like shootings and what not. Should they be restricted to just those items? No arresting kids for anything less than felonies?

I don't really have much to contribute, but the idea of cops in schools has always seemed counterintuitive to me - how is having a cop on campus supposed to decrease tension? I'm a bigass white person who is more than capable of self-defense, but I'd still be nervous and tense with just the presence of a cop lingering around the place - let alone the numerous stories of unwarranted use of force as listed by XIII above me. Seems like just turning on the pressure cooker and walking away. I know the actual purpose is intimidation, or at least, that's the purpose in an American setting, but the public argument that having cops on campus deescalates things has never rung true for me at all.

Worth noting, I agree with not having cops on campus. I don't mind them being called in if needed but I don't see them being a permanent presence as beneficial.

gimmepie said:

Worth noting, I agree with not having cops on campus. I don't mind them being called in if needed but I don't see them being a permanent presence as beneficial.

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When it comes to dangerous situations like fights, a shooting, a bomb threat, a suspicious person or package at the school, having a cop on campus can literally mean the difference between life or death. The average police response time I have been able to find can range anywhere from 3 to 7 minutes to upwards of 18 minutes. Obviously having a cop actually on hand and engaging the shooter would result in a quicker end to the shooting than having to wait for the cops to arrive.

EnglishALT said:

When it comes to dangerous situations like fights, a shooting, a bomb threat, a suspicious person or package at the school, having a cop on campus can literally mean the difference between life or death. The average police response time I have been able to find can range anywhere from 3 to 7 minutes to upwards of 18 minutes. Obviously having a cop actually on hand and engaging the shooter would result in a quicker end to the shooting than having to wait for the cops to arrive.

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There were plenty of fights at my high school and we managed fine without cops on campus. Mind you that same school does have a police station much closer than it used to now since my suburb lacked one for a while.

As for things like shootings and bomb threats. You'll have to forgive me for not considering that because I live in a country that doesn't have an epidemic of violent attacks on schools going on. I suppose that somewhere like the US with its gun issues could probably benefit a lot more from having an officer on the grounds. It's something to think about.

I only read like 4 posts in this thread and i can already know whats going on.
The school knows what they are doing, just because it doesnt seem like it, they do. If you want a cop to hang around your school, then tell the principle or something and suggest it to them, say you would feel safer. Honestly a cop hangs at my school and crap hasnt happened, and even with fights we didn't need the cop. The teachers handle them just fine. Every school handles things differently, and how they care for students, so i can't say everything is the same with procedures and crap. I can say though, no matter how much the lessons and standards suck, the school knows how to handle trouble, even the teachers know, depending how experienced they are, yes. So i gotta say this, have faith in the teachers and the school, you may not think its working or something but the teacher and the staff of the school knows how to handle certain cituations. Just have faith.

XIII said:

Is standing up really "disrupting" anything? If he's being quiet, and all he's doing is walking around, the only one who would even be bothered by that, is potentially, a teacher who's such a hard-ass about their own rules that they have some kind of superiority complex. No one can "force" Timmy to leave class because it would be illegal to use that kind of physical contact against his will. Your best bet is to threaten him with disciplinary action.

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you've never been in a school where students get violent real quickly, have you? Timmy's refusing to follow teacher instructions to sit down. Everyone in that class is watching Timmy including the teacher because no one knows what he's going to do next.

You've got a fair point, but I'm going to say on any average staff, there is probably at least one guy you can walkie-talkie up and say, hey, we need you down here to disrupt this fight. SO in this case, there is more than likely a person strong enough to help around campus.

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And if that person isn't a cop, they have the same restrictions on putting hands on students.

Cops are basically just military-Lite (tm) and having them in schools hasn't proven to have helped anything. If anything, reports of kids being brutalized by cops has been pretty rampant lately.

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I definitely disagree that they are "military-lite." Brutalized by cops? Rampant? Nope.

There are several examples of incidents like this over the past few years in increasing frequency, where police force is used to shame, punish, or abuse children due to officer's superiority issues. (tw brutality)

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That's not what I see. I see a teen who was instructed by school officials to leave. She refused repeatedly. Cop got called. She refused repeatedly to step outside and talk to the officer about the situation. She escalated things and got dropped and handcuffed for it. Not brutalized at all. She walked under her own power, not even any crying over it.

More police in school cause more unnecessary "disorderly conduct charges."

Filling schools with metal detectors, police officers, and other related forces, fill students with a sense of fear rather than protection.

Urban youth often find that their interactions with police officers do not make them feel safe, and rather make them distrustful and wary around adults and authority figures.

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And reading through the ones I can, there's a bit of "before SROs, things weren't reported" and some "more data needed." From personal experience, most of the students at the shit school I attended weren't afraid of the security equipment and the police. They were afraid of the other students who made those things necessary. Gang fights, drug deals, sexual assaults, teachers being hospitalized, etc

Using these as examples, I would say it's probably a bad idea to have cops in schools.




Kids are already punished for extremely minor offenses the more cops are present in schools. - 2013 report from the Congressional Research Service, which was a response to the Sandy Hook shooting. It indicated that students which had cops in their campus are more likely to face arrest for minor offenses. So kids are already arrested for minor stuff that isn't even a felony. I'm arguing that they shouldn't be arrested for anything that isn't serious because of the psychological damage it's proven to have on kids.

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And then we have the Florida shooter who wasn't punished for minor offenses and instead of going to jail, was able to graduate and then buy a gun and kill students.

I remember schools not doing anything because they consider things minor or just kids being kids.

Yeah, some schools fuck up by using cops for dress code crap. Others don't.

XIII said:

You really didn't wanna read any of my sources, did you? Lol

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I read what I could. Did you read them?

Link 1. 8 pages. See conclusions on page 7. Schools with SROs had fewer arrests for weapons and assaults.
Link 2 and 3 are pay to read.
Link 4 - see conclusions on page 26. Repeats that SROs do lower weapons and assault arrests.

Both 1+4 say more data needed and schools need to be careful not to go too far.

If violence in schools is an issue for you, we should look hard at the folks who are trying to encourage it:

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/02/go...iolating-conservative-values/?comments=disqus

Maedar said:

If violence in schools is an issue for you, we should look hard at the folks who are trying to encourage it:

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/02/go...iolating-conservative-values/?comments=disqus

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"The flier also encourages students to email Jensen's government address if their teachers violate their "conservative values by pushing their own ideology.""

I am a little confused how does emailing your congressman encourage violence in the school or has anything to do with school safety other than make this topic more ideological and toxic?

Maedar said:

If violence in schools is an issue for you, we should look hard at the folks who are trying to encourage it:

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/02/go...iolating-conservative-values/?comments=disqus

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Please show me where that encouraged violence in schools?

https://www.argusleader.com/story/n...-senator-apologizes-flier-capitol/3018063002/

LDSMan, I will admit that this pamphlet does not specifically tell anyone to be violent. After all, no sane lawmaker would actually come out and say such a thing, as doing so would be asking to be arrested.

However, it is an educated guess on my part that Jensen's idiotic campaign to associate the modern Democrat Party with actions that occurred decades - or even centuries - before they started their careers is a "dog whistle" intended to sow discord and hate among minorities by labeling Democrats as a hate group. Which they are not.

Maedar said:

LDSMan, I will admit that this pamphlet does not specifically tell anyone to be violent. After all, no sane lawmaker would actually come out and say such a thing, as doing so would be asking to be arrested.

However, it is an educated guess on my part that Jensen's idiotic campaign to associate the modern Democrat Party with actions that occurred decades - or even centuries - before they started their careers is a "dog whistle" intended to sow discord and hate among minorities by labeling Democrats as a hate group. Which they are not.

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Of course the flyer's true purpose is to strike a nerve with Democrats with a reminder of the past, and is overtly partisan when it shouldn't be, just telling people if their teachers are preaching politics that they could send the information to the congressman should be enough. However again as you admit it does not tell anyone to be violent nor has the pamphlet caused any violence on campus. As such again I ask why put it in this thread, other than to turn the thread into another Republican vs Democrat debate?

I'm glad you agree with my opinion that it is trolling propaganda, unbecoming of any politician.

ALT, the Dixecrats and Anti-Abolitionist Democartas are all DEAD.

You hear me? DEAD. Dead, languishing in Hell alongside the Nazis.

I feel no shame at being a Democrat because of them. Much like, as an American of Italian heritage, I feel no shame at sharing my origins with Mussolini.

It's 2019. I fight for the civil rights and equality that Lincoln and Rev. King stood for, as do all the modern Democrats.

It's time to move on. And leave the Dixiecrats buried.

Maedar said:

Snip

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Whatever it is, it's not relevant to the discussion at hand. Not everything is about partisan politics and I'd prefer not to turn this into a liberal vs conservative pissing match when that has very little to do with the discussion at hand.

Let's all move on from the pamphlet please.

XIII said:

All I am seeing here is more evidence the argument was started in bad faith to be honest.

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Not sure what evidence you're seeing but your own links support that SROs are of some benefit and that more data is needed.