Public school students and parents are seeing some changes this year in the way their schools handle bullying. That’s because of a law passed by the state Legislature last year that schools are now starting to put into practice. In a four-part series, the Southern Education Desk and the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange are examining the new law and its impact on students, families and schools. The state education department’s Garry McGiboney has been helping Georgia’s schools stop bullies since the early 1990s. But since the state Legislature passed the revamped bullying law last year, McGiboney says he’s seen a change.
In a four-part series, the Southern Education Desk and the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange are examining the new law and its impact on students, families and schools. After 11-year-old Jaheem Harrera committed suicide in 2009, some of state Rep. Mike Jacob’s constituents in DeKalb County, Ga., in suburban Atlanta, asked him to take a look at the state’s existing rules against bullying in schools. He did, and as he told an audience at a fundraiser for the group Georgia Equality last year, he didn’t like what he found. “It was so inadequate, in fact, that the Jaheem Harrera situation was not even covered by the existing law,” Jacobs said. “It only applied to grades six through 12.”
So Jacobs proposed making the state’s anti-bullying measures apply to elementary schools too.
Who hasn’t been part of, or witness to, an ugly incident on the playground? You know the scene. Recess is going well, everyone is having great fun, then a disagreement ensues, over who knows what. Before you know it, there’s a torrent of threatening words, a flurry of shoves and finally a knee to the gut or a punch in the face. It can be a rough place, the playground.
Martin Castro, chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, while giving a talk recently in Lawrenceville, Ga., made a little joke. He said one in six Americans is a Latino -- he paused and then added that the other five out of six Americans soon will be related to that one. He is correct. Your neighbors and co-workers today will likely become your in-laws tomorrow. Hence, I, and lots of others folks, would argue that any political group that angers the Latino community does so at its own peril.
Newly appointed executive director Katie Jo Ballard will be the first to tell you that the Georgia Office of Children and Families (GOCF) has a heck of a job. Since 2008 the organization has been charged with implementing “a spectrum of prevention, intervention, and treatment services for all children” in Georgia.
That means identifying effective programs and delivering funding across four areas of service: youth development, family violence, juvenile justice, and prevention programs.
“We’re looking for people that can provide 360 kinds of care for a family,” says Ballard. “Like really wrap themselves around a family and support them in every aspect.”
The GOCF doesn’t deliver any services directly. Rather, the organization distributes a combination of federal and state funds to community-based programs through a competitive grant process.
Since taking office in mid-August, Ballard has been trying to wrap her head around everything the organization does. The agency offers so many grants in so many areas, and some of those grantees offer sub-grants, she says, so there’s a lot to take in.
“I’m a very visual person, so I’m actually going out there and trying to visit sites so I can see what they do,” she says. “That’s what’s been the most rewarding to me, actually meeting a survivor of domestic violence, meeting a child that survived sexual exploitation, hearing those stories and how our programs have helped them… That’s the best part, but it’s also the hardest.”
It's time to get real about kids and detention. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, "All great truths begin as blasphemies." Well, here are my blaspheming thoughts. I am tired of those with the "lock ‘em all up" attitudes critical of alternatives to detention. They talk off the top of their heads and spew opinionated garbage from their mouths with nothing to show in support of their "get tough" attitude but anecdotes.
Christopher Terrance Middleton was 14 when he committed several serious crimes in the course of one event in 1997, including kidnapping, aggravated assault, armed robbery and theft by taking. He was sentenced to serve a total of 30 years without the possibility of parole. According to his attorney, McNeil Stokes, Christopher had agreed to plead guilty to a 20-year sentence, but during the sentencing phase the victim testified she would be afraid if he got out before he was 45. Both Stokes and Middleton’s mother have written about his case on JJIE. His mother advocates for the repeal of mandatory sentencing laws for juveniles, and Stokes has filed an appeal challenging the constitutionality of such sentences.
This quickly became my mantra when I started as a juvenile defender nearly a year ago. My colleagues heard it so often they joked about recording me and just playing it back while I was observing court proceedings so that I wouldn’t have to speak. Unfamiliar with the differences between how the criminal justice system treats juvenile and adult offenders, I was clearly unprepared for some of the things I witnessed when I first arrived in juvenile court. You see, juvenile courts are quasi-criminal, meaning many of the aspects I expected to see in a criminal court are present, but the result of juvenile delinquency proceedings is supposed to be more rehabilitative than punitive, and “in the best interest of the child.”
What I learned this to mean is that prosecutors, judges, and a state’s department of juvenile justice have much more latitude to make recommendations for a child’s “best interests.” Because of this latitude, I have actually heard a judge say, “Don’t even think about requesting bond until you tell us where the weapon is,” at a detention hearing. What happened to the presumption of innocence, or the right to avoid self-incrimination?
In its first ten months of existence, Albany, Ga.’s ban on saggy pants has netted the city nearly $4,000 in fines. The city’s “Public Indecency Prohibited” ordinance has lead to more than 180 citations since being enacted in November of last year, according to a story in the Albany Herald, with police averaging 20 or so citations a month. At the current rate the city could see an additional $1,500 in revenue before year’s end. While violators cannot be arrested under they law, they can expect to pay a fine between $25 and $200 depending on their number of infractions of the law. The ordinance bans the wearing of pants and skirts more than three inches below the hip line.
Need help with my troubled teen. He is stealing from family members smoking weed very angry punching walls. I have tried everything he is only 16 years old and heading in the wrong direction reaching out for help please help me to save my child. ~Stephanie
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Last year, my 20-year-old cousin was arrested for possession of oxycontin. After that, we discovered he had been addicted to it for at least a couple of years. He went into rehab, for two months and when he got out, he seemed to be fine. He has dropped out of college, but has been working for about six months now. Though he doesn’t earn a lot at his restaurant job, he has virtually no expenses. But, in the last few weeks, he’s been having money problems, not paying his rent and other bills. He says he just isn’t managing his money well. But we’re afraid he’s using again. He’s more distant than before, but denies he’s back on the drug. We can’t force him back into rehab, indeed we don’t even know for sure that he’s still got a problem. What should we do? ~“C”, Atlanta
My name is Neil Kaltenecker and I am the executive director of the Georgia Council on Substance Abuse, a non-profit statewide organization dedicated to reducing the impact of substance abuse in Georgia’s communities through education, advocacy and training.
