Benjamin Chambers on Reducing School Violence and Suspensions with Restorative Justice

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The bad news: recent research indicates that schools suspend far more kids than they need to, and youth – especially youth of color, though not always -- suffer unfairly for it. The good news? Sure, zero-tolerance school discipline policies need revision. But there's another solution to the problem: changing school culture by implementing mediation and "restorative justice" techniques in schools. First, the background.

Should Teachers Carry Concealed Guns in School?

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Most people would call this a terrible idea that’s fraught with danger.  But a Nebraska lawmaker has just filed a bill to give school districts the option of allowing teachers to carry concealed guns.  State Sen. Mark Christensen says teachers with gun permits and proper training might deter a tragedy. As the Christian Science Monitor reports, this idea follows two school shootings in the last three weeks:

An Omaha high school senior killed an assistant principal and wounded a principal, before shooting himself. A Los Angeles student with a gun in her book bag accidentally wounded two other kids. The only school system in the country that has a concealed weapons policy is in rural Harrold, Texas.  School Superintendent David Thweatt says police in his county are 30 minutes away, and his tiny school system cannot afford School Resource Officers.   Their policy requires extensive training, and the use of certain types of bullets that cut down on ricochet and collateral damage. Forty-three states, including Georgia, prohibit guns in K-12 schools.  And the idea of arming teachers  is not popular with experts.  School security consultant Ken Trump warns that concealed weapons would not make schools safer.  Daniel Vice from the Brady Center says guns in the classroom would be extremely dangerous and the risk of accidents is too high.

Steve Reba: Enter the Pipeline

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The thirteen-year-old sat at the defense table with his mother.  The school principal, serving as prosecutor and the district’s sole witness, occupied the table to their left.  Three administrators from other district schools stared down from their elevated bench. Sitting with the tribunal, indistinguishable in both presence and role, was the hearing officer. When the boy’s mother attempted to ask the principal a question, he would invoke his role as prosecutor.  When the inquiry was directed at the hearing officer, he would explain that he was not a witness.

Early Warning System For Kids At Risk

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The Annenberg Institute for School Reform is looking for six school districts nationwide to develop and test College Readiness Indicator Systems. The goal is to identify students in danger of dropping out of high school as early as the 9th grade. Researchers plan to create an early warning system using attendance patterns, grades, suspensions and other factors to predict which students are on track, and get help for students who are at risk of dropping out. The project is funded by a $3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Each school will also work with the John Gardner Center at Stanford University to focus on college and career readiness. Contact the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University:  401-863-7990

New Rules: Isolation, Handcuffs, Hogties

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Schools cannot put children in seclusion rooms as a form of punishment anymore, and must limit the use of physical and chemical restraints. The State Board of Education approved new rules Thursday for handcuffing children, controlling them with prone restraint tactics, and giving them prescription drugs to control their behavior. These measures are now limited to situations where students are an immediate danger to themselves or others, or when calming techniques don’t work. Parents of 13-year old Jonathon King of Gainesville pushed for changes after their son hanged himself in a seclusion room in 2004. Jonathan was a student in the Alpine Program, a public school in Gainesville, Ga.

Rural GA schools still spanking

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More than 28,500 students were spanked as a form of discipline in Georgia public schools last year. The latest annual report is out from the Georgia Department of Education called Counts of Discipline Actions. It reveals that corporal punishment was more prevalent in rural counties and in the southern parts of the state. Laurens County led the state with more than 2,400 students who got paddled. Randolph County was second, with almost 1600 students getting corporal punishment in 2009.

Zero tolerance meets common sense

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Georgia’s revised Zero Tolerance law gives local school systems and judges more discretion in dealing with children who bring a weapon to school but don’t intend to hurt anyone.  Senate Sponsor Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur) introduced the law after hearing about a 14-year old Morgan County boy who was arrested after he voluntarily turned in a fishing knife to his principal last year. “Students have been expelled or sent to jail for bringing a key chain, nail clippers, and even a Cub Scout utensil to school,” said Jones. “This legislation brings common sense to the all or nothing approach that school officials use to discipline kids under zero tolerance policies.”

The law changes the juvenile code to make a first offense a delinquent act, rather than a designated felony.  SB299 won unanimous passage in the legislature. Governor Perdue signed the bill May 25. The action comes too late for 14 year old Eli Mohone, who was convicted of a felony for turning in his knife.  WSB radio reports he’s on probation for a year, but hopes to get his record expunged.