An Indiana gay male high school student’s mother had a legitimate concern about her son being the victim of bullying, but she made a poor choice by arming him with a stun gun.
The bully victim was apprehended by school police and subsequently expelled for brandishing the stun gun after he was reportedly confronted by bullies in a school hallway.
Darnell “Dynasty” Young made the news from local Indianapolis newspapers to an interview on CNN.
What amazed me most about the news, blog and social media buzz around this story was that some people genuinely believed Darnell should be exonerated for bringing a weapon to school because he was a bullying victim.
Do the bullies who targeted him deserve consequences? Absolutely.
Does Darnell deserve to be safe and secure in his school? Without a doubt.
Has the bullying debate been so politicized by civil rights activists, special interest groups, the media frenzy, legislators and the public that we have lost touch with reality to the point of legitimizing and justifying an inappropriate parental and student response of bringing a weapon to school as a resolution for bullying?
Parents and the media are questioning a Georgia elementary school’s security and supervision procedures after a 10-year-old fifth-grade student ran away from his elementary school on Tuesday.
The student, Kit Colburn, was sent to the office around 8:45 a.m. but not reported missing to police until 12:19 p.m., according to a story by The Telegraph newspaper based in Macon, Georgia.
As I stressed in my interview with The Telegraph reporter, Caryn Grant:
The key to good school safety is supervision, supervision, supervision!
I have had the pleasure of working with a number of school officials, both public and private, in Georgia over the years. One school district brought in our team several years ago to review emergency preparedness planning after another consultant firm submitted a rather shoddy evaluation report on the district’s efforts. We learned very quickly that this school district, like others, had many positive things in place, as I am sure is the case with the school district where Kit Colburn ran away on Tuesday.
But the good history of safety in districts quickly falls to the wayside when an incident like Kit’s occurs at a school. This is especially the case when a security gap comes into the bulls-eye of parent and media scrutiny. All of the good work school officials do each day on school safety at least temporarily becomes irrelevant as tough questions are asked of school officials when a child in their care disappears and significant lag time in reporting it occurs.
The key to school safety is, indeed, supervision. Contrary to what many educators may believe, effective supervision skills are not something that automatically comes with a person just because he or she has a teaching degree. Training can and should be provided so teachers and support staff can learn simple and practical, but important, skills for effectively supervising children in their care.
Do your school leaders provide training on supervision best practices?
The suspect, an eighth-grader, was shot by the officer who responded to a school trailer burglar alarm at 12:30 a.m. on an intermediate school campus. The officer responded and found the suspect on scene at the break-in. The suspect was shot when confronted.
The fact that Tuesday’s shooting was the first time a firearm has been used by a Pasadena school police department officer since the department was created in 1981 seemed to be a secondary focus to some who instead seemed focused on whether school police should be armed with firearms or if they should exist at all. This should not be surprising given the backdrop of an ACLU and at least one other “social justice” special interest group report from last year that were critical of school police in Texas.
As I explained to the Houston Chronicle reporter who interviewed me for the story, the focus of the scrutiny of this incident should be no different than that of any other officer-involved shooting: Was the shooting justified? It is the shooting, not the type of department he/she belongs to, that should be the focus of questioning.
As to the issue of whether a school police officer should or should not be armed with a firearm, my answer was simple: If a school police officer is a certified police officer working for a certified law enforcement agency, why should he or she be automatically considered as second class police officers and why would anyone lower the standard of their professional by taking away a basic tool of their field: Their firearm?
Dan Savage, a gay rights activist and sex columnist whose “It Gets Better” anti-bullying campaign has included videos from President Obama and members of his Administration, is being accused of being a bully.
During a speech last month at a high school journalism conference in Seattle, Savage went on a rampage in which he slammed the Bible and what it says about gay people. He went on to call the students who walked out during his attack on Christians “pansy-assed” among other comments.
See the video:
Savage was also recently criticized for making a comment that he wanted to sexually engage former Presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
Savage’s tirade at last month’s high school journalism conference only reinforces the questions I have posed, along with many others, as to whether “bullying” and “safe schools” have been politically hijacked by gay rights special interests groups to really further a broader social and political civil rights agenda.
Although Savage subsequently caved to the intense media and public pressure for his attack on the Bible and Christians with an apology, it appears as though his comments may have accurately reflected his true beliefs and intentions. As many have suspected all along, there appears to be more “bull” than “bullying” in the so-called “anti-bullying” agenda he, the White House and their special interest political cronies have been pushing in recent years.
The loser: A comprehensive and balanced public policy and funding for school safety, including the wide range of kids who are truly bullied for many reasons beyond the focus of one special interest group.
Civil rights special interest groups and the Obama Administration claim police and school officials are creating a “school-to-prison-pipeline” where students are being needlessly arrested. But one recent report, using Education and Justice Department data, suggests schools are actually covering up violent crimes from the police.
“The Department of Education and the Department of Justice say that 1,183,700 violent crimes were committed at American public schools during the 2009-2010 school year, but that only 303,900 of these violent crimes were reported to the police,” according to an April 23rd cnsnews.com story.
The story notes that by the government’s own estimates, more than 879,000 violent crimes in the 2009-2010 school year were not reported to police.
Critics and those in our profession who talk out of both sides of their mouths for years have suggested that talking about the underreporting of school crime is “alarmist” and that violent school crime is actually going down. While it is nice to see that some of them are changing their tunes (at least for today), the reality is this particular news story accentuates an old problem rather than discovering something groundbreaking.
But the interesting thing will be to see how the civil rights special interests, along with the Obama Administration officials who have distorted and skewed school safety policy and funding, try to reconcile the discrepancy of the higher number of overall violent crime versus the much smaller number of those violent crimes reported to police.
Even more interesting will be to watch how they will attempt to explain how so many violent school crimes go unreported to police yet, according to their rhetoric, there are more students being funneled into the “school-to-prison-pipeline” they have fabricated. If anything, the data presented in this news story suggests schools are covering up violence from the police — the exact opposite of what the civil rights activists, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice all falsely claim is occurring.
A 6-year-old kindergartner from a Georgia school was handcuffed and removed from school by police after the student allegedly tore items off the walls, threw books and toys, threw a shelf that hit the principal in the leg, jumped on a paper shredder and tried to break a glass frame, according to an Associated Press story.
The school district’s superintendent reportedly called the student’s behavior “violent and disruptive.” Police were quoted as saying the student was handcuffed for her safety and as a part of the standard police policy of handcuffing individuals transported to the police station.
Watch the police statement on the incident provided on Thursday:
I spoke with AP’s education reporter, Dorie Turner, who called me about the incident. Some points I raised with Dorie included:
Occurrences like this are rare. For purposes of context, it is important for readers to know that school principals and police interact with elementary-aged students often across the country and in the vast majority of cases elementary students, especially kindergartners, are NOT handcuffed and arrested for misbehavior.
When school officials call police for an elementary student, generally it is a “last resort” call after administrators have attempted to resolve the issue themselves. The exception is when there is a threat to the safety of an individual which may include the problem student.
Police will restrain violent and aggressive individuals, including younger children, if the person poses a threat to his own safety or that of others. While handcuffing elementary-aged students is not something we like to see, in some cases it may be necessary for their safety.
I hope that when we see such handcuffing, it is a last resort after other behavioral interventions have been attempted. I encourage school staff to receive training in verbal de-escalation techniques and non-violent crisis intervention. I also would like to see law enforcement officers receiving this type of training and specialized training for intervention with juvenile suspects.
It is fair to question these incidents. Were other interventions attempted before handcuffing? Was the child (regardless of his or her age) posing a risk to his/her own safety or the safety of others? Were there other options at the time? These and other questions can be asked on a case-by-case basis.
There is not a mass conspiracy in education to handcuff, arrest and punitively go after elementary-aged and other young children. If anything, educators tend to give kids the benefit of the doubt on discipline, sometimes in cases where there should be more firm consequences.
A number of high-profile incidents like the one on Georgia does not automatically equate to a national trend or reflection of what occurs each day in most elementary (or other grade level) schools.
We have seen over the past decade more and more cases of extremely aggressive and violent elementary-aged students, often in the lower elementary grade levels. When a kindergartner displays aggressive and violent behavior, and especially when it is chronic, is begs us to ask what the child has been exposed to outside of the school, what type of behavior problems existed and what is the history of such behaviors, if this is the first behavioral outburst seen in school and what behavior plans were in place if they were not, and other probing questions.
My colleague, Chuck Hibbert, often says that an average experienced second grade teacher can recognize warning signs of potentially violent children. But what happens once they are identified? What intervention services exist in the school and in the community for the child?
School discipline and student arrests have become politicized in the past couple years by civil rights and related special interest groups. There are social and political agendas behind a number of reports, “studies,” and other efforts by special interest groups who often exploit incidents like those in Georgia to create perceptions and news stories that advance their social and political agendas.
Unfortunately, none of the points I raised were included in the story. The story did, however, cite a civil rights attorney who is suing the Albuquerque, N.M., school district over student arrests and a report by the Texas Appleseed, an organization in Texas with a mission to “promote social and economic justice.”
The story certainly did not have to include my quotes. It would have been a better story, however, had it been balanced with some comments by independent school safety and education professionals with actual experience in preK-12 discipline and school safety issues to provide some deeper school-specific context.
The issue of aggressive and violent elementary-aged children, particularly at the lower grade levels, warrants greater awareness, discussion and action. School discipline and safety should not, however, be pawns of special interest groups with broader social and political agendas.
How does your local elementary school administration manage serious discipline incidents and aggressive, violent young students?
On Tuesday, retired FBI agent Bill Daley and I talked on Fox News Channel about the challenges of managing school bomb threats in light of a series of ongoing bomb threats at the University of Pittsburgh. The questions are similar to those school and police officials might get under these circumstances in any community:
Should you evacuate on each threat?
Are heightened security measures too much?
How do you deal with the increased anxiety among students, faculty and the school community?
Take a minute to watch the interview to see what type of questions you might face in your district:
The challenge today, especially when threats are sent through proxy servers, is that it takes time for law enforcement to track the offenders. The good news is that they are usually apprehended.
As the investigations unfold, school and safety officials need to be prepared to heighten security measures and to also activate crisis communications plans to help manage the anxiety and fear in the school community.
Active shooters have captured more of the public’s attention in K-12 schools, colleges and universities, and other public sites. While I have always emphasized not being alarmist and keeping context when discussing school shootings, it is prudent to include active shooter scenarios in training for law enforcement officials and their school partners.
It is a best practice for schools to work with their law enforcement partners so first responders can become familiar with school building layouts and practice tactical responses to schools.
While odds are favorable that most schools will never experience an active shooter, those who have had this terrible experience know the value of practice and preparedness. This message was reinforced by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department officials after the Deer Creek Middle School shooting in Colorado a couple years back and, from school and safety officials at the February shooting death of three students and injury of two others in Chardon, Ohio.
Preparedness and commitment to school safety are demonstrated by actions, not just rhetoric. School and public safety officials must make it a priority to dedicate the time for training, reasonable exercises and planning.
A 30-year-old former private school teacher and camp counselor joined the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list for allegedly producing and possessing child pornography, according to a Foxnews.com story.
Eric Justin Toth, aka “David Bussone,” filled the slot of the now-deceased Al Qaeda terrorist leader Usama bin Laden. Federal officials said their investigation into Toth began when pornographic images of children were found on a school camera he possessed.
Federal agents believe Toth has traveled throughout the country since 2008 including in Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The FBI describes Toth as a “computer expert” and said he has an educational background that would allow him to gain employment in fields having access to children.
Private schools, like their public school counterparts, must conduct thorough background checks on school employee applicants and should be trained to recognize red flags of potential employee misconduct. All schools must create a culture where school staff are safe and comfortable for coming forward to report concerns about suspected misconduct by their peers.
A 31-year-old high school English teacher in Gaston, North Carolina, was fired from her job and arrested for allegedly running a prescription drug ring targeting students at the school, according to a March 30 Gaston Gazette news story.
The School Resource Officer (SRO) investigated following an anonymous tip. Police say the teacher allegedly provided a student with four Clonazepam pills used to control seizures and also to relieve panic attacks.
The student allegedly sold the drugs to other students and then shared the proceeds with the teacher.
The story illustrates several key school safety and security issues:
The impact of prescription drug distribution, use and abuse in our school-communities and with young people.
How schools need protocols in place for anonymous reporting of school crime and safety issues.
The value of SROs on campus for investigating and preventing all types of incidents including those involving school employees.
The increasingly reported cases of school employee misconduct.
The vast majority of teachers and school employees are dedicated professionals. It only takes one to put a dent in the reputation of those many good, caring people who serve our children each day.
In this case, multiple people did the right thing: The person reporting the incident, the school police officer who followed through to investigate and the school administration that took swift action with its employee.
Are your schools prepared to tackle tough issues ranging from drugs on campus to employee misconduct?
