Kojo In Your Community: Discipline in the Fairfax County Schools
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2011-03-23/kojo-your-community-discipline-fairfax-county-schools
Fairfax County is in the midst of a heated debate over its school discipline policies, a topic in the spotlight after the suicide earlier this year of a 15-year-old boy who had been suspended from W.T. Woodson High School. We'll hear from community residents, Superintendent Jack Dale, and school board members in our latest edition of "Kojo In Your Community."
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Thanks for this program. Wish I had attended in person. The FCPS hearings process lacks many if not all of the processes (such as discovery and cross-examination) afforded "real" U.S. citizens. Parents have preciouis little access to the evidence (let alone assurances about the reliability of evidence) being utilized by the school system. The disciplinary hearing itself is not really a hearing, but rather a TELLING of fait accompli decisions. The Student Rights & Responsibilities document, which students must sign in order to attend, is in essence a self-revocation of constitutional rights. This discussion is long overdue.
I am so frustrated with the speakers. Everyone is so concerned about the rights of students who DON'T follow the rules and when they are finally removed, we have to see them as victims. What about the lost education to the kids who don't cause problems? What about their rights? The very idea that a child bringing illegal drugs to school should NOT be an automatic expulsion is ridiculous. There has to be clear and real consequences to breaking the rules or being disruptive.
If you think this discussion is about drugs alone, you are mistaken.
I donot only think this is about drugs but also about disciplinary actions that need to be reviewed. I also think, because my son was part of a controversial decision made by a Fairfax county school board hearing, that unfair conduct was part of the decision from the participants in the hearing that day.
I am director and co-founder of FairfaxZeroToleranceReform.org. I attended the show and there was way more to address than an hour could embrace. I encourage people who want to make a difference to visit the website, take action, and spread the word about what's going on and how to fix it. There is a factsheet to print and distribute. We are working on white papers on various issues for the board. And we are working with national organizations, including the Advancement Project, to bring best practices to FCPS. We have asked FCPS to work with us and with these groups to improve what it already does and change what is wrong.
This school system has a history for trying to outrun the clock on sensitive issues like this. It hopes advocates lose energy and go away. That cannot happen. We must keep the pressure on this board and the staff that it oversees to put action where its talk is.
We sure do need data, but we have some alarming stuff already: What does our Superintendent say to the following fact: Over the last six years, the hearings office has heard 5,025 suspension/expulsion cases and has overturned ZERO.
What does it say about principals who "trade the trash" (as one former official put it) by getting rid of "bad" kids so principals can look like they're cracking down, and then intake "bad" kids from other schools, who don't show up on these statistics that way? If these kids are such menaces, why is ANY school taking them in?
The list of inconsistencies and obfuscations and lack of evidence of effectiveness and denial of justice is very long.
Finally, the question of safety vs. justice keeps arising. This is a Hobson's choice. We can and must have both. In fact, copious research shows that JUST and FAIR discipline processes, and major reductions in suspensions, produce SAFER schools. Nobody wants drugs, guns, or violence in schools. The issue is: Why do we have zero tolerance for children being children? For cherishing every one of them?
We must move from a punitive and criminalizing process to a preventive, rehabilitative, and restorative process.
Go to where the silence is, and speak!
-- Caroline Hemenway