Last month a police officer was called in after a student refused to leave a classroom in a South Carolina school. What happened next made national headlines because of viral videos that showed the officer “grabbing an African-American student by the neck, flipping her backward as she sat at her desk, then dragging and throwing her across the floor.”
Student discipline issues used to be handled by the principal or other school personnel, but in recent decades the country has placed more police officers in schools to maintain order and safety. Should the police be dealing with student misbehavior?
What role, if any, should the police have in schools?
In the editorial “Schoolkids in Handcuffs,” The Times Editorial Board writes:
The video that went viral last month showing a white sheriff’s deputy in a Columbia, S.C., classroom throwing and dragging an African-American student across the floor may well be indicative of a deeper problem with the security program in that school district.
In May, an office within the Justice Department that monitors federally funded programs opened an investigation to determine whether the school security program run by the Richland County, S.C., Sheriff’s Department was complying with federal civil rights law. Although the department has not made public any details, such investigations typically result from civil rights complaints or evidence suggesting discrimination in the way that suspension, expulsion and other disciplinary measures are being applied.
The violent video shows starkly a problem that has grown worse in the United States since the 1980s, when the country started to put more police officers in schools. In many places, the shift created repressive environments where educators stepped back from managing schools and allowed police officers to set the tone, even when that meant manhandling, handcuffing and arresting young people for minor misbehaviors that once would have been dealt with by the principal.
These police-driven policies have not made schools safer. But they do make children more likely to drop out and become entangled with the justice system. And they disproportionately affect minority and disabled children, who are more likely to be singled out for the harshest forms of discipline.
Students: Read the entire article, then tell us …
— What role, if any, should the police have in schools?
— What kinds of school issues should police officers be called in to handle? For example, should the police be called to remove a disruptive student from a classroom?
— The Times Editorial Board argues that “these police-driven policies have not made schools safer.” Do you agree? Do you think having police officers in schools helps to create a safer learning environment? Or, does having the police involved in routine school discipline issues needlessly entangle students with the justice system?
— How should schools handle students who are not following the rules or are disrupting the learning environment? Is there a better alternative to using police officers and the criminal justice system for most student behavior issues?
Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
This article was suggested by Sanaea Bhagwagar, a member of our Student Council.