Thursday, January 17, 2013

Senate Committee: End ticket writing for education code violations, relax 'zero tolerance' in school discipline

The Senate Criminal Justice Committee released its interim report (pdf) to the 83rd Texas Legislature earlier this month, and Grits was interested to see the following recommendations related to school discipline and ticketing practices by school district police:
1. The legislature should require training for teachers and campus law enforcement in behavior management techniques.
2. The legislature should allow for an age to identify what students may be issue citations, not a grade level.
3. The legislature should remove the option of issuing citations for education code violations. These disciplinary [cases] should be addressed through a graduated sanctions model.
4. The legislature should include more discretion in zero tolerance policy.
5. The legislature should amend current statutes to create a consequence for districts that have not complied with implementing truancy prevention programs.
6. The legislature should require complainants to use sworn statement procedures rather than relying on law enforcement officers to issue citations.
7. The legislature should require [campus] law enforcement to report to a superintendent rather than a designee.
More soon on some of the other recommendations from the report.

7 comments:

  1. GLORY HALeLUJAH!!!
    someone found the common sense book

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  2. The scariest thing ever is imagining more police officers in our schools. Especially since we have documented proof that so many of these officers are child molesters hiding behind a badge.

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  3. From a probation stand point so many kids get "criminal charges" filed on them for "behavioral" issues. This escalated after the so called Zero Tolerance policy bame into play. The schools use this as a tool to simply get a kid out of their campus who may very well be causing problems, but not CRIMINAL problems. Every probation department could provide prime examples of kids like this, so much so I dare say 12-15% of school law enforcement referrals to probation departments are behavior ONLY related incidents. In our push to divert kids from the state facilities we first have to divert them from the criminal justice system and this is the start.
    Cricket

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  4. School to prison pipeline--bad!
    Out of control kids who physically assault teachers--also bad!

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  5. In the school's defense, WHAT ARE THEY SUPPOSE TO DO WITH THESE KIDS?
    This silly ridiculous notion that they are going to place disruptive kids in behavior oriented programs and somehow alter the behavior is a joke.

    It's not going to happen. Get these kids off your campus. They are disrupting the education process for those kids there to learn.

    Nobody has yet to offer any real meaningful solutions to the problem.

    I am not saying a kid should receive a ticket for chewing gum. But let's be real. He wasn't ticketed for chewing gum, he was ticketed after he was asked to spit the gum out and he told everyone to go %$@# themselves.

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  6. We can't criticize the ultra violent gang bang culture in the classrooms. The teachers must be tolerant. School discipline must be relaxed.

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  7. The same people that advocate for "troubled" students to be removed the classroom so they do not interrupt their kid's education are the same ones that work twice as hard to prevent their children from being subject to the same rules.

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