JamesZ emailed me about the Life Of The Law article and audio Life of the Law #26 – School Discipline program which he had heard on WGBH. I think this was originally aired on January 28, 2014
About ten days after Kyle’s arrest, there was a disciplinary hearing with the assistant superintendent.
”She just kept saying, ‘well, you know what Kyle?’” Lisa Thompson remembered, “‘You seem like a nice kid and your mom seems like she really cares’ and she kept saying, ‘You are exactly the kind of kid we want at Harrison. Your mom is exactly the kind of parent we want at this school.’
“She said that, I don’t know, five times,” Thompson continued. And she said, ‘unfortunately Mom, I’m going to have to tell you something you don’t want to hear…I’m going to have to, I’m going to have to expel him for 180 school days.’”
I try to always maintain the proper amount of skepticism. I know that the story is edited to make you come to one conclusion, so I have to remind myself that we don’t really know what happened. I can still be outraged at the fact that something like this could have happened even though we don’t know for sure whether or not it happened this way in this instance.
This story is relevant to Sturbridge residents because it was just a few years ago that Town Meeting struggled with the issue of funding a school resource officer for Tantasqua Regional High School. At the time, I was in favor of funding the officer, but that is not what the town decided to do. In my mind, I bought into the worry of the bad things that could happen that might be mitigated by the presence of the SRO. It never occurred to me that there could be negative consequences to having an SRO. The above radio program certainly makes it clear what those bad consequences are. The bad consequences of having an SRO aren’t nearly as rare as the consequences of not having one. Having the students get to know a police officer from daily interaction or at least his presence in the school might actually be overrated according to these statistics. Interestingly, the problem is not with the police officer, but it is with the teachers and administrators. Having an SRO and a school administration with zero tolerance policies are a toxic mix.
There are a number of my friends in Sturbridge who have disagreed with my thinking on the SRO. I just could not understand their issues. Now I have a much better grasp of what they may be thinking. For those friends, I used to agree with on this issue, sorry, I have now switched sides.
June 6, 2015
I have found the following in the platform on Jacob Ryan’s web site as a member of the Tantasqua School committee.
I am proud to stand with a bipartisan group of people in support of a School Resource Officer at Tantasqua. The Democratic controlled state legislature and the conservative NRA agree, having an officer in a school system is to the benefit of all involved, especially the students.
Burgess Elementary has proved that an officer not only acts as a safety mechanism if something were to occur, but is a resource for the students, staff, and parents that helps strengthen the relationship between the community and law enforcement. The debate is over however, the state now requires us to have an officer on campus. And because I believe strongly in this issue and want to work within state law, I will push for the institution of this officer as soon as possible.
If the Town is required by the state to have an SRO, I think the least we can do is to also have a funded defense lawyer to protect the civil rights of any student accused of a crime for which the SRO gets involved. This defense lawyer must be called in immediately to warn the student of her or his Miranda rights. I’d like to see the state law amended to require this along with the SRO. I’d also like the school to be required to keep statistics on how many arrests get made, and the outcomes of these arrests and also keep track of the race and the LGBT status of the accused.
When we get into criminal matters, it is a very very bad idea for an accused person to say anything to anybody, especially a police officer, without the accused’s having legal counsel present. Otherwise, the accused is being taken advantage of and is being denied her or his rights. This is one lesson that ought to be taught at Tantasqua. After all, it is part of our Constitution.
See my previous post Don’t Talk To The Police.
June 6, 2015
Jacob Ryan >responded on Facebook.
Intriguing post, one correction though. Sturbridge has always stood by the funding for the resource officer. Every attempt to strip the funding at town meeting has failed. We currently fund the position at Burgess and Tantasqua but the Tantasqua school committee has not adopted the position. Sturbridge is for the position.