[Magdalen] School-to-prison pipeline, the ugly reality behind Spring Valley school arrest

[Lynn Ronkainen]

Roger in the U.S. in the 3 states I've lived in the school systems state-wide get money based on daily attendance. Any absence for any reason is dollars lost. That is the theoretical reason behind the truancy scheme I described locally. 
Lynn

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 30, 2015, at 4:51 PM, Roger Stokes <roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com> wrote:

> On 30/10/2015 21:12, Lynn Ronkainen wrote:
> link to article: http://ncronline.org/news/peace-justice/school-prison-pipeline-ugly-reality-behind-spring-valley-school-arrest
> 
> I read this, thought about sending the link and then decided to.... This article disturbs me because it is true.  All of the school districts in and around Houston (4th largest city in USA) have their own police departments. I'm sure this is the case in other large city/suburban areas in TX. These cops (and I've never seen female school police but perhaps women don't seek this job in law enforcement) carry guns and issue civil issue tickets - underage smoking, traffic infractions on school property. I do not have kids in school any more, but I am certain they might be called into a classroom, but probably not over something quite like the incident in SC, but I can't say for certain.  AFAIK we have not had any really bad incidents in the district I live in (4 high schools with another on the way) to date.

I believe there may be police linked to schools this side of the pond but their role is liaison.  The police will only get involved with law enforcewment on school premises if there is a serious offence to investigate.  School discipline is up to the school staff.

> One of the largest suburban districts to the west of Houston was involved in something tangential but still relevant to the issue of the pipeline the article alludes to. The school was issuing tickets *to the students* in high school for truancy, even if they were minors. The tickets were expensive and in some cases, families were not able to afford to pay the ticket. This often led the student to be put in juvenile detention, even if they had come back to school!

Respomsibility here to ensure the child receives edfucation appropriate to their age, aptitude and ability rests squarely with the parents.  In recent years the approach to children not being in school when they should be has been toughened but it's the parents who are responsible, have to pay the fixed penalties and, if it gets that far, appear in court and possibly be jailed.

> The district, when cornered after an article came out about this in the 2013-14 school year, justified the 'fine' because the child's absence deprived the school of the funds they would get if the student was in attendance. WHAT??? Silly me, I always thought truancy was a concern because it led to lack of education and possibly dropping out... apparently not.

That seems unnecessarily complicated to me.  What a school receives depends on how manyt children are on roll on census day, the main one in October with others to make any necessary correction in January and April.  If the child is on roll but absent for some reason then the school gets the appropriate funding for that child.

> The other issue involved in so many of these 'detention' scenarios is that often the facility these kids are sent to is run *for* the state, or county, by a privately contracted company. One can only come to the conclusion that the overuse of this *solution* (which we read about all the time for both juveniles and adults who are incarcerated) might be lining the pockets of everyone in this *other*  pipeline - in this case the pipeline from the absent student through pockets of each step - ticketing, court, school/district, all the way to the private company.

On principle I object to the involvement of private companies in law enforcement.  Their aim will be to maximise profits, which is helped by not addressing why X has offended so he will go and offend again - the revolving door syndrome.

Roger