ACLU says police respond to schools too often - news-herald.com

ACLU says police respond to schools too often - news-herald.com

"Stories abound of ever-younger children being pulled out of the classroom for seemingly minor infractions, only to end up with a criminal record from a young age.

According to activist organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, zero-tolerance policies have had the unintended effect of funneling students directly into the criminal justice system for infractions that could have been handled through in-school disciplinary actions.

Its website lists examples of children as young as 5 being arrested for throwing temper tantrums.

Such policies, the ACLU claims, do little to improve school safety and instead enact harsh discipline without regard to students' individual circumstances.

Local school officials, however, say that's not the case.

Euclid Schools, for example, doesn't have a formal zero-tolerance policy in place — precisely because there are too many unique situations — but it also doesn't tolerate violence, Superintendent Joffrey Jones said.

The district strikes a balance between the two by fostering collaboration among school officials, law enforcement officers and parents, Jones said.

Although the district no longer has a school resource officer because of financial reasons, a school security force is in place and the city police department is close enough to the high school to provide immediate response, Jones said.

"We made a change last year so that whenever there was a fight, we informed the police, because we felt that whatever would not be permissible outside the school community should not be permissible inside the school community either," Jones said.

Informing the police of a situation doesn't automatically mean a student will get a criminal record. Instead, a conference is held during which the student's parents meet with authorities at the police department to discuss the situation.

"I think it gets the attention of everybody a little bit more and we've seen a noticeable drop in fights in the past year," Jones said.

"It isn't getting (students) into the criminal justice system, per se. It's more or less of a collaborative effort to try to stem the tide of violence so they're not going to jail and they're not getting a police record.

"Most disciplinary issues in Euclid are handled in-house, with only severe criminal acts such as drug possession or sales, firearms possession or acts of violence being turned over to the police, Jones said.

"If there are extreme acts of violence against somebody, we feel that's an appropriate reason to contact police. We don't have a lot of that," he said.

In Lake County, Willoughby Police Lt. Tom Trem said the schools' resource officer is a big asset for police and the schools.

"Normally, they don't burden us with small problems," Trem said of the city's schools. "We encourage them to err on the side of caution if they are unsure, but generally they know when to call.

"If it's just a pushing match they can handle it themselves, but if someone's hurt or if there's a crime, we expect to be notified.""