Study finds Virginia leads nation in referring students to police

[Little Tich]

Source: Reuters / Yahoo! News

(Reuters) - Virginia leads the nation in the number of students it sends to police, and nationwide special needs and black children are disproportionately affected, a study released on Friday showed.

Virginia followed by Delaware and Florida, sent students to law enforcement at nearly three times the national rate, according to the study by the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based non-profit investigative news organization.

Special needs students make up 14 percent of U.S. school enrollment but account for 26 percent of students referred to law enforcement, it said.

Black students are 16 percent of enrollment but 27 percent of those referred to police, it said.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/study-finds-virginia-leads-nation-referring-students-police-191650523.html

[kelly1mm]

1. My wife was a public school teacher in Maryland till June 2014. What happened here

is that the administration refused to back the teachers in the classroom discipline area. So, the teachers started calling the police in. Then the administration tried to stop that but the union stepped in. It basically came down to the administration had to actually back the teachers in the classroom or allow the police to handle it. In the years my wife was a teacher (21 years total) she was involved in calling the police on 8 students and had to testify at 5 trials.

The issue with special needs children is interesting. Many of her students with IEP's had behavior issues and would sometimes assault other students. Due to the behavior (including assault) being related to the underlying special needs, the available tools of the school is lacking. Thus, because they can't do anything because of the IDEA laws on a school level, you are forced into calling the police in.

Lastly, Maryland allows residents to make criminal complaints with the courts directly. The 'new' driver of police action in schools is parents directly filing (assault mostly) charges.

[AlbertCat]

2. Virginia is for lovers....of being watched....

It's a police state.

"Speed checked by Aircraft"

[NancyDL]

3. This creates a big problem for the children in later life, though.

These police referrals follow them everywhere. And... why aren't police trained to sit down with these kids and talk to them - defuse the situation? And why aren't teachers trained to handle more stuff? And what's wrong with these school officials? These folk are ALL hauling in some good taxpayer $$$ and none of them want to do their jobs.