The Echo

Okay, it's early ... the news just hit that a student was knifed during a fight at Newark High. Newark Police responded quickly, the students were arrested, prom will go on as planned.

What?

When I was a kid growing up in the district, Newark High was considered the pinnacle of education in Christina. It was the "good" school, the one that every college-bound student wanted to attend.

Between knives and guns, it's clear that Newark isn't what it used to be. It's fallen to the ranks of it's sister schools, Glasgow and Christiana. And it's become quite clear that we have permitted the right to a public education to be compromised by our inability to ensure student safety.

So, how do we ensure student safety in a time when the success of zero tolerence policies is at question? Empirical data suggests that zero tolerance doesn't work, equal is not always fair, and such policies preclude common sense from coming into play.

We must find a way to temper discipline with intervention and support while enforcing fair policies. Clearly, students cannot bring knives and guns to school, much less use them. Such behavior must be adequately disciplined.

But, what if we were to turn the puzzle on its side and try to identify those student who would be at risk for such behaviors before the behavior occurs? What if, once a student is identified, we provided supports to that student to engage back in the learning environment. First, we reach out to parents to ascertain the type of home environment a student has, to learn what emotional baggage our student is carrying to school each day. We provide our students with access to mental health professionals like school pyschologists and counselors (granted that would require our board to vote no on the proposed RIF of our school counselors); engage social services to address issues in the home; develop afterschool programming (likely to involve community-based partnerships that include tutoring and mentoring); and assist our student to develop an education plan. Who do you want to be? How do you get there?

The question that remains is would this type of approach work? I believe a well thought out policy has the potential to decrease the number of disciplinary infractions that occur in our schools. We must reach our students before they commit serious crimes. We must engage them, support them, giving them alternatives to the criminal path. Once a student has entered the legal system, it far harder to rehabilitate them.

Some will argue we cannot afford to finance such a plan. But, if we do not find the finances on the front end, we will be forever supporting students-turned-criminals in our prisons. We, the community, pays one way or the other.

And what if our student, even after we've invested such resources in them, commits a serious crime? That's when the swift arm of common sense discipline must prevail.

Should todays students be expelled. Absolutely. Should they be thrown away, shuffled off to become someone else's problem? Absolutely NOT. They do need an alternative educational plan and setting. They will need serious resources to be rehabilitated, much of which may occur through our criminal justice system, if it occurs at all.

The real question is: which plan can we afford? One that preempts disciplinary infractions or one that is reactive to crime?