The Politics of Safer Schools

Politics of Safe Schools

The Safety Audit for the Worcester Public Schools was discussed at the December 17, 2015 School Committee Meeting. The Safety Audit concerns itself mostly with keeping the students and staff at schools safe from outside threats. It talked about stronger doors, more security at the front entrances, comprehensive responses, etc. 

The Safety Audit rightly did not concern itself with internal “incidents” such as yelling, bouncing basketballs, cell phone use, or dress code which are things that students, who are still developing,  act out.  The Safety Audit did say that if the police were brought in to resolve these “incidents” many staffers and students would not cooperate with the police. This non cooperation caused by the criminalization of non criminal incidents could have an adverse effect on safety. The Audit recommended that for these “incidents” there should be a policy of no arrests and deferral to school disciplinary policy and not the criminal justice system.

It did not seem that many in the School Committee paid attention to this recommendation.

Many people spoke out against police in the schools and the arrests of students at school. Some in the opposition identified themselves as from the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), Mass. Human Rights, ACLU, and a Unitarian Church.

A speaker from PLP said that the City was not in compliance with State Statutes on the use of police in the schools. The required Memorandum of Understanding ((MOU) was out of date and the City faced lawsuits for any harm done by the police in schools.  Ron Madnick, a former teacher at Burncoat High School said that having loaded guns, carried by the police, was troubling in terms of accidents.

The student representative from South High School said that he agreed students should not be arrested at school unless there was an emergency.  Idella Hazard, a former police officer, said that the police in the schools was racist and a part of the school to prison pipeline. Gwen Davis said that most of the police make six figures salaries and that money would be better spent on more teachers and better students to teachers ratios.

There was one person who spoke in favor of the police arresting students at school. He is the head of the teachers’ union. He said that only bad kids get arrested. He then said that the armed gunmen could have stopped the tragedy in Newtown where 21 elementary school children and 6 staffers were killed. The Minister from the Unitarian Church replied that it was outrageous to bring up Newtown as there are no plans to station police in elementary schools in Worcester.

Dr. Rodrigues was disingenuous when he said that a working MOU existed. He said that it would be posted on the Worcester Public School website on December 18, 2015. It was not.  Dr. Rodrigues had said earlier in the month that the new MOU would not be written until after March 2016. He is learning quickly how to play the Worcester old boy network.

It is encouraging that some thought is going into making our schools safer from outside threats. It is sad that many other people think about school safety in terms of threats from students. Many in the schools and City seem to be afraid of young Black students and anyone adversely affected by poverty, especially teenagers.

It is clear that leadership on this issue will not come from the School Committee which has no person of color or even a progress. The leadership will not come from City Council which refused to discuss the lack of a policy about police in the School. It is not likely to come from the City Manager who made a mess of things with the Department of Justice Race Dialogues.  

There is hope to be found in the little group of people who are demanding that the students in Worcester be treated in a manner that will lead to their success and not to the criminal justice system.