Local News
Handcuffs
Grand Slam
“There is more chronic and extreme disre-
spect, disinterest and kids who basically
don’t care,” Bernstein said.
Experts and educators point to a number
of factors that lead to the arrests: Some offi-
cers are operating without special training.
School administrators are desperate to get
the attention of uninvolved parents. And
overwhelmed teachers are unaware that
calling in the police to defuse a situation
could lead to serious criminal charges.
struck the principal in the leg, and jumped
on a paper shredder and tried to break a
glass frame.
Police didn’t say what set off the tantrum.
Baldwin County (Ga.) schools Superinten-
dent Geneva Braziel called the student’s
behavior “violent and disruptive” and said
the police were needed to keep the student,
other classmates and the school staff safe.
Salecia was handcuffed and taken away in
a patrol car to the police station, where she
was taken to a squad room and
given a soda, police said. She
won’t be charged with a crime.
In Florida, the use of police in
schools came up several years
ago when officers arrested a
kindergartner who threw a
tantrum during a jelly bean-
counting contest. A bill was pro-
posed this year to restrict police
from arresting kids for misde-
meanors or other acts that do not pose seri-
ous safety threats.
In Connecticut, court officials began
tracking student arrests after becoming con-
cerned about referrals for minor offenses.
Since last March, nearly 1,700 students
were arrested, almost two-thirds of them for
breach of peace, minor fights and disorder-
ly conduct.
In Texas, a December report from the
nonprofit Texas Appleseed, a public interest
group, says more than 275,000 non-traffic
tickets are issued to juveniles each year.
While it is unclear how many are written at
school, the group says the vast majority are
for offenses most commonly linked to inci-
dents like disrupting the class and disorder-
ly conduct.
Texas Sen. John Whitmire said educators
and police need to better distinguish
between who they are afraid of and who
they are mad at.
Several years ago officers
arrested a kindergartner who
threw a tantrum during a jelly
bean-counting contest
“I have had some concern for a while that
the schools have relied a little too heavily
on police officers to handle disciplinary
problems,” said Darrel Stephens, a former
Charlotte, N.C., police chief and executive
director of the Major Cities Chiefs Associa-
tion.
There is little national data to back those
assertions; no numbers are tracked national-
ly on how often police are called in to arrest
students. Whether the children are actually
charged and saddled with criminal records
varies by case and jurisdiction. Some
youngsters are charged with felonies. Some
are freed without further incident. Others
receive tickets.
In Milledgeville, Ga., a city of 18,000
some 90 miles from Atlanta, Salecia John-
son was accused of tearing items off the
walls and throwing books and toys in an
outburst Friday at Creekside Elementary.
Police said she also threw a small shelf that
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
continued from page 1
Vicious Puppies does some break dancing during a break at the 2012
Youth Speaks Poetry Grand Slam Friday, April 13, at the Neptune Theatre.
“If you are afraid of someone because
they bring a gun or drugs, of course we
come down hard,” Whitmire said. “It’s the
kids that just make you mad that you don’t
need to make a crime.”
In Albuquerque, which started tracking
arrests after noticing more minor cases
coming from schools, more than 900 of the
district’s 90,000 students were referred to
the criminal justice system in the 2009-2010
school year. Of those, more than 500 were
handcuffed, arrested and brought to juvenile
detention, officials said. More than 200
were arrested for minor offenses, including
disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, refusing
to obey and interference with staff.
Preliminary numbers indicate arrests have
fallen 53 percent since the class-action law-
suit was filed in 2010, prompting law
enforcement officials to order more caution.
Albuquerque school officials have
declined comment on school arrests, citing
the pending litigation.
But juvenile advocates and parents say
first arrests could lead to more trouble.
Annette Montano says her 13-year-old
son was arrested at a middle school for
burping in gym class. The tension between
him and school officials led to several more
run-ins, she said, including a strip search
after he was accused of selling drugs.
James, however, was impressed by the
girls’ showing.
“Well they are making themselves heard,”
he said.
Pulla says there are three reasons for Tub-
man’s low enrollment.
“One, people don’t know that it exists;
second thing is the people who know and
believe in the school and who put our kids
there are told every year that this is a failing
school and it’s going to close,” Pulla said.
“Our scores are linked with Jefferson
scores, and because it’s a Title I school we
get this letter annually –‘Does not meet
AYP standards.’ I am a new parent, and I
didn’t know that every other high school
does not meet AYP standards, but they don’t
get letters home because they’re not Title I
schools.
“So what can it do to a parent when you
see a letter sent from the district saying ‘this
school is not meeting AYP standards, trans-
fer your child out’? That’s the second thing.
“The third thing is, in the five years of our
existence – less than five years – we’ve
been told that we might close, like, three
times. Which parent would put their kids in
a school with an uncertain future?
“So the ones who are there are leaving
because we don’t know if it’s going to stay;
the ones who could come are not coming
because they don’t know if the school will
stay.
“In spite of that, in spite of that, we have
220 kids,” Pulla says.
“So I think it’s up to the community to
step up and take ownership,” she said. “If
the community really sees the potential and
enrolls the girls in the school and increases
the numbers, the potential is enormous. I
really think it’s enormous.”
Read the rest of this story online at
www.theskanner.com
Schools
continued from page 1
the Tubman school’s closure on the local
economy – because it is an all-girls school
focusing on math and science, the three offi-
cials said it is crucial in maintaining the
kind of local workforce that will draw com-
panies to the area.
Reaching Out
Portland City Commissioner candidate
Teressa Raiford brought a contingent of the
Tubman girls and their families to the City
Hall reception for newly hired Office of
Equity and Human Rights Director Dante
James on Friday, April 6.
“I thought if they are in a leadership acad-
emy they should test out their leadership
right here,” Raiford told The Skanner News.
“We started out with the idea at 8 o’clock
this morning and now it’s – what? – 4:30?
That’s not bad,” Raiford said, surveying the
City Hall atrium where small groups of girls
dressed in deep purple surrounded elected
officials, bureau chiefs and other VIPS.
“Well I think that as a school it has a lot of
potential and I believe that the school dis-
trict should let it stay for a few more years
to see how it expands, and how the students
improve,” said senior Meda Pulla.
“By going to the school in the beginning I
never thought about going into engineering,
but then after going to the school and taking
some engineering classes I found out that I
really like engineering and I want to be an
engineer,” said her twin sister Ansallah.
“I’m a senior and so now I’m going next
year to PSU, and also in the academy I man-
aged to get a scholarship to go to PSU, a
$3,000 renewable scholarship,” Ansallah
said. “So it’s really helped me a lot and I
hope it can stay open so it can help other
girls too.”
Seventh grader Leah Montgomery shared
an even more personal side to how the clo-
sure will impact her life.
“Well I think it is very sad that we’re hav-
ing our school close down because the
school has changed me in so many different
ways that it gave me the education I need-
ed,” she told The Skanner News.
“When I came to school I was at a fourth
grade math level, and when I moved into
seventh grade I was upgraded to a fifth
grade level,” she said.
One Mom’s Story
Jyothi Pulla, Meda and Ansallah’s mother,
is livid about not just the closure, but the
way it has been unveiled. Even though her
daughters graduate out of the school at the
end of the year, she has worked overtime to
raise awareness of the unfairness of the dis-
trict’s proposed cuts.
‘This school is about creating leaders one girl at
a time and I’ve been in the leadership class
and the championships, and I just wish this
school could have one last chance’
“I progressed as fast as I could and I had
so many different tutors, and they helped
me with all my emotional problems,” Mont-
gomery said.
“I had counseling and at the NAYA Cen-
ter I got into sports,” she said. “This school
is about creating leaders one girl at a time
and I’ve been in the leadership class and the
championships, and I just wish this school
could have one last chance.”
It remains unclear whether James, the
city’s new Equity director, or Chief of
Police Mike Reese, or state Rep. Lew Fred-
erick, or any of the multitude of others at the
Friday reception will able to sway the
school board’s vote on Tubman’s closure.
“The criticism has been that it’s a small
school – the enrollment numbers are low,
but what people don’t know is why our
numbers have been low,” she said.
“A lot of people don’t know that this school
exists as an all-girl school, there is very lit-
tle awareness in this city about the existence
of this school. The people know it as a mid-
dle
school,
maybe,”
she
said.
“There’s one ex-principal of Tubman, he
was here at Tubman for 15 years, Mr. Coak-
ley, he didn’t even know this had been
turned into an all-girls school until two
months ago. So can you imagine? So if peo-
ple don’t know that we exist, how can we
get the word out?”
April 18, 2012 The Portland Skanner Page 3