SCHOOL VIOLENCE

In Baltimore City, MD School Violence has been one of the top stories floating around the water coolers for days now. There are teacher's being attacked by unruly students one such incident was videoed and shown on Oprah Winfrey Shows, and on MYSPACE and other social networks. There have been over 112 incidents reported this school year, that does not include the hundreds of incidents that have not resulted in suspensions.

You may have heard of the No Child Left Behind act that was signed into law by President Bush in January 2008. This legislative piece became a directive for an educational reform. It was and is intended to improve the test scores for math and reading, and it is to provide funding through numerous federal programs. This is a significant piece of law that is needed to advance the lacking tests scores of many of our students across this country. However with any law, especially legislation that provides funding for schools that meet certain criteria, there comes a point where principals and administrators of school systems will do whatever is necessary to assure that their school is not on the persistently dangerous list which might impact their funding allotments.

The problems came to light in Baltimore City, MD recently when an art teacher Jolita Berry was attacked and beaten by a student at the Reginald F. Lewis High School, the teacher's act that caused the violence was to tell the student to "sit down". When the student failed to obey, she advanced on the teacher telling the teacher that "she's gonna bang me," according to statement made by Ms. Berry. Ms Berry told the student to "back up you're in my space. If you hit me, I'm gonna defend myself.'" The student then attacked Bs Berry and was encouraged to continue the beating by some of her fellow classmates.

When the fight was broken up and Ms Berry reported the incident to her principal, before getting medical assistance, the principal told her that she had provoked the attack by telling the student she would defend herself. What a crock. The student should have been suspended immediately, but that was not happening, when Ms Berry was being taken for medical treatment, the student was in the hallways bragging about her behavior. Upon further heat from Ms Berry and her union representative the student was suspended.

When Dr Alonso took over last summer as the CEO of the Baltimore City School, he had encouraged principals to seek alternative means other than suspension for non violent acts, but urged a zero tolerance for violence. Many principals took his directive to mean that he was discouraging suspension altogether. This lack of guidance has come into the spotlight and Dr Alonso has been interviewed numerous times since the incident and each time that he has been interviewed his answers are becoming a bit more clear. Dr Alonso now states that he will fire any administrator who does not honestly report school violence.

Schools in Baltimore City do not want to be placed on the persistently dangerous designation, the students attending that school must be offered the option to transfer elsewhere and the school that is on this Designation list risks losing funding. Schools do not want this to happen so some administrators and principals are looking the other way when it comes to violence and the children in these disruptive situations are getting away with violence that is not being reported. This behavior is an act that is a reflection in my opinion on the lack of parenting skills, the lack of community involvement, misinterpretation of directives and fear that necessary funding will disappear from their budgets.

When it comes to safety, school teachers, staff and students should not have to live in fear while they are attending a class. I do not care how much money the schools think they are going to lose, the disruptive students should be suspended, the parents of those students should be held accountable for the actions of their underage children. If the child has psychological problems, then those problems should be accessed by Social Service personnel and that child should be given the treatment he or she needs to be able to function in the real world.