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[wierd]

Like most things that get handled by people not competent to run them (No, not the teachers, I mean govt officials creating school policy the teachers have to obey), the issues in the public school system are myriad, and nearly endless in number. (and yes, I know I am repeating myself there.)

Also, like most things handled in this way, problems are dealt with in a "reactive" rather than "proactive" manner, because the people making the decisions dont really know how to run things, and thus do not know how to do the latter.

See also, Dunning-Krueger.

This is why we have had 30 years of reactionary problem solving on this issue, and it has gotten worse and worse every decade. It is not a difficult trend to follow. 


Want to fix the problem?

Here's a radical suggestion: 

1) Increase the capability of the country to deal with mental health issues
2) Improve poverty conditions in the country with good social services (Which has been shown to greatly reduce incidence in violent crime in aggregate, including abusing home lives, which can contribute greatly to child mental health issues)
3) remove perverse incentives that allow bullying in schools from popular kids. (Ever notice how it is the "most loved" students that get shot first? Ever wonder why?) This means reducing the school's dependency on external sources of funding. (Athletics programs, et al.)
4) Due to implementation of item 1), students can be better cared for when they are identified as being likely to suffer from mental health issues (AGAIN though, teachers are only *AN* authority figure, NOT A HIGH AUTHORITY. They do not get to make these kinds of decisions, they can only alert!!) and can thus be removed from the school and evaluated or cared for by professionals, who do have such authority.

But it is just so much cheaper and easier to tell teachers 'Zero tolerance! Slight infraction == harsh punishment, no exceptions!' and to throw armed guards into the mix to enforce compliance.

[sluissa]

Oh yeah, 14 year old black girls being running tackled into a tile floor by a 6'5" armed meathead and leaving blood on the ground is such a good thing, no other way to manage those people, those kids need to see the way things really are for them.

I love it when people immediately ply an argument of necessity and absolutism without the slightest consideration of an alternative, except perhaps to chuckle to themselves at how unrealistic the rest of the world is.

And guess what, if the resource officer isn't there, a teacher or other staff member would likely have done the same thing. I've seen teachers tackle kids to cement. Those kids are often out there to kill each other and sometimes that's all you can do.

Didn't you mention some while back some experiences of yours with school resource officers which weren't good ones? Or at least your experience of it. Might have been on the police brutality thread rather than this one.

I was speaking of adult experiences with officers on the street there. And yes, outside of schools they haven't been good experiences. But I'm still 100% of the opinion that police are a necessity in society and any problems need to be fixed rather than used to condemn the police as "not worth the trouble" or worse. At least in the schools I've been in, they've always chosen carefully the officers that were put there. They were always of a much calmer and nicer demeanor than the nervous twitchyness I've met on the street. It probably helped that they were often put into the same school for a year or more and got to know the teachers and students there. They had a better idea of the threat assessment of a situation compared to some random stop. Not that that excuses anything, but I can see how things might be different between the two types of officers.

[smjjames]

How exactly would 3 be done? I'm not aware of any studies linking bullying to being popular in some external program. People can be popular for other reasons besides being in some external program.

Improving the mental health system and actually fully funding schools would go a long way towards helping, and those don't sound radical, they sound like common sense.

[wierd]

The issue is the perverse incentive to protect the popular student, because they are involved in a secondary income stream the school depends on.

EG, "Star quarterback is an asshole, gets away with damned near murder"  and it is that way because "Star quarterback brings in the bucks needed to keep the school running."

You fix that problem, by removing the dependency. Properly fund the school from the beginning, and downsize athletic program importance. (You dont remove them, they serve useful functions in the community, just make them much less "required for the school to stay open", and thus make it realistically feasible to you know--- expel the star quarterback when he beats people up.)

I pick on athletic program importance due to personal bias, from personal experiences.  However, there are other sources of perverse incentive:  Schools get paid more money for special needs students, etc. This creates perverse incentives to incorrectly identify, or to keep students from being high achievers, etc-- which impacts self esteem, and causes mental health issues outright.

Solving funding issues, and thus removing these perverse incentives, would solve a lot of problems.

[sluissa]

Not to say any of those ideas are bad, but I feel like a big problem is trying to make every kid fit into a universal cookie cutter. Everyone has different skills, different interests and different abilities. Offer different paths and perhaps even truncated paths that let students who SHOULDN'T be in school drop out early with some sort of skill set and basic knowledge base that doesn't have the stigma of "drop out". Not easy to do, especially with current funding levels, but hey, it's an idea.

[nenjin]

At least in the schools I've been in, they've always chosen carefully the officers that were put there.

This has been my experience too. Campus cops here at the college are actually appointed by the governor from the state patrol units, who are the "elite" law enforcement officers in the state above local cops. (Nebraska is fucking huge and empty, so, State Patrol has a lot of ground to cover and has to deal with drug checkpoints and such.)

The issue is the perverse incentive to protect the popular student, because they are involved in a secondary income stream the school depends on.

EG, "Star quarterback is an asshole, gets away with damned near murder"  and it is that way because "Star quarterback brings in the bucks needed to keep the school running."

You fix that problem, by removing the dependency. Properly fund the school from the beginning, and downsize athletic program importance. (You dont remove them, they serve useful functions in the community, just make them much less "required for the school to stay open", and thus make it realistically feasible to you know--- expel the star quarterback when he beats people up.)

Aaaaaaaannnnnd this is also totally true. My school was the preppy school, so all the wealthy kids in my town went there. Gotta protect those alumni dollars!

Good luck solving the funding question for schools though. Athletics have always been disproportionally important to the school district here, and I imagine in a lot of school districts. We're a football state after all, and every parent dreams of their kid being the next big Nebraska quarterback. The arts, trade skills, additional class offerings, the funding for them were all consumed by building a new weight room for the football team, renovating the stadium outside the school, etc and so forth....

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Oh yeah, 14 year old black girls being running tackled into a tile floor by a 6'5" armed meathead and leaving blood on the ground is such a good thing, no other way to manage those people, those kids need to see the way things really are for them.

I love it when people immediately ply an argument of necessity and absolutism without the slightest consideration of an alternative, except perhaps to chuckle to themselves at how unrealistic the rest of the world is.

And guess what, if the resource officer isn't there, a teacher or other staff member would likely have done the same thing. I've seen teachers tackle kids to cement. Those kids are often out there to kill each other and sometimes that's all you can do.

What did I just say? You think a person of stature with combat training can't break up a fight in any other manner? If it was your mother and her sister fighting, would you tackle one of them into a concrete floor?

Get real. One of the very first lessons I got in my foray into martial arts was a restraining hold, which was specifically introduced as how to stop an attacker without causing them lasting harm. If I, a beginner, was given such a lesson, someone who sticks to it in a professional context can sure as shit do the same.

Here's another thing that gets me: Thinking that even if something is "absolutely necessary" that everybody should just absorb the consequences. It doesn't really matter that we teach kids they'll face brutal violence to ensure compliance, that's ok because they might kill each other otherwise! Scary!

[smjjames]

I wonder how other countries deal with athletics programs and the like. I'm sure other countries have schools similar to nenjin where the wealthy kids go and often look for the next potential soccer (that's everybody-else-in-the-world football) superstar and protecting the alumni dollars.

Again, actually fully funding (and maybe even surplusing a little) schools properly would go a ways towards reducing dependency on those external stuff.

[sluissa]

Oh yeah, 14 year old black girls being running tackled into a tile floor by a 6'5" armed meathead and leaving blood on the ground is such a good thing, no other way to manage those people, those kids need to see the way things really are for them.

I love it when people immediately ply an argument of necessity and absolutism without the slightest consideration of an alternative, except perhaps to chuckle to themselves at how unrealistic the rest of the world is.

And guess what, if the resource officer isn't there, a teacher or other staff member would likely have done the same thing. I've seen teachers tackle kids to cement. Those kids are often out there to kill each other and sometimes that's all you can do.

What did I just say? You think a person of stature with combat training can't break up a fight in any other manner? If it was your mother and her sister fighting, would you tackle one of them into a concrete floor?

Get real. One of the very first lessons I got in my foray into martial arts was a restraining hold, which was specifically introduced as how to stop an attacker without causing them lasting harm. If I, a beginner, was given such a lesson, someone who sticks to it in a professional context can sure as shit do the same.

Here's another thing that gets me: Thinking that even if something is "absolutely necessary" that everybody should just absorb the consequences. It doesn't really matter that we teach kids they'll face brutal violence to ensure compliance, that's ok because they might kill each other otherwise! Scary!

Maybe we should consider if the kid is doing something deserving of being tackled, it might be their own fault. They need to learn NOT to do those things and then they won't get gravel in their face. Granted, if the tackling was unwarranted, then yes, punish the authority figure who did it. But I feel like that would be the rarity.

[smjjames]

Oh yeah, 14 year old black girls being running tackled into a tile floor by a 6'5" armed meathead and leaving blood on the ground is such a good thing, no other way to manage those people, those kids need to see the way things really are for them.

I love it when people immediately ply an argument of necessity and absolutism without the slightest consideration of an alternative, except perhaps to chuckle to themselves at how unrealistic the rest of the world is.

And guess what, if the resource officer isn't there, a teacher or other staff member would likely have done the same thing. I've seen teachers tackle kids to cement. Those kids are often out there to kill each other and sometimes that's all you can do.

What did I just say? You think a person of stature with combat training can't break up a fight in any other manner? If it was your mother and her sister fighting, would you tackle one of them into a concrete floor?

Get real. One of the very first lessons I got in my foray into martial arts was a restraining hold, which was specifically introduced as how to stop an attacker without causing them lasting harm. If I, a beginner, was given such a lesson, someone who sticks to it in a professional context can sure as shit do the same.

Here's another thing that gets me: Thinking that even if something is "absolutely necessary" that everybody should just absorb the consequences. It doesn't really matter that we teach kids they'll face brutal violence to ensure compliance, that's ok because they might kill each other otherwise! Scary!

Maybe we should consider if the kid is doing something deserving of being tackled, it might be their own fault. They need to learn NOT to do those things and then they won't get gravel in their face. Granted, if the tackling was unwarranted, then yes, punish the authority figure who did it. But I feel like that would be the rarity.

Someone running away seems like it'd be the most common reason to tackle, but if stopping them without needing to resort to tackling is available (NOT GUNS! Using a taser is probably not a good idea), then it should be used.

@MSH: Did they ever teach you how to stop and restrain someone running away in martial arts?

[wierd]

Oh yeah, 14 year old black girls being running tackled into a tile floor by a 6'5" armed meathead and leaving blood on the ground is such a good thing, no other way to manage those people, those kids need to see the way things really are for them.

I love it when people immediately ply an argument of necessity and absolutism without the slightest consideration of an alternative, except perhaps to chuckle to themselves at how unrealistic the rest of the world is.

And guess what, if the resource officer isn't there, a teacher or other staff member would likely have done the same thing. I've seen teachers tackle kids to cement. Those kids are often out there to kill each other and sometimes that's all you can do.

What did I just say? You think a person of stature with combat training can't break up a fight in any other manner? If it was your mother and her sister fighting, would you tackle one of them into a concrete floor?

Get real. One of the very first lessons I got in my foray into martial arts was a restraining hold, which was specifically introduced as how to stop an attacker without causing them lasting harm. If I, a beginner, was given such a lesson, someone who sticks to it in a professional context can sure as shit do the same.

Here's another thing that gets me: Thinking that even if something is "absolutely necessary" that everybody should just absorb the consequences. It doesn't really matter that we teach kids they'll face brutal violence to ensure compliance, that's ok because they might kill each other otherwise! Scary!

Maybe we should consider if the kid is doing something deserving of being tackled, it might be their own fault. They need to learn NOT to do those things and then they won't get gravel in their face. Granted, if the tackling was unwarranted, then yes, punish the authority figure who did it. But I feel like that would be the rarity.

For the same reason children are treated differently from adults, (namely, cogitative development, and actual mindfulness of circumstance and consequence), this is not reasonable.  Children react more than they proact.  Children acting out is usually symptomatic of an underlying causal condition, not because they are horrible people deserving of punishment.  Adding brutalism on top of these issues, on an immature mind, is not advisable.

In short, dont blame the victim.

As for how to restrain a fleeing student--- Give teachers walkie-talkies.  Teachers are distributed all over the building, and schools have fire doors.  Activation of specific fire doors will arrest student's path of egress, and trap them.  Teacher can calmly walk up to student. This is the kind of thing "Teacher in-services" are for.  Training in how to accomplish such tactics.

[smjjames]

As for how to restrain a fleeing student--- Give teachers walkie-talkies.  Teachers are distributed all over the building, and schools have fire doors.  Activation of specific fire doors will arrest student's path of egress, and trap them.  Teacher can calmly walk up to student.

Not always possible, it depends on the size and layout of the school.

[Trekkin]

As for how to restrain a fleeing student--- Give teachers walkie-talkies.  Teachers are distributed all over the building, and schools have fire doors.  Activation of specific fire doors will arrest student's path of egress, and trap them.  Teacher can calmly walk up to student.

Not always possible, it depends on the size and layout of the school.

And fire doors are explicitly designed not to do that. The last thing you want to do in case of fire is to lock out potential ways out, so even when they're shut they don't lock. They're often manually lockable, but all the remote system does is shut off the magnetic catch holding them open.

[wierd]

If they can put in metal detectors and frisk points, they can put in fire doors.  They at least get an added bonus of being better protected in case of fire out of the deal as well.

Yes, I know they dont lock. I said "arrest", not "prevent".  Fire doors are heavy. You have to push on them to open them. This slows you down. Multiple doors, means multiple disruptions in the attempt to flee.  You are not using your brain on this, or trying to make it sound like I mean something other than what I do.

The goal is to have teachers waiting at the expected exit area, as the time the student takes to force open heavy doors gives the teachers the time to get there first.

[smjjames]

As for how to restrain a fleeing student--- Give teachers walkie-talkies.  Teachers are distributed all over the building, and schools have fire doors.  Activation of specific fire doors will arrest student's path of egress, and trap them.  Teacher can calmly walk up to student.

Not always possible, it depends on the size and layout of the school.

And fire doors are explicitly designed not to do that. The last thing you want to do in case of fire is to lock out potential ways out, so even when they're shut they don't lock.

Plus I don't think you can activate specific fire doors, it's not a ship where you can easily compartmentalize, it's either none or all of them, and activating them usually means triggering the fire alarm.

If they can put in metal detectors and frisk points, they can put in fire doors.  They at least get an added bonus of being better protected in case of fire out of the deal as well.

Yes, I know they dont lock. I said "arrest", not "prevent".  Fire doors are heavy. You have to push on them to open them. This slows you down. Multiple doors, means multiple disruptions in the attempt to flee.  You are not using your brain on this, or trying to make it sound like I mean something other than what I do.

Fire doors would be there because the regulations require them, and like I said earlier in my post, I don't think you can just activate specific ones.