UPHOLDING STUDENTS’ DUE PROCESS RIGHTS: WHY STUDENTS ARE IN NEED OF BETTER REPRESENTATION AT,AND ALTERNATIVES TO,SCHOOL SUSPENSION HEARINGS

Suspension is the most common form of discipline in our schools. In some cases students facing suspension are removed from school for an extended period of time or referred for expulsion based on the findings made at the student's suspension hearing. Nevertheless, students have no legal right to have counsel participate in, or advocate at, suspension hearings. Additionally, schools for the most part do not offer students alternatives to suspension, such as mediation sessions or other programs designed to allow students to complete school or community work while on suspension. This Note discusses the problems associated with school suspension and suspension hearings. It also explains why providing students with legal advocates at suspension hearings will help promote due process and facilitate better decision making on the part of the student. Finally, it advocates for mediation as an alternative to suspension and suspension hearings, as research suggests that mediation would reduce suspension rates and the costs associated therewith.     

Saved By the Bell: Reclaiming Home Court Advantage for At‐Risk Youth Funneled into the School‐to‐Prison Pipeline

Far too often, minority students are faced with punitive disciplinary actions and are consequently directed to the “school‐to‐prison” pipeline. From education to discipline, implementation of policies that criminalize minor delinquent behavior pushes these students out of school and into the juvenile justice system. Traditional disciplinary actions that would land students in the principal's office have gradually transformed to students being handcuffed and thrown in jail. This Note proposes a model statute requiring states with a high criminal delinquency rate to implement school‐based youth courts in public high schools.     

Examining the Use of Police in Schools: How Roles may Impact Responses to Student Misconduct

Prior research has suggested that the use of police in schools has resulted in negative outcomes for students; however, this line of research has failed to consider other factors that may influence an officer’s response outside of their mere presence. Over time, the roles and duties of police in a school setting have continued to expand as a result of social and political shifts in criminal justice and education policy. Paralleling this expansion has been the development of a more punitive school discipline environment where students are more likely to be suspended, expelled, a ticketed, and/or arrested. As these two separate bodies of research have been tangentially related, in this study, we use role theory as a guiding framework to connect these two bodies of research and examine how officers’ roles may influence their responses to student misconduct. Data was collected via an online survey distributed to a sample of commissioned law enforcement officers working in Texas schools. The survey included measures of officer roles as well as vignettes to assess how officers would respond to specific situations involving students. Results of this study suggest that an officer’s role may influence how they respond to student misconduct, and therefore, may be an important piece of information for both researchers and practitioners when looking to minimize the potential negative impacts of using police in schools. These findings related to officer roles are discussed in terms of both practice and future research, while considering the larger discipline environment of schools.     

Testing the Influence of Community Characteristics on School Misconduct

This study examines the effect of dynamic and structural community characteristics on school misconduct. Data include over 45,000 students in the eighth, tenth, or twelfth grade in 237 schools. Hierarchical linear models tested the direct and interactive effects of community measures, while accounting for student and school characteristics. Community substance abuse norms as well as perceptions of community crime and disorder mediated the influence of concentrated disadvantage on school misconduct. Interaction effects demonstrated that community substance abuse norms were more influential for students enrolled in schools that had a less positive school climate although individual and school characteristics remained robust predictors of school misconduct. School misconduct is influenced by the characteristics of the surrounding community and school context, as well as the interaction between those contexts. Research relying on census data measures of community characteristics may underestimate community influence on school misconduct, and omit proximal community influences on school misconduct.     

School Suspensions and Adverse Experiences in Adulthood

The “school-to-prison pipeline” and the negative effects of suspensions, expulsions and school arrests have received increasing national attention recently. Researchers have documented some of the potential harms of these exclusionary school discipline practices for students, including academic difficulties, increased misconduct, and future justice system contact. However, these investigations have been somewhat limited in scope, as they tend to focus only on students’ academic outcomes and juvenile justice system involvement. In this paper we seek to expand upon prior studies by considering how school suspensions may affect youth in peripheral and long-lasting ways. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health, we analyze whether being suspended from school relates to the likelihood of students experiencing a number of adverse events and outcomes when they are adults. We find that being suspended increases the likelihood that a student will experience criminal victimization, criminal involvement, and incarceration years later, as adults.     

SCHOOL DISORDER: THE INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUAL,INSTITUTIONAL, AND COMMUNITY FACTORS*

Drawing upon control theory, school climate theory, and social disorganization theory, this study examined the relative influence of individual, institutional, and community factors on misconduct in Philadelphia middle schools. Using U.S. census data, school district data, police department data, and school climate survey data obtained from the administration of the Effective School Battery to 7, 583 students in 11 middle schools, we examined the following predictors of student misconduct: community poverty and residential stability; community crime; school size; student perceptions of school climate (school attachment); and individual student characteristics (e.g., age, race, sex, school involvement and effort, belief in rules, positive peer associations). “Community” was conceptualized in two ways: “local” (the census tract around the school), and “imported” (aggregated measures from the census tracts where students actually lived). We used hierarchical linear modeling techniques (HLM) to examine between- and within-school factors. Individual-level factors accounted for 16% of the explained variance; school and community-level factors (both local and imported) added only small increments (an additional 4.1–4.5%). We conclude that simplistic assumptions that “bad” communities typically produce “bad” children or “bad” schools are unwarranted.     

Bullying and sexual harassment among Brazilian high school students

Bullying and sexual harassment at school have received recent attention in developed countries; however, they have been neglected in Latin America. Thus, the authors investigated these phenomena among 400 Brazilian high school students from two high schools (one private and one public). Analyses using t-tests showed that boys bullied and sexually harassed their peers more often than girls did. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that boys and girls who scored high on general misconduct bullied their peers more often than those who scored low on general misconduct. Boys who believed they would be punished by their teachers for bullying and who scored low on benevolent sexism bullied more often than boys who believed they would not be punished by their teachers and who scored high on benevolent sexism. Moreover, bullying predicted peer sexual harassment for boys and girls. Recommendations to prevent bullying and sexual harassment are offered.     

Preventing lethal violence in schools: the case for entry-based weapons screening

Violence-related behavior in schools has declined in recent years, but the perception of risk remains high. Disturbingly high percentages of students and teachers report staying home out of fear, and many students bring weapons to school for protection. Current proposals for preventing school violence include punishing the violence-prone, expulsion for weapon carriers, and creating a culture of nonviolence through various behavioral methods like conflict resolution. None of these proposals address the issue of lethal violence and hence personal safety. The risk of lethal violence in schools (related mainly to firearms) could be substantially reduced by creating an effective barrier between firearms and people. This could be achieved by using entry-based weapons detection systems similar to those now used in airports and courts. Decreasing the risk and fear of violence by converting schools into weapons-free zones would also be expected to increase attendance and improve scholastic performance. Randomized, controlled studies should be undertaken to evaluate the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of entry-based weapons detection systems for achieving these outcomes.     

Conduct unbecoming: The dilemma of a school's responsibility in respect of teacher misconduct towards pupils

It was recently remarked that if the infamous schoolmaster, Wackford Squeers, in Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby , was around today his pupils would probably accuse him of assault and the police would be paying a visit to his school, Dotheboys Hall. Though a casual comment, a great deal of truth lies therein. In the 'rights culture' of today, the manner in which adults may exercise authority over children is markedly different to that of even 20 years ago. The majority of teachers act in a professional manner and carry out their duties, often under great pressure, with the best interests of their students uppermost in their minds. However, this is not always the case. With reasonable frequency, there are reports of teachers behaving towards their students in ways which range from inappropriate to culpable. In the worst scenario the accusations are of sexual abuse, but there are also those of physical or verbal bullying. There is nowadays an increased recognition of the harmful and lasting effects of different forms of abuse, and the responsibility of those in authority to prevent it happening. In recent years New Zealand school administrators have been faced with dealing appropriately with allegations of a teacher's misconduct in a variety of different ways towards their students. A school board of trustees has a dilemma in that it must discharge dual responsibilities, in respect of its students and its staff. This article examines the legal implications of those responsibilities. It also considers the responsibility of a school in a wider context — to other schools and to the community at large.     

GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: ADVANCING THE HIGHLY MOBILE STUDENT POPULATION TOWARD HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION

Varied curricula among public school districts within the same state often result in localized core courses and high school graduation requirements. This inconsistency makes it difficult for highly mobile students–who make frequent non‐promotional school transfers during the school year–to obtain full or partial credit for successfully completed coursework, hindering progress toward graduation and increasing dropout rates. While student mobility permeates all communities, it is particularly devastating to some of the most vulnerable children in our society, including homeless children, foster youth, children from low‐income and single‐parent households, migrant students, youth in juvenile correctional facilities, and children of military families. Current federal legislation addresses only some of these groups, leaving many students underserved by the education system. This Note advocates for states to adopt legislation that specifically requires a standardized credit‐recognition system, allowing schools to award full and partial credit for coursework completed elsewhere within the state. Specifically, it addresses the importance of keeping highly mobile students in their schools of origin, when it is in their best interest. It further focuses on the need for state and local policies to require school districts to award and accept full and partial credit for coursework completed in another in‐state school district.     

AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF SCHOOL-BASED ENVIRONMENTAL AND INDIVIDUAL INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE THE RISK OF DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR*

This report examines a school-based delinquency prevention program that combined an environmental change approach with direct intervention for high-risk youths to reduce delinquent behavior and increase educational attainment. The program involved school stafl students, and community members in planning and implementing a comprehensive school improvement effort; changed disciplinary procedures; and enhanced the school program with activities aimed at increasing achievement and creating a more positive school climate. It also provided services to marginal students designed to increase their self-concepts and success experiences and to strengthen their bonds to the school. The program brought about a small but measurable reduction in delinquent behavior and misconduct. Students in participating schools were suspended less often, reported fewer punishing experiences in school, and reported less involvement in delinquent and drug-related activities. The environmental interventions apparently decreased delinquency and misconduct by promoting a sense of belonging in and attachment to the school and by improving the general climate and disciplinary practices in the schools. The direct interventions with high-risk students did not reduce delinquent behavior, but did increase commitment to education as indicated by rates of dropout, retention, graduation, and standardized achievement test scores. The evidence supports the conclusion that the program has promise for reducing delinquency and its risk factors for the general population and for improving educational outcomes for high-risk individuals. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Can restorative justice disrupt the ‘school-to-prison pipeline?’

The ‘school-to-prison pipeline’ now commonly refers to the impact of zero tolerance and other harsh exclusionary discipline policies on school suspensions and expulsions, especially felt among minority students of color in the United States. Abundant evidence now concludes that such students are suspended, expelled, disciplinarily referred and arrested at rates far exceeding either their representation in the population or that of their white peers. Restorative justice practices have emerged as an increasingly popular response to racial disparity in school discipline, supported by research, state and federal governmental initiatives. However, the capacity of restorative justice to limit the school-to-prison pipeline may remain unfulfilled unless it can disrupt current social-organizational structures that maintain racial inequity in institutional structures. This paper considers the effectiveness of restorative justice in schools as an alternative to overly punitive discipline policy and as a strategy for reducing racial disciplinary disparity. It then considers organizational and cultural impediments to implementing restorative justice to overcome racial disciplinary inequity for school-based youth and asserts that restorative justice must strive for more than incremental change inside existing systems.     

Digital Uses,Victimization and Online Aggression: A Comparative Study Between Primary School and Lower Secondary School Students in France

With the growing use of electronic communication among children and adolescents, the Internet has become an important tool for their socialization and has opened up new perspectives for network and community building opportunities. However, the Internet and electronic communication tools can be used either positively or negatively and the spread of its use in these recent years has led to online risky behaviours and harm. This questionnaire survey was completed in five primary schools and seven lower secondary schools in the South of France. It sets out to assess the digital uses, risk taking and negative experiences online among primary and secondary school students in France (N?=?4200). Findings show that primary school students are pretty well involved in digital communication since they spend an average of 150 min per day online vs. 190 for secondary school participants. Social networking is also part of their lives with 17 % of primary school children and 50 % secondary school students who use Facebook. In terms of risk taking, only 49 % of primary students and 39 % of secondary school students report they personally know all their online friends. Cyberbullying figures show that quite a few respondents have been affected with negative experiences among which some were repeatedly victimized (14 % in primary schools and 5 % in secondary schools). These findings highlight the necessity to take the issue of educating towards a positive and safe use of the Internet seriously and that primary school children also need to be provided with proper guidance towards a safer Internet.     

Law Enforcement Officers in Schools: An Analysis of Ethical Issues

The use of law enforcement officers in American schools has rapidly expanded since its inception in the 1950s. This growth can in part be attributed to the Safe Schools Act of 1994, the establishment of the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office, and tragic events that have occurred in our nation's schools. Law enforcement officers in the school environment traditionally have primary roles of protection and enforcement, although many have ancillary roles of educating and mentoring students. However, the use of police in schools has also been associated with the formalization of student discipline and the criminalization of minor misconduct. Specifically, an increase in the number of officers in schools has mirrored an increase in the number of arrests and citations for relatively minor offenses. We argue that officers' socialization and training create role conflict in that the duty to enforce the law competes with other duties to mentor and nurture students. We present several hypothetical dilemmas and then illustrate how the “right thing to do” is determined by the perceived duties of the school safety officer. We conclude by presenting some modest suggestions on how to address the potential role conflict experienced by law enforcement officers working in schools.     

Equal opportunities: protecting the rights of AIDS-linked children in the classroom

Within the past few years a number of children have been excluded from attending public school because they are linked to AIDS. School boards have justified their decisions to exclude these children on the basis that protecting the public's health, safety and welfare outweighs the rights of these children. Most courts have rejected this justification and have held that either under the equal protection clause of the Constitution or section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, children cannot be excluded from the classroom solely because they are linked to AIDS. This Note discusses both section 504 and equal protection analyses used by the courts. When analyzing a school board's decision to exclude an AIDS-linked child from the classroom, most courts have used a higher level of scrutiny and individualized inquiry in order to ensure that the rights of both the AIDS-linked child and his or her uninfected classmates and teachers are protected. After applying these analyses to a hypothetical case, this Note concludes that both section 504 and the equal protection clause ensure that AIDS-linked children will not be barred from the classroom unless the presence of additional factors increases the risk of these children transmitting the virus to others.     

School Violence Prevention: Current Status and Policy Recommendations

The purpose of this article is to identify an array of strategies that are available to schools to address concerns school violence and to identify some of the potential school or school district policy options related to those choices. We illustrate that many promising options are available to schools to address violence and other inappropriate behavior of students. The very breadth and diversity of these options may pose a problem in attempting to develop a comprehensive local policy on this topic. While many schools have chosen increasingly punitive zero‐tolerance policies as their primary strategy of violence prevention, there is little or no research evidence documenting that such an approach can contribute to school safety. Rather, effective school violence prevention requires comprehensive planning involving documented best‐practice programs, preventive strategies, and effective responses to any violence that may occur. Since research documenting the effects of violence prevention strategies is inconsistent, it is incumbent upon schools to consider carefully which programs best meet the needs of their local situation, and to monitor the effectiveness of new programs in improving school safety and reducing disruption and incivility.     

CONSULTANT CONDUCT IN ANTICIPATION OF A CHILD CUSTODY EVALUATION: ETHICAL AND SOCIAL DILEMMAS AND THE NEED FOR NEUTRAL PARENT EDUCATION

Mental health professionals are being retained with increasing frequency as “custody consultants” to prepare a parent for a child custody evaluation. While this practice may serve a legitimate function, no ethical guidelines clearly govern the conduct of a consultant in such circumstances. This lack of guidance has led to professional disagreement regarding the ethical implications of the practice. This ethical ambiguity is accompanied by social concern regarding the high cost of custody consulting, which has the practical effect of denying consulting services to low‐income or self‐represented litigants. This Note will describe the growing practice of custody consulting and the ethical and social unease currently associated with the practice. This Note will then propose that mandatory parent education programs be developed for parents preparing to undergo a custody evaluation. This type of educational program would provide many of the benefits of custody consulting in an ethically neutral fashion and would ensure that all parents have access to the benefits of this growing practice.     

Responding to academic dishonesty in universities: a restorative justice approach

The implementation of restorative approaches in schools has been commonly seen in elementary and high schools, yet the development of restorative approaches in post‐secondary institutions has not been fully explored. In respect to university education, a more restorative approach to student discipline can be a proactive educational response mediating the response of student discipline boards to instances of student wrongdoing. Existing practices are explored, and critiqued from a restorative justice perspective. The rationale behind moving to a restorative response is outlined, and the experiences of student discipline boards that currently employ restorative approaches are assessed to determine how effective this paradigm shift could be. How university responses to student misconduct might function if aspects of the academic environment were built on restorative values and principles is explored, in particular, through looking at the benefits accruing to the development of restorative practices in the classroom, in distance education and for students who experience language difficulties.     

School resource officers and the criminalization of student behavior

As school resource officer (SRO) programs continue to be widely implemented, there is concern that an increasing police presence at schools will “criminalize” student behavior by moving problematic students to the juvenile justice system rather than disciplining them at school. If true, this has serious implications for students and schools; yet research on this topic is limited and the discourse is often based on speculation or anecdotal evidence. To address this issue, this study evaluated the impact of SROs on school-based arrest rates by comparing arrests at thirteen schools with an SRO to fifteen schools without an SRO in the same district. Poisson and negative binomial regression models showed that having an SRO did not predict more total arrests, but did predict more arrests for disorderly conduct. Conversely, having an SRO decreased the arrest rate for assault and weapons charges. Implications of these findings for understanding SROs and their role in criminalizing student behavior are discussed.     

School resource officers and students’ rights

The safety of students at American schools has become a national priority. With every incident of lethal violence, public fear swells and the demand for effective violence prevention methods increases. School resource officer (SRO) programs that assign sworn law enforcement officers to schools are frequently identified as one straightforward and popular strategy for making schools safer and more secure. However, the placement of these officers at schools raises complex issues and poses new challenges to students’ rights, including the risks of unreasonable search and seizure, the inappropriate sharing of confidential information, and students’ decreased feelings of safety. In this paper, the authors will provide the reader with a review of these students’ rights issues and the possible consequences to students and schools when these rights are not respected. The authors then provide the reader with a review of the relevant literature on the relationship between SROs and students and outlines specific recommendations for the successful implementation and operation of SRO programs that foster positive and respectful connections with students and school officials.