April
2007
Plastic Handcuffs for Rowdy Students in MPS Deserves Honest Debate
The question that’s been debated recently is whether or not MPS should be able to handcuff disruptive students.
Yes.
Furthermore, yes, yes and another yes.
There’s never an excuse for taking a swing at a teacher and neither is there an excuse for resorting to violence in the schools but students who choose to turn an institution of learning into a place where others must fear for their safety deserve no mercy.
Handcuffs are meant to restrain. They should be entirely unnecessary if good parenting came into play but the parents of some of these little thugs have little to no interest in actually parenting. Students who are there to learn should be able to focus on their studies and on furthering their education. Teachers who are there to teach should be able to focus on fostering an environment of higher learning, not disciplining a child or begging them to go to the office because they are disruptive.
There is never an excuse for thuggery and there should be zero tolerance for it in the schools — that should be one issue that liberals and conservatives should be able to agree upon.
Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan, Watchdogging Education
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I agree that the handcuffs are a good idea. Its sad that we have to resort to something like this, but its also terrifying at times to see the violence and rage some students bring to school. One moment the halls are bustling along as normal, and the next moment they become a firestorm. People also forget how strong and powerful these students are when the rage and adreneline kick in. Since these cuffs run very little risk of harming students and can offer a measure of control to school administrators looking, as you said, to protect students, they are a wise option. Of course there will be the usual lawsuits and claims of racism, but these are typical and to be expected.
I agree they should be able to use the handcuff restraints.
But again, I gotta disagree with your reasoning and usage of derogatory terms such as: “thugs” and “thuggery” - they are kids!!! You are, again, shifting blame onto the kids.
Many, if not the majority, of the parents of kids who ACT OUT lack the capacity or the time. In those cases, this has nothing to do with interest in disciplining and good parenting at all. Many of the kids who act out also have learning disabilities/disorders that are not being addressed due to lack of funding. Many of the kids who act out come from homes with domestic violence, neglect and abusive environments. Perhaps, these kids lack parents entirely?
The kids are angry for a reason, let’s deal with that. Restrain them until they can collect themselves.
Don’t perpetuate the problem by blaming the kids, calling them names is an easy enough way to allow yourself to dismiss the shame and fail to recognize our failures as a collective society, it’s not their fault. Blame society. We should be ashamed of ourselves, I am.
I agree that it’s sad that we have to resort to things like handcuffs but we have to accept the reality that many of these young people are physically the size of adults and pose an identical threat as any adult could.
Lori, I can understand your concern about the way I define some of these kids but if you speak to some of the MPS teachers you’ll find they are on the same page as I am. Some of them have been assaulted and have seen other students assaulted.
As for who deserves the blame, it has to be the perpetrator of the violence. You can argue that they are a product of their upbringing and of society but that does not excuse, nor should it allow leniency for, violent acts against others.
I wrote that I agree with restraints. But I think it should be accompanied by some REAL counseling not just a tongue lashing from the school. The kids REALLY need the counseling, guidance and role models - not bitter scared teachers who have been attacked. Perhaps those teachers need the same, if they refer to the kids like that.
As a society, we do nothing, we detain the kids and expect them to pontificate the course of events that lead them to the conflict - it’s idiotic - when they lack the capacity to do so.
I refer to my own kids as monkeys. Without redirection and continual guidance, as they develop reasoning skills, it all is just a game of monkey see - monkey do. I expect my children to make the right choices on the tail of many, many hours of conversations, sited examples and discipline for poor behaviors.
Kids that act out in school are: affected; neglected; abused and rejected! The violence did not begin with them. We are all products of our environment and so are our parents. We all breed whether we are (or had) good parents or not.
It’s all in the programming: how they behave and how you explain it away, brush off any blame and write hateful things.
Just THINK about it - it’s what you are EXPECTING those KIDS to do - but you HAVE the ability.
I would agree that Handcuffs are necessary, but only in extreme cases where de-escalating was impossible and only if the security aids receive the proper and professional training necessary. As an employee with the Division of Juvenile Corrections, I can speak from experience working with mentally Ill youth. We utilize techniques such as verbal judo. This is a technique that is utilized to de-escalate out of control youth. With some skill, it works. In most situations in which I was involved with an out of control youth, Verbal de-escalation has worked and restraints were unnecessary. Verbal Judo is utilized not only by my department, but also by many law enforcement agencies across the country. I would like to know that the Security Aids at MPS have received similar training before I would support any use of restraints.
If we are going to spend the money and recourses on handcuffs, then we also should provide services that address youth that are mentally ill. Since those are the individuals that are no doubt causing the most of the problems. We should also look into addressing smaller class sizes and expanding services for special education. A youth with many learning disabilities will certainly have a hard time in a class room where there are 40 kids and will eventually become disruptive.
I work with kids everyday too. Lets not worry about the kids who are committing the acts of violence. Lets worry about the kids in school to learn for once. Haven’t we had enough sympathy for the thugs. Before we practice our verbs judo, lets ensure by whatever meand that damaged thugs don’t hurt the good kids.
Noun 1. thug - an aggressive and violent young criminal
hood, hoodlum, punk, strong-armer, toughie, goon, tough
criminal, crook, someone who has committed (or been legally convicted of) a crime
Regardless of who is to blame for the way children act, the fact is that the teachers in inner-city schools are facing a daily threat from the very students they teach. They deserve every advantage possible to protect their own lives. I have several friends who work in inner-city MPS schools and they are not small by any means but the tell me graphic details of times when they felt very threatened and very outnumbered. If plastic handcuffs can help calm rowdy students and prevent escalation of violence, then I am 100% for it.
Throwing more and more money at a problem (counseling, etc) is not the job of schools…their job is to TEACH not medicate or serve as de-facto parents. We currently spend more on education (MPS in particular) than at any time in our nation’s history and where has it gotten us? The problem most certainly is not lack of money, it’s a lack of students who actually want to learn to better their situation.
Mobile:
The plastic “handcuffs” restraints are very inexpensive. Pennies.
Thank you all for contributing to this important conversation. I agree that we must protect our personnel from violent students, and we must provide our personnel with the appropriate means to provide all of our students with an education. But there are some issues that need to be resolved before these procedures are put in place.
LEGAL ISSUES—-Although the board moved this resolution forward, we must consider one salient fact: no school district has ever won a case involving handcuffing students. The city attorney’s opinion acknowledges this fact, but the opinion makes the case that if properly applied, a good policy might just pass legal muster. Unfortunately, the cases in which appropriate measures are taken are not usually the ones that go to court. PLANNING ISSUES—The administration, in proposing this process, did not seek the input from any of our resource groups, such as the National School Board Association (which provides excellent legal advice for school districts), the American Association of School Administrators, or any group, as it turns out, that could help us craft policy and procedures that would help the district avoid the lawsuits that have faced other districts, such as the $50 million lawsuit in Kent, Washington.
FUNDING ISSUES—-The board discussion was good if a bit disingenuous. Two board members complained about the lack of commitment for special edeucation funding from Milwaukee area legislators (who wrote a letter opposing the resolution), but as another director observed after the discussion, we have not witnessed these members lobbying for greater federal and state reimbursements for the special education mandates that have been placed on the district (for example, if MPS received the percentage of state aid we received in 1994, we would have an additonal $50 million for special education. I hope these board members (one of whom is retiring) will now join us in highlighting this funding problem).
PRACTICAL ISSUES—-In each of the situations that were brought to the board’s attention, handcuffs would not have prevented the assaults. Indeed, some of the testimony indicated that staff would have used handcuffs in ways that are clearly outside of the law. One problem is that you cannot handcuff a student before they are engaged in the behaviors that we want to prevent.
HEALTH ISSUES—-Handcuffs may, in some cases, cause trauma for certain special education populations, putting the district in legal jeopardy, not to mention the damage to the student that might result.
ANSWERS—-There are no easy answers, but we simply must demand greater reimbursement from the federal and state government for the services that those entities force the local district to provide. More resources would allow us to hire and provide greater training for our safety personnel.
I agree that we must do everything we can to support our personnel who are trying to provide education to our students, but we must enact policies and procedures carefully, especially when the issue is so volatile.
Keep the discussion going!
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Sorry Lori (and others) but there are lots of THUGS in MPS wreaking chaos on the learning environment. Handcuffs should be just the first step. We ought to arm every security aide with pepper spray and a TASER and ENCOURAGE them to fire at will.
Most of MPS’ high schools are in absolute chaos, with 6-15 fights per day some of which turn in to all out brawls with 25 thugs actively participating. What you saw on the video at the Bradley Tech basketball game was a normal day at Bradley Tech, Hamilton, Bay View and Pulaski. All covered up by Milwaukee media who like the Supt and want to keep him employed. I graduated from a MPS high school and the first thing I did was move out of Milwaukee. I won’t ever live in Milwaukee again, I have forbidden my children to even enter the city-we live in a far western suburb where the school system doesn’t “import” Milwaukee thugs to pollute our schools and destroy my children’s education the way these animals destroyed my education.
I wouldn’t wish an MPS education on the children of my worst enemy.
mps HATEr:
The discussion was plastic handcuffs. They wont stop the “absolute chaos”. How do you even propose they put them on an out of control child without violating their rights? I was referring to properly addressing the antecedent factors and not the resulting behaviors.
I wrote: I agree with the handcuffs; fund SPED/LD programs; fund counseling/mentoring services; I disagree with that usage of misapplied derogatory terms regarding the kids.
Personally, I went to MPS primary schools and far western burb schools too. I didn’t allow my children to go to the schools either, but is our running away part of the problem as well? I certainly don’t claim to have any answers …
The thing you are leaving out is; without a masters degree, there is a good chance your children wont be able to afford to live where you moved them to (check the rents & price of homes vs what they will make and the cost of living in WAUK BURBS), how is that in their best interest?
I am a product of those burbs, I moved from Wisconsin to make a living and provide decent, safe schools for my kids, because the western burbs are alllll Anglo and hatred and bigotry are practiced like a religion. I don’t want my kids learning THAT either, that is MORE dangerous and disruptive to their educations.
The issues of MPS are not any different that any city it’s size. The issue is government funding cuts and GOP policy to teach kids how to take standardized tests and not to teach them how to learn and reason. The issue is the size of Milwaukee County. The issue is Charter Schools siphoning the funds. The issue is the cost of living and how much parents much work. The issue is broken homes. The issue is oppression and the society. And this could go on and on …
Lori:
you mention usage of misapplied derogatory terms, but still state: “burbs are alllll Anglo and hatred and bigotry are practiced like a religion.”
How foolish.
Nope! True! And I was not referring to innocent victims like the kids in MPS.
Lori - I agree we should not label ALL kids in MPS, but my experience working with inner city youth and gangs is that many of them are proud to be called “thugs”. You will find a lot of them use that word quite frequent to describe each other and themselves. Many “gangsta” rappers have glorified the “thug life”. If I remember correctly Tupac had it tattooed on his chest. The term is not misapplied when you get to know many of these gang members. When I attended South Division for a summer, there were between 50-100 known gang members who would make it known on the chalk boards, on notebooks and folders, and verbally. They commonly referenced themselves as ” thugs for life”. My point is that while there are many innocent victims in MPS, there are also many that are looking for trouble.
Bill –
While I understand your point regarding AFTER they are in the gangs, if there are no options PRIOR they ARE victims. Gangs mean safety, gangs are family. Of course, they want to believe it was a CHOICE and they like it, once they are in .. it’s a method of coping with situations beyond our control. Just like we want to believe they chose this life and that there is nothing we can do …
Funding should be in place offer mentoring/counseling programs.
When regarding learning disabled kids that are disruptive (perhaps many of the same characters), I have an LD child, they are victims when the teacher is standing up there moving forward with lessons and they don’t understand. When the funding isn’t there to employ LD teachers and identify needs they remain victims.
They are just kids, they did not choose. They could identify themselves in many ways that it is irresponsible for us to adapt and use.
Lori -
I agree that they need options prior, but once those options are identified and put into place, we still have to deal with the problem kids. If the programs keep the young criminals to a minimum, there still has to be something in place to keep and restore order when the unruly ones cause trouble.
Handcuffs are a great idea, keeps everyone safe.