The bully victim was apprehended by school police and subsequently expelled for brandishing the stun gun after he was reportedly confronted by bullies in a school hallway.

Darnell “Dynasty” Young made the news from local Indianapolis newspapers to an interview on CNN.

What amazed me most about the news, blog and social media buzz around this story was that some people genuinely believed Darnell should be exonerated for bringing a weapon to school because he was a bullying victim.

Do the bullies who targeted him deserve consequences? Absolutely.

Does Darnell deserve to be safe and secure in his school? Without a doubt.

But two wrongs don’t make a right, as the saying goes, and his mother should have exercised many other options parents have for addressing school safety concerns.

Has the bullying debate been so politicized by civil rights activists, special interest groups, the media frenzy, legislators and the public that we have lost touch with reality to the point of legitimizing and justifying an inappropriate parental and student response of bringing a weapon to school as a resolution for bullying?

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at: www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Follow Ken on Twitter @safeschools

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During a speech last month at a high school journalism conference in Seattle, Savage went on a rampage in which he slammed the Bible and what it says about gay people. He went on to call the students who walked out during his attack on Christians “pansy-assed” among other comments.

See the video:

Savage was also recently criticized for making a comment that he wanted to sexually engage former Presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

I also documented in March of 2011 how Savage and other gay rights activists dominated the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention and how that conference appeared to be more of a civil rights and gay rights political event than a safe schools or bullying program.

In fact, the Obama Administration has dedicated an entire section of its web site to Savage’s It Gets Better campaign.

Savage’s tirade at last month’s high school journalism conference only reinforces the questions I have posed, along with many others, as to whether “bullying” and “safe schools” have been politically hijacked by gay rights special interests groups to really further a broader social and political civil rights agenda.

Although Savage subsequently caved to the intense media and public pressure for his attack on the Bible and Christians with an apology, it appears as though his comments may have accurately reflected his true beliefs and intentions. As many have suspected all along, there appears to be more “bull” than “bullying” in the so-called “anti-bullying” agenda he, the White House and their special interest political cronies have been pushing in recent years.

The loser:  A comprehensive and balanced public policy and funding for school safety, including the wide range of kids who are truly bullied for many reasons beyond the focus of one special interest group.

Ken

Visit School Security Blog at: www.schoolsecurityblog.com

Follow Ken on Twitter @safeschools

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“Outside of this room, I am not sure that many educators and parents realize that bullying can constitute racial, sexual, or disability harassment prohibited by the civil rights laws enforced by our department’s Office for Civil Rights…  

OCR will be issuing policy guidance to schools explaining the relationship between bullying and discriminatory harassment, and it will be outlining schools’ civil rights responsibilities to protect students from discriminatory harassment. As part of the enhanced civil rights data collection that OCR has instituted, we will also be gathering new and better data on harassment.”   

                                     Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education 

Secretary Duncan, along with his assistants overseeing civil rights and safe schools, made it clear that the federal government will be taking a stronger and more intrusive role into how local school districts report and respond to bullying.  Their positions and emphasis on a civil rights approach to bullying and school safety were revealed in comments during a two-day ”bullying summit” in D.C. which concluded on Thursday.

Duncan referred to bullying as a “gateway to hate” during his comments.

This is a radical shift from traditional approaches to addressing bullying, especially at the federal level.  Education associations have long advocated for local control in addressing local issues and needs related to managing student violations of behavior code and enhancement of school climate on a local level.  Federal outreach historically has focused on supporting research and funding for prevention and intervention programs.

It appears now the current Administration will be extending the federal reach to proactively and vigorously conduct civil rights violation complaint investigations specific to harassment and bullying claims.  The Department is encouraging students and parents to file such complaints, thereby reframing bullying as a federal civil rights issue and taking a much more prominent role in investigating, enforcing, and monitoring compliance with situations historically addressed at the local school-community level.  Local strategies for addressing bullying and other student misconduct have included enforcement of the student code of conducts and board policies, school climate and intervention strategies, due process procedures, the criminal justice system, and when necessary, by private legal counsel representing individual complaintants allegeding a violation of the law.

CIVIL RIGHTS ASSISTANT SECRETARY REVEALS NEW ZEAL FOR OFFICE

Russlyn Ali, Duncan’s Assistant Secretary for the Office of Civil Rights, gave comments suggesting a dramatic shift in how her office would zero in on  investigations, enforcement, monitoring, and data collection related to harassment. 

Kevin Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Safe and Drug Free Schools, introduced Ali as a “new sheriff in town.”  He commented that while some have said she was to “re-energize” the Civil Rights office, he prefers to say she “electrifies it.”  Ali’s comments illustrated that his description may be appropriate:

• She noted the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) had “not been as activie as it should have been.”
• The office would be “vigorously, vigorously” enforcing civil rights laws.
•  OCR would be “proactively investigating school districts.”
• “Monitoring is more aggressive than in recent histories.”
• The office will work on “Getting better control of data” and wants to “paint a better portrait and more accurate portrait” of harassment.

Ali pointed to a difference between harassment and bullying, saying that while teasing does not rise to a level of discrimination, “hostile bullying” would elevate the situation to a level constituting discrimination.

She also noted her office would be providing policy guidance to schools in the near future on how these should deal with bullying, harassment, and discrimination issues.

Ali noted that she became more attentive to bullying after her conversation with Sirdeaner Walker, a Massachusetts mother whose son took his life after being taunted by other kids with claims of being gay.  Ms. Walker testified at the same July 2009 House subcommittee hearing in which I testified.  She was later taken to meet Ms. Ali by representatives of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) who were with her at the hearing, as shown on GLSEN’s web site.

Ms. Ali’s full comments can be viewed about 45 minutes into C-SPAN’s August 12th video of the bullying summit. 

WHAT LOCAL SCHOOLS CAN EXPECT FROM THE FEDS ON BULLYING AND SCHOOL SAFETY

Secretary Duncan said in his speech that three messages could be taken from him:

1. First, our department has a renewed commitment to enforcing the law, including civil rights law that applies to racial, sexual, or disability harassment.
2. Second, we are committed to collecting better data to document the contours of bullying more fully, and to formulate solutions.
3. And finally, we will be providing more dollars to places with the biggest problems.

Given the Secretary’s comments, those of his staff, a review of proposed school safety legislation, proposed budgets, and monitoring of the advocacy and politics, here is my take on what schools can really expect:

1. Mandatory data collection:  Through Administration policy and proposed laws likely to pass, school leaders can expect mandates for schools to collect new data on bullying, harassment, and related issues.  Anticipate a new focus to include sexual orientation and gender identity.  Also anticipate data to be survey-driven with an emphasis on climate surveys targeted to students and parents.  Know now: You will be required to publish this data not only to the states, who will in turn send it to the feds, but also to post it locally (and on a building-by-building basis) in your school community.  Carrots may be dangled to get schools to buy into limited national competitive grants focused on “climate,” but the strings (and potential sticks) coming along with it will be these mandates for collecting and publishing climate and related safety data. 
2. Passage of federal anti-bullying laws with a civil rights theme.  Anticipate one or two federal laws getting passed by the end of this year which prohibit harassment based on race, sex, etc. — and the new enumerated categories of sexual orientation and gender identity. I anticipate the general vagueness of the laws (define harassment, for example, and add in the interpretations of what it may or may not mean) will trigger increased administrative and legal claims against local school districts.
3. Increased federal civil rights complaints and investigations of school districts.  Vague and elusive federal anti-bullying laws, along with stepped up federal Office of Civil Rights investigations with aggressive monitoring for compliance, will likely increase law suits against school districts, increased federal civil rights investigations, and increased school legal fees.  Expect the Office of Civil Rights to also increase “proactive” investigations into school districts based on hand-picked cases they wish to pursue.
4. Federal school safety funding skewed toward “climate” and “bullying” and provided through limited national competitive grants to a limited number of districts.  Rather than a focus on funding a more comprehensive and balanced approach to school safety, policy and funding appears skewed to “climate” and “bullying” issues.  The proposed budget for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, whose name will also likely change, has already been skewed heavily to include over $400 million for “climate” grants with requirements for data collection and publishing.  A pilot project is already funded and applications were just recently due to the U.S. DOE.  The Safe and Drug Free Schools formula grants, which distributed money to many schools nationwide, was eliminated by Congress and the Administration as of July 1, 2010.  It is still unclear what specific activities would be allowable under the $400 million climate grants proposed for the FY2011 budget.  Policy and funding appear heavily skewed to climate and do not appear to reflect more of a comprehensive and balanced approach, which is a best practice.

MY CONCERNS

It is important to note here that my concerns are not personal attacks upon Kevin Jennings, Assistant Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools.  Kevin has been exceptionally responsive, communicative, straight-forward and candid in his communications with me since he took office.  Whether or not you agree with his policies and vision, he is passionate and committed to his cause.

I do have concerns about the Department’s proposed approach to school safety policy and funding.  These concerns include:

1. A heavily skewed focus on climate and bullying, detracting from a comprehensive and balanced policy and funding approach to other areas of school safety.
2. Vague anti-bullying laws will do little to help those on the front-lines and will open up school districts to increased civil rights complaints and possible law suits.
3. The politicization of school safety by special interests groups, in this case the lobbying by gay rights groups for enumeration and advancement of this social/political agenda under the guise of “anti-bullying” and “school safety.”  This is not to say there are not legitimate issues in the harassment of LGBT students, but I believe broader social and political agendas need to have the cards put on the table, call it what it is, debate it, and vote accordingly.  In this case, a civil rights issue has been pushed over the past few years under the label of “anti-bullying” when one would presume such harassment for LGBT youth occurs throughout society, i.e., the local rec center, mall, etc.  Why not then approach it as a broader, society-wide civil rights law to cover all areas instead of approaching a broader agenda in a piecemeal fashion and starting small by focusing in on schools?  No, my comments are not homophobic, they are political-phobic.

You would think, based on the emphasis from everyone who has jumped on the “bullying bandwagon” in recent years, that bullying is the only issue in school safety.  You’d also think it is something schools have never heard of and government has never done anything about bullying.  But at least one person in the federal government had a rational and truthful voice, noting their federal agency has been working on bullying for ten years (yes, Mr. Secretary, it has received priority attention by some in the federal government):

“But bullying is not a new issue for the federal government, said Jason Smith, project director of HHS’ Stop Bullying Now! campaign. He said the department first announced a public awareness campaign against bullying in 2001 to counter the myth that it’s “a rite of passage.” Research shows children who are bullied have a higher incidence of unhealthy behaviors, including smoking and underage drinking, as well as truancy.

“This is 10 years in the making that the government has understood that bullying is a public health issue and that it affects students’ ability to learn,” Smith said. He attributed the current spotlight on the issue in part to media coverage of tragedies associated with bullying, such as the suicide of an 11-year-old in Massachusetts last year. The boy hanged himself after being suffering taunts of being gay.”

 

AOL Politics Daily article: “Arne Duncan: Bullying in Schools Is a ‘Gateway to Hate‘”

And Kenneth Trump, the president of National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting firm, is no fan of anti-bullying laws. He posted a blog entry earlier this week that has gotten a lot of traction and sparked strong agreement and disagreement. Trump says the movement toward anti-bullying laws is heavily influenced by the political aims of gay-rights groups that he believes are pushing for such laws as part of a civil rights agenda.

“The politicization of school safety to further any political, civil rights, or other agenda is deeply concerning. Playing politics with school safety weakens school safety and creates divisiveness. In the end, school safety will lose far beyond the agenda of one particular issue such as anti-bullying when school safety becomes a political football,” he wrote.

Part of his concern, Trump told me in an e-mail this week, is that there’s so much focus on anti-bullying policies to the exclusion of schools’ and districts’ implementation of comprehensive school safety plans, which he says is a best practice.

“We cannot have roller-coaster school safety policy and funding at any level of government. Throwing money at school safety after a high-profile incident is no wiser than is cutting school safety funding when there is not a tragedy in the headlines. School safety policy, programming, and funding must be ongoing, sustained, and reasonably funded for the long haul,” he said.

There is lots of information here, but I believe educators and parents need to see what is going on, and also need to get a feel for the extent of politics behind the scenes. They also need to get prepared to be participants in a radically new framework with heavier federal government activism in local school bullying and discipline cases. This is a dramatic shift in policy from one of  local control to federal “hands-on” intervention on individual bullying cases, so school districts need to be aware of, and prepared for, a new federal philosophy and potential player in individual school incidents.

Thanks for your interest and passion for school safety.

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com

“School Suspensions Lead to Legal Challenge”  was the headline of a New York Times article on March 18, 2010.  

The article highlighted a school discipline case headed to the North Carolina Supreme Court which, “…has drawn the attention of civil rights, legal aid and education groups around the country,” according to the story. 

The North Carolina incident served as a peg for highlighting school suspensions for “lesser violations” of school rules than weapons or drug offenses.  The article cited 3.3 million annual suspensions of pubic school students. It focused on what it described as, “…a sharp racial imbalance: poor black students are suspended at three times the rate of whites, a disparity not fully explained by differences in income or behavior. 

The New York Times article also referenced Arne Duncan, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education: 

On March 8, the education secretary, Arne Duncan, lamented “schools that seem to suspend and discipline only young African-American boys” as he pledged stronger efforts to ensure racial equality in schooling. 

The article goes on to talk about “zero tolerance,” but I found it interesting that like most writing on this topic, no concrete definition of “zero tolerance” was provided.  

Anti-bullying programs, positive-behavior-feedback and training students and teachers in conflict resolution were credited with reducing suspensions in Denver, Baltimore, and Cleveland in recent years.  Baltimore Schools reported a 39 percent drop in suspensions in 2008-9 from two years prior.  The district amended its discipline code and adopted in-school mentoring with the help of the Open Society Institute, a non-school entity funded by George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist and businessman, and Democratic political activist. 

American Psychological Association Report Debunks “Schoolhouse to Jailhouse” and “Zero Tolerance” Rhetoric 

One of the interesting references in the New York Times article was to a 2006 zero tolerance task force report by the American Psychological Association (APA).  While I believe a number of their recommendations are appropriate for addressing school discipline and violence (to be addressed in a subsequent blog post), I found three quotes from their article particularly of interest: 

1. “Such policies appear to be relatively widespread in America’s schools, although the lack of a single definition of zero tolerance makes it difficult to estimate how prevalent such policies may be.” (Report page 852 – page 1 of the pdf file). 
2. “Although security technology and school resource officers may be useful as part of a comprehensive approach to preventing school violence, data are currently insufficient (see, e.g., Mayer & Leone,
   1999; Skiba & Rausch, 2006) for determining whether these methods, which tend to be resource intensive, are of sufficient benefit in promoting safe schools.” (Report page 856, page 5 of the pdf file)
3. “Although some of the apparent parallels between the educational and juvenile justice systems are compelling, the majority of research on the school-to-prison pipeline is currently anecdotal or descriptive.
   Longitudinal research that prospectively examines the long-term outcomes of school suspension and expulsion would be necessary to test hypothesized causal influences of disciplinary practices on juvenile justice outcomes.” (Report page 856, page 5 of pdf file)

• The APA task force acknowledges in the on-set of its article that there is not a single definition of “zero tolerance” and it is therefore difficult to estimate how prevalent such policies (whatever they may actually be defined as).  Yet at that time, the APA created a task force on this “widespread” phenomenon which has not even been defined with a universal definition and for which no data can therefore be collected on how prevalent it (whatever “it” is) is in schools nationwide.  So there is no single definition, and no data to identify if or how prevalent this “problem” is if it exists, but yet so-called “zero tolerance” is determined to be widespread, alarming, etc.?
• Even if there was a single, universal definition of “zero tolerance” (which there is not) that is used to describe what APA characterized as, “…a philosophy or policy that mandates the application of predetermined consequences, most often severe and punitive in nature…,” what exactly is the threshold for separating routine discipline including discipline for serious misbehavior from that which constitutes “zero tolerance” discipline and discipline which is “severe and punitive”?  What type of discipline is not “punitive” in one sense or another?  Are there student conduct codes with discipline which is “happy” and “positive” discipline with nothing at all “punitive” about it, especially from the eyes of the child being disciplined? 
• Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and The Advancement Project appear quick to attack school resource officers (SROs) and the use of security equipment. 
  • In it’s two-page “Talking Points: The School-To-Prison Pipeline”  memo, the ACLU refers to school resource officers as, “With little or no training in working with youth, these officers approach youth as they would adult ‘perps’ n the street, rather than children at school.”  The “Talking Points” document also says, “Resources that could be put towards improving under-resourced schools are instead used for security.  School districts spend millions of dollars for police officers and security personnel despite the fact that these very schools are the ones lacking basic educational resources like textbooks and libraries.”  
  • Yet the APA report concludes that, “Although security technology and school resource officers may be useful as part of a comprehensive approach to preventing school violence, data are currently insufficient (see, e.g., Mayer & Leone, 1999; Skiba & Rausch, 2006) for determining whether these methods, which tend to be resource intensive, are of sufficient benefit in promoting safe schools.” 
  • So in other words, school resource officers and security technology may very well be a useful part of a comprehensive school safety program according to the APA’s report, and there is no academic research saying these strategies are or are not ineffective, but civil rights advocates continue to slam these components of a comprehensive school safety program without any solid established nationwide data to prove them ineffective.
• In it’s two-page “Talking Points: The School-To-Prison Pipeline”  memo, the ACLU calls The School-to-Prison Pipeline “one of the most important civil rights challenges facing our nation today,” and a “national trend of criminalizing rather than educating, our nation’s children.”   The memo says that, “Students of color are disproportionately represented at every stage of the school-to-prison pipeline.”  And it says that, “Students with special needs are disproportionately represented in the school-to-prison pipelines, despite the heightened protections afforded to them under the law.”
  • Yet the APA study concluded, “the majority of research on the school-to-prison pipeline is currently anecdotal or descriptive.Longitudinal research that prospectively examines the long-term outcomes of school suspension and expulsion would be necessary to test hypothesized causal influences of disciplinary practices on juvenile justice outcomes.”
  • So in other words, the APA task force report found there is no research indicating such a “schoolhouse to jailhouse” or “schoolhouse to prison pipeline” actually exists, or that it is a widespread, alarming phenomenon as described by civil rights and other advocates. Those fanning the flames appear then to be basing their advocacy campaigns upon anecdotes and philosophy, rather than research and data.
  • And for every anecdote out there to suggest questionable judgment and over-the-top school discipline and law enforcement on school campuses, we can also show anecdotes of the under-reporting of school discipline incidents and crimes on campus. 
  • My anecdotal experience of 25 years working with school administrators nationwide actually portrays the vast majority of school administrators as striving for firm, fair, and consistent discipline.  The majority of school administrators in my extensive firsthand work in schools give kids the benefit of the doubt and, if anything, tend to lean towards leniency rather than being overly punitive in administering discipline and calling for police action (arrest and other) against their students.

Final Take (For Today)

There are many serious issues in school discipline today.  These range from concerns about aggressive behavior by younger and younger students to legitimate questions about a multitude of factors behind the suspensions and expulsions of minority students.

But there also appears to be an increasingly vocal and organized attack on school administrators and school-based police by civil rights attorneys and advocates .  The expansion of legal and political advocacy into school discipline and school safety should beg us to start asking whether expanded political agendas targeting our neighborhood school’s principal office will really help discipline, school safety, and kids?

What say you?

Ken Trump

Visit School Security Blog at:  http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com