Student discipline routinely police matter

Juvenile justice chief: Schools clog busy courts

COLUMBIA — Schools too often depend on police and courts to handle discipline, and the state needs to set uniform guidelines for dealing with student behavior problems, the head of South Carolina's juvenile justice system said Tuesday.

"There are school districts that are running into court for shooting a spitball or running down the hall rapping on doors, things that are sort of normal teenage misbehavior," state Department of Juvenile Justice Director Bill Byars said during a governor's Cabinet meeting.

"There are school districts, I'm told, that will call the police more often than they call the parents," he said.

Disturbing school was the most common offense committed by juveniles in 2005-06 with 2,726 cases reported statewide, according to the most recent data available at the Juvenile Justice Department. Disturbing school is a broad offense relating to behavior issues, including acting obnoxiously or initiating a fight.

Juvenile Justice is called in when a juvenile is charged with a crime. Local solicitors review the case before it goes to court and can decide to dismiss it or send the student to arbitration, which can include writing essays, undergoing mental health assessments or another specifically designed plan.

Charleston County, the second-largest school district in South Carolina, reported 573 cases of disturbing schools in 2005-06, accounting for about 21 percent of all such incidents in the state.

Byars said the situation is further clogging the state's overburdened court system. A plan to address it is spelled out in a pending Senate bill that requires schools to meet with parents and develop intervention plans to deal with a student's disruptive behavior before getting the police involved if the problem is of a nonviolent nature. If the student is acting violent or threatening, the schools would immediately contact authorities.

"Oftentimes when a usually good kid disrupts it's because mom and dad decided they are going to get a divorce or grandma just died," Byars said. "Do you really want to give a kid a record and get all the law enforcement apparatus involved in it unless the kid continues to do it time after time after time?"

Scott Price, general counsel for the South Carolina School Boards Association, said educators share the concern but the legislation doesn't take the right approach. Decisions dictating school discipline are made at the local level.

"Our concern is adding to the bureaucracy," Price said. "There is some room for middle ground here. I think everybody sort of feels like we need to take a look at what all is out there and how we can make some changes that aren't over-burdensome to schools."

School discipline and safety has been a priority for Charleston County officials in recent years. The district has a classification and penalty system for behavioral offenses, and every school has a plan that details the consequences for students' actions as they are repeated or become more severe.

Much of what is being proposed is either already being done or in line with Charleston County school officials' philosophy on discipline. The bill's intent seems to encourage districts to be more proactive than reactive to discipline issues, and that's been the edict to county schools for the past three years, said Bob Stevens, interim director of Charleston's department of prevention and intervention.

Some school officials might call police more often than necessary, but Stevens said safety is a primary concern. Smaller schools might call police more frequently, he said, because they have few administrators to handle discipline cases. Still, he said, more consistency is needed.

The legislation might not be as easy to sell elsewhere. The state Department of Education anticipates it would cost about $12 million a year to implement, primarily for salary costs.

Staff writer Diette Courrege contributed to this report.Reach Yvonne M. Wenger at ywenger@postandcourier.com or 803-799-9051.