More discretion, fewer busts for Cherokee’s kids
Parents dispatch their children to school with the expectation they’ll receive lessons in reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic.
But parents whose kids attend Orlando’s Cherokee School have discovered their schoolchildren are learning unnerving lessons about a fourth “R”: rap sheets.
Sentinel reporters Lauren Roth and Leslie Postal found that since Aug. 1, 11 kids have been arrested a total of 14 times at the school, which educates 57 Orange County elementary pupils with severe emotional issues. That’s more busts — including at least nine felonies — over that time than Orange’s other 121 public elementary schools combined.
Disconcerting statistics, especially considering the children’s ages and disabilities.
One12-year-old student with the mental acuity of a preschooler faces three felony raps. Her crimes: pelting a teacher with plastic blocks; striking the principal; and poking a cop. Yes, a poke. Florida considers any battery on a teacher or lawenforcement officer a felony, regardless of injury.
Police also have hauled students in for chucking a soda bottle at a teacher, hitting and kicking staffers, and brandishing a sharpened pencil at employees in a threatening manner.
The dragnet so troubled Circuit Judge Alicia Latimore that she paid the school a visit.
As Latimore, who handles juvenile-delinquency cases in Orange, told the Sentinel: “I’m not saying that children should be able to hit or batter freely, but it should be taken into account that children are placed in Cherokee for a reason.”
It stands to reason school officials would be judicious in calling the cops.
Administrators insist they understand the students they serve. Teachers not only use restraint — physical management techniques have been used on out-of-control students 53 times this fall — but also practice it when it comes to pressing charges, notwithstanding the school’s alarming arrest tallies.
School officials say they must maintain a delicate balance between safety and caregiving and educating emotionally-challenged children.
We sympathize. Physical outbursts make a very difficult job even more challenging.
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Every day go to School officials must have the prerogative to summon the police when things get out of hand.
But having students arrested for a poke isn’t the answer. Orange County Superintendent Barbara Jenkins is exploring a remedy. Good. May it come with a larger dose of discretion.
These children already are saddled with challenges that probably will last a lifetime. They’re even less likely to succeed with an arrest record before reaching middle school.