Justice or overreaction?

Should principals or courts handle at-school incidents?Peter MarcusDenver Daily News Staff WriterApril 15, 2008
City officials, school leaders and community activists are tired of watching students tried in the juvenile court system for minor in-school incidents like fist fights, jostling in the hallway and harmless kisses.
But until state lawmakers change the language of child abuse statutes, students will continue to enter the revolving door of the criminal justice system rather than preventative and restorative justice models, says a community group working to expand restorative justice programs in Denver Public Schools.
“It’s really frustrating to see the lack of movement … we literally need to change the language of the child abuse statute so that it only includes an adult or parent or family member. It’s not child abuse if it’s a child on a child,” said Julie Gonzales, a political organizer for Padres Unidos.
Padres Unidos was literally one step away from the school board approving a final draft of a revised district discipline proposal last year before the district’s legal counsel put the brakes on the new matrix that would have encouraged expanded restorative justice models. Restorative justice embraces the theory that teachers, parents and counselors should intervene in disciplinary cases before the criminal justice system has its say.
Controversial incident
A controversial incident last February at Skinner Middle School placed an even brighter spotlight on restorative justice programs after the school’s principal was arrested for failing to report an incident considered to be sexual assault. Sources said at the time that Principal Nicole Veltze contacted human resources about the incident, but failed to call police. The mother of the girl who said she was inappropriately touched by two classmates called police who subsequently arrested Veltze for failing to report the crime — a Class 3 misdemeanor.
The school district’s legal counsel in February issued a memorandum to all employees, reminding them that any questionable incident should be reported to the police.
“For now … you should promptly report any incident which you reasonably believe constitutes a crime,” wrote General Counsel John Kechriotis.
Padres Unidos said the recent events have thrown the group several steps backwards in encouraging school leaders to adopt a district-wide discipline policy that would encourage restorative justice programs. As long as teachers and principals are being instructed to report all questionable criminal incidents, there will continue to be a spike in incidents handled through the court system rather than in-school and at home, said Gonzales.
Child abuse cases
Child abuse cases are some of the most questionable, because the way Colorado law is written, if a child gets into a fight with another child, it is considered child abuse. Forty-one other states have clarified their child abuse statute language to only include incidents by adults, she said. The same applies if a child kisses another child, or accidentally touches another child during a game of tag. Under Colorado statute, the incidents would be considered sexual assault.
“Now we’re seeing a huge spike in reports of really minor things, which has shoved us farther and farther away from this idea of restorative justice and doing things inside the school,” Gonzales said.
Reported incidents skyrocketed 76 percent in February, amounting to 251 incidents for that month.
In schools that have implemented pilot restorative justice programs, the results have been overwhelmingly positive. Montbello High School reported a 50 percent reduction in the number of tickets and arrests and principals said the students are starting to work through their problems rather than immediately pull out their fists.
North High School saw a 25.6 percent reduction in arrests between the first semester of last year and the first semester of this year.
Councilman At-Large Doug Linkhart, chair of the City Council Safety Committee and a member of the Crime Prevention and Control Commission, said minor incidents should be handled by schools and parents, not lawyers and judges.
The Denver Daily News was unable to reach Linkhart on Friday at his office or on his cell phone, but in an editorial titled, “Keeping Billy from becoming ‘Billy the Kid,’” that ran in the April edition of Neighborhood Life, Linkhart said he was shocked to see how many students testify before a judge rather than with a school counselor.
Petty crimes?
“I watched one day as the city’s juvenile court tried kids who had been issued summons for various incidents. One kid was there for a fist fight after school. Another was there for jostling in a hallway,” he wrote. “This kind of behavior used to result in a kid being sent to a school’s principal, or a note to parents. Suddenly we’re using the police and courts for what should be handled among school administrators and parents.”
Padres Unidos is in the process of looking for state lawmakers to support legislation that would clarify the child abuse statute. If the Legislature ends up introducing and backing such legislation, then Padres Unidos will renew its push for a district-wide discipline matrix that includes restorative justice.
“At the end of the day, do we want to keep criminalizing students?” asked Gonzales. “Do we really want to keep moving students to jail? Or do we want to end the school to jail track?”