Twelve-year-old Ryan Davies wonders why a friend got in trouble for saying he was going to kill someone after getting a bad grade on a math test. Ahmer Zaidi, 13, does not understand why a student got suspended for joking about shooting a classmate.
The youngsters are not the only ones with questions.
As the nation’s schools endure one of the most violent years in recent memory–in the latest attack, a basketball coach and volunteer aide was shot in Richmond, Va., on Monday in the hallways of a high school, allegedly by a 14-year-old student– educators and child’s rights advocates are grappling with the issue of threatening comments. Some believe the punishments do not always fit the crimes, but others say stern vigilance is the only safe response.
Until recently, talk of harming a teacher or a classmate likely would have been shrugged off as childhood braggadocio, landing the pupil in the principal’s office for a stern admonishment or even a paddling.
But in today’s charged atmosphere–spurred by proof that some students make good on threats of unthinkable violence– educators and law enforcement officials are taking each utterance seriously.
In the last two weeks, police nationwide have arrested at least nine students for making threatening comments. And even though some of the incidents were deemed nothing more than pranks, school officials have employed the full force of the law.
“We don’t know what we can say anymore,” said Davies, a 7th grader at Jerling Junior High School in Orland Park. Davies cannot remember ever making such a remark himself, but he said a lot of his friends do.
“It’s like we’re afraid we’re going to get in trouble for every little thing we say,” added, Zaidi, a freshman at Sandburg High School in Orland Park.
School violence, and the threat of it, has so befuddled educators and law enforcement that the two groups are gathering in unprecedented numbers to discuss the issue. Last week, officials from Springfield, Ore., Jonesboro, Ark., and Paducah, Ky.–cities that experienced schoolyard shootings–came together to seek ways to head off the tragedies that struck their cities. In Illinois, Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan organized a task force to suggest ways to keep children safe. During a meeting last week in Chicago, the group discussed the seeming proliferation of student threats.
And some school officials already are rewriting student manuals and suspension policies to specifically address threatening comments.
“It’s an issue we all have to take a long, hard look at because it’s coming at us full steam ahead, whether we’re ready or not,” said David Kysilko, of the National Association of State Boards of Education. “But I think it’s a good thing. I think it’s time we began paying more attention to what kids say, now that we have seen where it can lead.”
In a rash of school shootings, the alleged triggermen talked to others before embarking on their murderous schemes. In Springfield, Ore., a teen accused of gunning down two students in the school cafeteria allegedly told friends he was going to kill. In Jonesboro, Ark., a 13-year-old accused in the ambush murder of five, supposedly warned a classmate he planned to kill an ex-girlfriend. And in Edinboro, Pa., a teen charged with fatally shooting a teacher during a prom allegedly bragged to friends that he wanted to “kill some people.”
None of these threats was taken seriously. And in each case, a grieving nation wondered why. So, like airport officials, school authorities are treating even a seemingly joking comment about violence with utmost seriousness.
Last month, a Glenbard North High School freshman allegedly told a friend he was going to kill classmates. A few weeks later, a 15-year-old New Jersey boy showed a teacher a drawing of a man in the cross hairs of a rifle. And two weeks ago, a 13-year-old Will County boy was on a phone in the school office when he allegedly was overhead saying he was “going to kill someone” because his mother wouldn’t let him leave school early.
In each of these cases, and many like them across the nation, the students did not directly threaten a classmate or teacher, nor did they use physical violence or bring a weapon to school. Yet in each instance, the student was questioned by police, suspended from school and charged in juvenile court with crimes ranging from assault to solicitation to commit murder.
This newfound, uncompromising stance, while widely hailed by parents and educators, has left children’s rights advocates wondering if the fallout from the schoolyard killings has prompted an overzealous response.
“These types of comments need to be taken seriously, but school administrators and prosecutors are not using their discretion wisely to discriminate between comments made by children who are disturbed and pose a threat, and typical adolescent bravado,” said Steven Drizin, supervising attorney at Northwestern University Legal Clinics, Children and Family Justice Center. “This sort of abandonment of discretion is a mistake. It teaches students the wrong lesson when the punishment is so overbearing that it doesn’t fit the conduct.”
More Top Picks Best Ionic Hair Dryers For Residential
Educators counter that they must take each comment seriously, or risk tragedy.
“We have a different cultural experience today than we had a few years ago in terms of violence and young people in the schools,” said Supt. Julius Rogus, of Summit Hill School District 161, which recently suspended a student when he allegedly made a threatening comment about a teacher to other students. “With the recent shootings, we have to be more vigilant because we don’t want to take the chance that the joke might become a reality.”
No one keeps track of the number of students charged for making threatening comments, but anecdotal evidence suggests the number is growing.
Students, meanwhile, are pondering what the line is and whether the apparent consequences of crossing it will deter the flippant remarks. Davies, of Orland Park, said he’s not convinced it will.
“It won’t matter, because a lot of kids just say things when they’re mad, and they don’t really mean it or think about it before they say it,” he said. “Even if they know they’re going to get in trouble, they can’t stop themselves because they just say what they’re thinking.”
Steve Glink, who worked in the Cook County public defender’s office for nine years before going into private practice, said “It’s a quick fix, but very short-sighted.”