From the time they can position a crayon properly between their fingers, kids are notorious for leaving their mark where they probably shouldn’t. They scribble on walls, use their fingers to write on the accumulated dust on your car, and steam on the windows and mirror is a virtual playground for smiley faces. While many of these mediums are less than permanent, kids still like to leave their mark, like twelve-year-old Alexa Gonzales, a student at New York’s Forest Hill Junior High School.
Alexa wasn’t writing in the steam on the windows at school, or in the dust on the school bus. Alexa was doodling on her desk about how much she loved her two best friends. The administration at Forest Hill Junior High School called the police on Alexa, and they showed up shortly to put her in handcuffs; arresting and humiliating her in front of her friends. She was later assigned by family court to sixty hours of community service.
For doodling on her desk?
I realize that vandalism is a very serious offense, and with many modern children seeming like they are absolutely out of control, arresting a twelve-year-old junior high school girl in the middle of the school day just seems absurd. Apparently this trend is not new in the state of New York, which has really been cracking down on kids who misbehave on school property. New York’s not the only one either. Recently, local police broke up a food fight at a school in Chicago, Illinois, and arrested more than twenty-five children, some as young as 11-years-old.
Kids have been carving and writing on desks since the very first classrooms were created, and while vandalism should definitely be frowned upon, and even punished by the school administration, taking the matter to police feels like a little much. Impacting kids with authority is one thing, but it seems the days when doodling on your school desk got you a few hours detention and desk clean-up duty are long gone. Today your kids could wind up handcuffed and tossed into the back of a cruiser.
Many school districts have upped their security, already formulating a police state atmosphere that analyzes the contents of kids knapsacks, monitors their conversations and confiscates curious devices, like cell phones and PSPs. Horror like the Columbine tragedy have schools terrified that if a situation were to get out of control, they wouldn’t be able to handle it. But calling in the police to arrest a twelve-year-old for doodling on her desk? Who is she really hurting?
With many school districts already crawling with police, a measure to keep inner-city kids safe from gang violence, drugs and out-of-control food fighters, many feel that police who are specifically hired to work in youth environments should undergo special training. They are treating these students like adult criminals, an impression that is going to alter youth perspective when it comes to the law.
As a parent to a high school student, I worry about my daughter every time she gets on the school bus. Not too long ago, there was a rumor that another kid was planning a school shooting. That’s scary stuff. Scary enough that you want the authorities closely monitoring what’s going on inside the school? Absolutely! When they start arresting kids for doodling on desks and tossing pieces of broccoli in the cafeteria, I personally think they’ve gone too far. Shouldn’t simple discipline measures be left up to the school administration and teachers?
