Handcuffing Milwaukee Public School Students

On Tuesday of this week, a Milwaukee Public School Board panel approved the use of flexible handcuffs to control violent students.

The full board met last night to vote on the measure.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A handcuff policy that appeared to be in something resembling handcuffs was approved late Thursday by the Milwaukee School Board after three hours of debate that was frequently angry, intense and downright confusing.

The net effect of the tumultuous meeting seemed to be that planning to begin using flexible, plastic handcuffs on students whose behavior is considered dangerous to themselves or others will continue, but a revamped School Board with four new members will have to give an OK before restraints can be used. They will not be used in any school during this school year.

Since the idea was publicized Saturday, it has become a subject of debate, with numerous political leaders in the African-American community and the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People criticizing the idea and saying there had been inadequate opportunities to give public opinion. Thursday's meeting was the second this week in which the School Board spent hours on the subject, and debate was stormy.

Question: Why are leaders in the African-American community and the NAACP outraged over the use of restraints on VIOLENT students but not similarly troubled by the behavior precipitating their use?

At the end of the night Thursday - and in its last action as a group - the board voted 7-1 to approve the handcuff policy proposed by Superintendent William Andrekopoulos, but with major constraints on implementing it. But the 7-1 vote was really a 6-2 vote because member Peter Blewett voted in favor as a political maneuver; the board majority then refused to allow him to change his vote.

"Obviously, this is a very heated item," Andrekopoulos said in proposing the go-slow approach to handcuff use. He said that all rules related to handcuffs would be approved by the board before the policy is implemented, that there will be efforts to get public input on use of the restraints, and that training of MPS safety workers on using the handcuffs will be open to the public.

"What's important here is for us to move slowly, but to still move," Andrekopoulos said.

That's the problem with MPS and the board in a nutshell: MOVING SLOWLY.

In the midst of a crisis, it's not wise to go at a snail's pace.

...Earlier, [Charlene Hardin] angrily attacked the plan as a way to "shackle" students that will only bring more safety problems to schools and turn schools into prisons. In tears, she said she and opponents of the idea had not been truly heard.

"You didn't understand, you didn't care," she said. "What are you trying to do, destroy the public school system?"

Hardin needs to get a grip.

I'm sure she's genuinely concerned about students, but her anger is misguided.

She's expending all this emotion, flipping out about schools becoming prisons.

Well, right now, sticking with her imagery, schools are uncontrolled, unsafe territory, crime scenes.

Drastic circumstances call for drastic measures.

Would Hardin prefer to have the violent perpetrators ruling the schools rather than regaining order?

That puts everyone in danger, not only students and faculty but eventually the community at large.

Violence in the schools isn't going to stay within their doors.

It spills out into the rest of society.

Milwaukee's children are the city's future.

If those children aren't controlled in school and learn to be functioning members of society, their futures and the future of Milwaukee is very, very bleak.
____________________________

Two 17-year-olds were apprehended by police after a robbery this morning.

I'm guessing they were handcuffed and the cuffs weren't the flexible variety.

I'm also guessing these two criminals were either truant or had dropped out of school.

I doubt that they earned their diplomas early or have a GED. Just a guess.

Read more.