The Education Wonks
It's remarkable Principal Duckwork was able to read the girl's mind accurately enough to discern her intentions. Personally, I've met very few administrators with such abilities.
I've taught kids that age, and most would be horrified at the peer reaction so something like that, so I suspect that rather than police, a counselor/psych assessment might be a better move.
Problem is, sounds like maybe the parents have already decided the principal is the root of the problem and he's reacting defensively and taking it up a notch.
Of course, I can't read minds either...
A principal who calls the police for anything less than clear-cut robbery, assault, rape, or murder has just publically acknowledged that he can't enforce his own authority. It's the equivalent of a geeky kid telling a bully "I'm gonna call my daddy on you!"
The teachers get the same dig for calling the principal.
Nevertheless, my sympathies are with the school faculty and staff. All of this suggests that, in fact, the girl held the real authority; the adults were prohibited from enforcing discipline. Basically, there was no middle ground: either the child did what she was told, or they called the cops. They couldn't even declare that the girl needed more supervision and discipline than they could provide and send her home.
We had that same problem at my school a couple of years ago. A special ed student would deliberately wet their pants (or worse) if they didn't get their way. If the teacher let him go clean himself he would and then go wander around the school. If the teacher didn't, then he enjoyed the disruption from the other kids from the smell. They ended of called the parents in and putting the behavior into the student's IEP, so that if he chose to act that way he would be placed in the BAR (Behavior Adjustment - timeout room for special ed) room. The BAR was actually moved to an old shop room that had a single toilet in a small room that only opened onto the BAR room. The student would stay in BAR room all day (even the lunch would be brought down by a para) under the supervision of a special education para. During the day they would have all their classwork sent to them by their teachers. He was assigned two days in BAR for every incident. As part of the IEP the parents agreed to keep two extra pairs of shorts and four extra sets of underware that would sent home as they were used, washed, and brought back by the student. After serving a total of two weeks (he kept on trying it in the BAR room and getting more time.) The student stopped the behavior himself only trying it one more time all year (on a substitute). The instructions remained in his IEP when he went on to high school but I haven't heard of any incident happening there.
IMO, teacher should have graded this student accordingly for her/his apparent refusal to part of what seemed to be a class assignment/activity.
I wonder, does this pissing strategy work for this student when he/she wishes to avoid chores at home?
Yuck. I think a psych consult is also in order. For the child, and possibly, the parents, too.
But calling the cops is too much.
I don't think the teacher should have called the principal either. Grade her accordingly and drop the issue. We paint ourselves into the corner too many times over issues like this.
Well now. There are a few issues here. Please keep in mind that as I comment, I know only what I've read here about this incident and write based only on that knowledge.
I have no doubt that special ed kids can and do knowingly and purposefully misbehave. The story hints at a pattern of misbehavior on the part of this student. However, I find it hard to believe that any rational adult would find a student wetting themself (absent substantial additional provocation) to be a criminal act necessitating police involvement. Think about that one for a minute. In a situation where a student is refusing to obey school authorities, they wet themselves and an educated adult believes that the proper response is to demand that the student be arrested? Was the washing of pots and pans so vital and so immediately necessary that the school response had to escalate to arrest?
Without a doubt, there are circumstances where students can and should be arrested, but those commonly involve violence and the threat of violence or willful out of control behavior that disrupts school in such a manner that their arrest and removal is the only reasonable and/or safe course of action. Absent much more specific information that I don't see here, this would seem to be a significant overreaction on the part of the principal.
The other issue I find disturbing is the apparent police response to this incident. I was a police officer for 17+ years prior to teaching, so I've a bit of experience in these matters.
Had I been called to a school and given the story as it appears here, I would have been--to put it mildly--extremely reluctant to charge the girl with a crime. Police officers always have to worry about false arrest, particularly for misdemeanor offenses they they did not directly observe. In that case, the appropriate thing to do would be to write up the case and present it to the prosecutor's office to let them make the determination about whether to issue a warrant. An alternative in many jurisdictions is to fill out a citation (this applies only to misdemeanors) based only on the word of the complaining witness and the results of the officer's initial investigation. In such cases, no physical arrest takes place and the student--or in this case her parents--promise to make a future court appearance.
However, procedural issues aside, we hire police officers to use common sense and sound discretion. While wetting one's pants might, by some stretch of the imagination, fit the specific wording of a disorderly conduct ordinance in some jurisdiction, somewhere, it would be, for most, really stretching it. I know that I would not want to be under oath in court explaining why I arrested a 12 year old, special ed. girl (yes, gender and age can make a difference) for wetting her pants in a situation where a virtually perfect defense--true or not--is that the principal so frightened her that she did it involuntarily. Perhaps the girl has done this repeatedly in the past while showing no fear of the principal whatsoever. Perhaps she threaened to pee on the principal's carpet, did so, and laughed at his consternation. But we have none of this to go on at the moment.
The police do want to get along with the other governmental entities in their communities, so perhaps the officer just thought "Well, this is bullpucky, but I'll let the guy make a complaint and when it comes time to testify, I'll just say that he wanted to make a complaint, so I let him and let him make a fool of himself in front of the judge."
Just a few final observations: (1) Unless the principal has a great deal more specific information (not stated here) necessary to substantiate this case, not only will the school district lose the criminal case, but they'll open themselves up to a lawsuit they are virtually destined to lose. (2) This is a public relations debacle for the school district no matter what happens. (3) If the police had no more information than was contained here, and if they made a physical custody arrest, they too may be in deep legal and PR trouble.
There was a kid in our class in grade school who hated being away from home so much he'd poop his pants then stand up and sit down forcefully so the school would send him home. He did it every day through the first and second grades.
It's not one of my more pleasant memories of grade school.
Look at all this effort expended on a child who may never do anything but sweep floors at the local eatery. Another good reason for not mainstreaming special ed students.
I like the first/following comment - it is perfect. If this behavior is recurring then it needs to be addressed by a BCBA or other expert in behavior intervention but frightening the girl is appauling. The bottom line is most school systems don't want to fund or do the appropriate thing for children with special needs - many do less than the absolute minimum. Jim
It's remarkable Principal Duckwork was able to read the girl's mind accurately enough to discern her intentions. Personally, I've met very few administrators with such abilities.
NYC Educator | Homepage | 01.06.07 - 9:14 am | #
It seems like there were over reactions all around. Starting with teachers. It seems a bit obsurd that the principle would really believe she was doing this on purpose.
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