Regarding the cop slinging the girl across the classroom: What physical means to get her to comply would have been justified?

4000% of people have no problem saying “Discipline begins at home”, but they want it to end with police action.

Whoever this girl’s guardian is should have been called to remove her from the premises, and the girl suspended for the appropriate amount of time.

THAT is what used to be done when kids stepped out of line. You called their parents, and their parents took care of the discipline. Why is calling the 5–0 on the list of steps before calling the legal guardians?

Taser would have been more humane.

Well, I guess if we’d armed the teacher, she could have shot the rogue cop? ~

Practices & Methods: Crisis De-Escallation

There is much talk today that we have to stop giving the cops bazookas, and start training them to de-escallate emotionally charges situations.
Now all we have to do is start doing it.

On NPR it seemed like emptying the classroom was a given. Probably by the teacher, once the principal arrived.

The pig should have never been there in the first place.
The parents should have been called.

If a parent had done what that cop did they would have been arrested. Police need to be trained in negotiation techniques. This is the tip of the iceberg. Lots of kids with mental health issues are killed because police use violence first.
This really was a difficult situation. Teachers have huge classes, parents work two jobs and this girl was out of control. Two of my kids had mental health issues and I could see either of them doing something like this. I had moments when I wanted to throw them across the room as well but I didn’t.
I know it takes time that the teacher doesn’t have, but really, an opportunity to listen to the kid, and maybe take the class on a walk around the campus could have helped. The audience made it impossible for her to back down and save face. She was backed into a corner.
I don’t have a great answer, but I know with kids like this, in order to diffuse the situation you need to find a way for them to comply while still saving face. The school counselors and if they have to have police officers they too should be trained in these techniques and know how not to take this stuff personally. This behavior is textbook. Happens all the time. Guidelines should be established for dealing with it, with enough leeway for professionals to deal with it without resorting to violence.

Guys, can we answer the question the way I put it? The only shoulda woulda coulda we can change is the cop’s behavior. Without changing the scenario in any other way, what would the cop have been justified in doing at that point?

Not throwing her across the room. Insisting her parents be called. As far as I’m aware, being a little shit in a classroom is not a criminal offense.

This cop seems to have gotten involved in a power struggle. No, I don’t believe he had the right to put his hands on her.

Passive people can be moved safely. Struggling people cannot, so they should not, unless it is a matter of life and death.

I agree that it’s ridiculous that there was a cop involved in the first place.
The school staff should have been trained in de-escallation techniques, and used them.

But since my first answer and link seems to have been inadequate (on a social question) @Dutchess_III, then I would say that the officer should have had either the teacher or the principal calmly remove the rest of the children from the room, then either talk the kid down, or wait until she has to pee.

Perhaps the parents were called, and they didn’t want to deal with it, @Seek.

@longgone so…if she wasn’t to be moved, what do they do?

@ibstubro that is a thought. But damn. If you have to move the whole class out every time one kid is being disruptive, well, there goes any lesson or teaching for that day. And it happens on a daily basis and not with just the one kid.
The brat kids would quickly get the hang of it and they’d do it on purpose just to watch everything get fucked up for everyone else.

If they’d known it was going to come to this, then removing the kids and waiting for it to resolve on it’s own would have been a good idea. Then expel her ass.

But I can guarantee you, her behavior isn’t unique or unusual.

The question, to me, is flawed.
I don’t believe there is a physical means by which an adult male cop can compel a female school student to comply unless the cop comes upon the scene after violence had erupted.

There is no acceptable physical means for this cop to force this girl to comply, so the question must be modified in order for it to be discussable.

@Dutchess_III Leave her be. I’d like to know why moving her was thought to be vital in the first place.

So, @ibstubro and @longgone, basically your answer is to not do anything at all? Just..let these kids do what they want, day after day?

@longgone She needed to be moved out of the classroom. She was being disruptive. The teacher had asked her to leave. The principal had asked her to leave. The cop told her to leave. She refused.

Didn’t the school know that she was just put in the care of a guardian after losing her mother? My kids teachers knew every major thing that happened to my kids.

Knowing that she was going through a major trauma, I’m not sure the police officer should have been called. After being called, he should have negotiated a trip to the principal or counselor.

The teacher failed.
Then the principal failed.
Then the school resource officer failed.
@Cupcake.

@cupcake. That would mean that every teacher, school personnel and cop would have to know the background of every single student. That is not possible especially if the student hasn’t told anyone.

@Dutchess_III Yeah, I know they’d asked her to move. I’d just like to know why getting her out of the room was thought to be important. The teacher may have overreacted, and then felt unable to go back on her word. If they moved the girl just to demonstrate that orders from a teacher/principal/cop are to be obeyed, that’s a power struggle.

Refusing to use violence is not the same as refusing to do anything at all.

That’s the first I’ve heard of that, @Cupcake. Yes, they probably would have known. But again, there is so much we still don’t know. Was she a good student before that tragedy? Or has she always been disruptive and attention seeking in a negative way?

@longgone she was messing with her phone, which was against the rules. The teacher told her to put it away, or told her to give it to him. When she refused, he told her to leave. That isn’t over reacting.
The fact that a kid felt it was OK to just ignore all the rules and ignore all authority tells me this wasn’t the first time she’d acted out. And if she’s disrupting the entire class with her behavior, then she needs to go. This is high school. They have about 50 minutes to teach whatever lesson is on the agenda that day. It’s not fair that all the other students miss out on parts of their education because of one defiant and rude student who, most likely, is like that every single day.

When I was teaching, ONE KID could wreck an entire lesson for all the other students. One kid could disrupt all the other lessons of the day. And yet, we’re supposed to pander to that one kid and ignore the impact on all the others?

And my question is, how could the cop have resolved the situation without resorting to such violence, and in a way that had the least impact on all the other kids in the class?

@chyna – If there was a change in the legal guardianship of the student, the school was informed. If the administration did not inform the student’s teachers of that change in guardianship, that is another huge way the school has failed this student.

@Dutchess_III – How much did the cop getting physical with this student help the learning atmosphere of this classroom?

This isn’t elementary school – it’s a high school. Classes are, what, 50 minutes long? You ignore the disruption, do what you can, and when the bell rings everyone goes to their next class.

Between this and Dinosaurgate, I sincerely hope a few teachers in South Carolina recognise that the students are not enemy combattants…

@Seek I repeat, I do not condone the cop’s actions.

So you ignore a kid standing on a desk? You ignore a kid yelling “Fuck you!” at the teacher? You ignore a kid throwing things? How do you ignore that?

Most of the kids are wonderful and we enjoy them. There are some, however, who are nothing but enemy combatants. That’s how they get their kicks. Most of them have come from awful home lives too. It’s sad.

@Dutchess_III Behavior is more likely to change when addressed outside of the struggle, and the teacher blew this up way out of proportion. One kid using a cellphone won’t disrupt a class. Three adults yelling at a student will.

@chyna No, not background. Current crises. She was in crisis and every staff member who interacted with her should have known it.

Every staff person at my son’s elementary school knew when his kitty died. Why the hell did they not know she lost her mother???

^ Yep. Why do we hand over our young people to adults who have trouble remembering their names, let alone their family situations?

Not criticizing individual teachers, just the system and ideas behind schools in general.

Only in the colonies will you find “people” trying to excuse police pigsow brutality against children over playing with a god fucking damned phone.

Teachers have a ridiculous work load and that probably is at the root of the problem. Children are herded like cattle.

I agree with those who rightly say the cop should never have been there, no fucking brainer.
What could he have done once there? Back the fuck off & let the parents see to her, simples.

@longgone “One kid using a cellphone won’t disrupt a class.” assuming the kid was being quiet while texting or whatever. Still, she was breaking the rules, which are there for a reason. The teacher was not out of line to tell her to stop.

So many of these answers are given with hindsight. Of course just ignoring the student playing on the phone is better than what eventually happened. But at the time, the teacher was well withing his rights to tell her to stop. And do you just ignore a student when they get defiant and say “No. And you can’t make me”? With hindsight, yes. As a day to day thing, no.

Cell phones have got to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to a teacher.

Somehow I’m betting that the officer was not a member of NASRO.

Just putting a cop on a campus does not automatically make them a School Resource Officer.

Especially if they can squat 940#s.

So you ignore a kid standing on a desk?
Yes, that is exactly what you do. The child is standing on the desk specifically because it is anticipating negative attention. You refuse to give in, the kid gets bored and does something else. If you like, assign him to clean the white-board for lunch detention the following day.

You ignore a kid yelling “Fuck you!” at the teacher?
For the moment, yes. Then you fill out paperwork for detention. This was a “level two” offense in my high school – Saturday detention or a day of In School Suspension. Note the lack of presence of police action in those punishments.

You ignore a kid throwing things? How do you ignore that?
Throwing what? chewing gum? Paper? Pencils into the ceiling? or his textbook at the teacher’s head. Most of those are expressions of boredom or attention-seeking, none of which can be helped by heaping on negative attention, and the last is a direct assault, which would necessitate a call to parents and presence of the school administration. Not necessarily a choke-slam to the ground.

@Dutchess_III ”[D]o you just ignore a student when they get defiant and say ‘No. And you can’t make me’? With hindsight, yes. As a day to day thing, no.”

Well, there’s your answer. You didn’t ask what the cop was likely to do, you asked what he should have done. He should have set an example. He should have stayed calm. He should not have touched the kid.

We all struggle with this kind of thing. We know that getting worked up will make things worse. All adults involved in the story must have known this.

And yet, some of us are way better at keeping our calm. Our temperament plays into this, but so does resolve. Sadly, large numbers of people still believe in violence, even when it is directed at children. That’s the first thing that needs to change.

“Cell phones have got to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to a teacher.”

Oh, if it’s not cellphones, it’s flies on the wall, fellow students, or the birds outside the window. Even if we placed each student in his individual windowless, sound-proof room, he would still be able to get distracted.

From what I read, she just lost her mom. She had her phone out, was looking at it, and was asked to leave because of it. She refused to leave. She wasn’t yelling, cussing, being loud, moving around or anything like that. She just wouldn’t leave. Annoying, yes, but a reason to bring a cop in? Hell no. A reason for the cop to react the way he did? An even bigger hell no.

By not ignoring the harmless -albeit poor – behavior, the teacher, cop and principal caused a far larger disruption than the girl ever could have.

Edit: Sorry for the numerous autocorrect typos. I should stop answering questions from my phone.

@Seek All of those are very viable options, if you’re dealing with only one kid. That’s good parenting. But you have 30 kids and the rest of them most certainly would not ignore the behavior. If one kid is allowed to get away with standing on the desk, why can’t all of them do it?

If one kid is allowed to play on their cell phone during class, why can’t all of them do it?

If there are rules for the class room and one kid is allowed a pass to disregard them then there are no rules and nobody learns anything. And it’s all the teacher’s fault or the school district or whatever.

And the cop could have spent an hour calmly talking to the kid. Do you think the rest of the kids would be paying one bit of attention to what the teacher was trying to say? And what about the next day? And the next?

The kid was asked 3 times to leave the classroom because she was disrupting the learning process of the other students. Would it have been acceptable for the cop to calmly pick her up under the arm pits, and another cop to calmly pick her up by the feet and physically, but calmly, remove her from the room?

@Dutchess_III I don’t buy for a second that because one kid chooses not to follow the rules, they’ll all choose to ignore the rules. There are very well behaved students that actually value their educations. When I was in school, other kids would actively tell trouble makers to shut up if they were being too disruptive.

Calling a cop in at all was ridiculous. After helping to foster my niece, before she was adopted, and who had severe behavioral problems, I can tell you firsthand that all of the adults in the situation handled it exactly how they shouldn’t have.

Oh, I know. I valued my education. If a kid got thrown out of a classroom, I just shook my head at his foolishness, but some cheered him for being defiant.

So no, not ALL kids will follow the lead, but you better believe some most certainly would. Say, 4 out of the 30. You have 4 kids standing on their desk. 4 kids yelling across the room to each other. Four kids throwing paper wads around the class room. Four kids who refuse to leave the classroom. So what do you do then?

And if a kid is allowed to use their phone for texting or playing in class, then a good percent will follow that kid’s lead. The kids live on their phones.

Imagine, 250 years of organized public education, and all of a sudden no one can remain under control without the threat of police brutality.

@Seek That is true. What has changed? When I was in school, if I got in trouble at school, I got in trouble at home, too, for it. Nowadays, and I know this from experience, if a kid gets in trouble in school, no matter how much he or she deserves it, the chances are that the parents are going to storm the principals office to defend their poor, misunderstood kid and demand the teacher’s head on a plate. And then they get on facebook reviling the public education system.

That is what has changed.

What I don’t understand is this outcry against rules from many of you here. You’re adults. You know we have to have rules to function in our society. We have laws that should be obeyed.

If you were at a movie theater and there is some dolt talking loudly to who ever he is with, throughout the whole movie, should the other 100 movie goers have to just suffer through it?

If a kid is allowed to break all the rules in school, what message do we send him out into the world with when they’re finished with school?

Really? Because in both this case and the Dinosaur case, the guardians were not even informed until the kids were arrested.

@Dutchess_III – If some asshole talks through a movie and I smash him in the face with his own cell phone, I will go to jail.

I disagree with the parents being the last to know.

That’s not really a fair comparison in this case. Of course you would go to jail for smashing someone. A better comparison would be, what if management asked him to leave and he refused and a big scene ensued?

@Dutchess_III You’re misunderstanding most of us that have a problem with how they handled the situation. I haven’t seen any of us make an outcry against rules. What we have said, however, is that they handled the situation inappropriately, because they did. Kids who have mild to severe behavioral issues react to negative attention more than they do to being ignored, because with negative attention, you’re giving them exactly what they want – and you then, as the adult, become responsible for the escalation that arises because of it. It’s not a matter of ignoring rule breakers, it’s a matter of knowing, as an adult, how to appropriately handle a situation.

And your hypothetical scenario doesn’t work for numerous reasons. One of the biggest is that an adult is an adult. A child, who is suffering from emotional trauma and who literally still has a developing brain, can’t and more importantly, shouldn’t, be responded to as if they’re an adult disrupting a movie.

I have a problem with it too. What that cop did was horrible. But what the hell made the kid think she could ignore all authority in the first place?

I know how to deal with kids who have behavioral issues. I know that ignoring is a powerful tool. But again, it only really works one on one, not in a crowded setting, where the other students may be giving the kid positive attention for being defiant. Then you suddenly have 10 kids to deal with, instead of just the one.

As for my scenario, let’s say it was actually the kid in question who was at the movie with her friends, being loud and obnoxious? Should every other movie goer have to just put up with it for all the reasons you mentioned?

I’ll go find some of the comments that it seemed to me to be championing breaking rules.

Her mother died.

I know. It’s sad, @Seek. But we have no way of knowing what her behavior was prior to that. Did she do a complete 180?

A 180 from what? She’s a teenaged girl having an emotional crisis, and was playing on her cell phone.

She didn’t shank the lunch lady.

We need to remember that if we were in this girl’s place, we would have acted just like her.

Concentrating on how people should have behaved is futile. It’s much more effective to discuss how to change their behavior.

Relevant: Attorney defends actions of fired school officer as ‘justified and lawful’

Also
NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks to Seth Stoughton, a professor at the University Of South Carolina School of Law, about the video of a school police officer attacking a student in a Columbia, S.C., classroom:
SHAPIRO: You live not far from this school. Is it a place that has problems with violence, with gangs? Are there shootings? Does it feel like a place that needs a significant police presence?
STOUGHTON: No, certainly not. I – every school has some amount of problems, but other than those generalized problems, no. This is a school that I expect my children will attend and that I have previously been very happy that my children will attend.

I would not have acted that way @longgone. I guarantee it.

@Dutchess_III If you were in this girl’s place – truly in her place, with all her experiences and her unique genetic make-up – then yes, you would have.

Well, geez! If I actually WAS that girl then I guess I’d do what ever she does. But I’m me. In her shoes I would not have acted that way. I would have given up the phone when asked. I might not have been happy about it, but I wouldn’t defy that teacher, or any teacher that way.

@Dutchess_III Exactly. That’s because of your genes and experiences.

So, the moron rudely disrupting everyone in the movie theater gets a pass because of his genes and experiences?

@Dutchess_III Sure. In the process of discussing behavior, it’s a waste of time to rant about how he could have done better. I’m not saying you can’t discuss that. It’s fun, and I think it works toward bonding to join up for a rant.

When thinking about how to lessen the appearance of an unwanted behavior, on the other hand, it’s distracting. It makes more sense to just accept the behavior as it is, and work to change it.

Don’t take my word for it, I’m just sharing thoughts.

There should have never been police there to begin with. That and…parents

The thing is, even if she was quietly playing on her phone, it is still a distraction to the other kids. They’ll want to know what she’s playing, who she’s talking to or what she’s doing. They’ll also be wondering why she’s being allowed to break the rules and they can’t.

If she didn’t want to be in class, which, if she’s playing with her phone she obviously didn’t, she could have left.

@ARE_you_kidding_me I read somewhere that he was specifically a school cop. He worked in the building. And it’s a sad state of affairs when you have to hire actual police to monitor the students. That would explain why they didn’t contact the parents first.

@Dutchess_III “If she didn’t want to be in class, [...] she could have left.”

Good point. Wouldn’t that have led to unpleasant consequences, though? If we allowed children to study what they are interested in, when they are interested, we would have a very different atmosphere in school.

Not consequences as unpleasant as the ones she got for being defiant. In fact, she was given the opportunity, right off the bat, to leave and she refused. She didn’t want to be there, so why did she refuse to leave?

Having a school where kids get to learn only what they want to learn, when they want to learn it might work. Might not. If a kid doesn’t like to read and therefore never learns how, is that good? A kid who hates math and so never learns it, is that good? No history, geology for those who aren’t interested in it. The thing is, the world itself is not going to cater to their whims and wants when they get out of school.

I’m betting that being thrown to the ground by an SRO the kids had nicknamed “The Incredible Hulk” was slightly more distracting than a student quietly playing on her phone. @Dutchess_III

Likely a little more distracting that than emptying the classroom of the other kids so she could be talked to calmly, as the experts I heard discussing the incident suggested.

What’s the sense in comparing what a middle-aged white woman in the Midwest would do with the actions of a black teenager in a South Carolina city?

I must say, asking why she didn’t leave is awfully ”coulda, shoulda, woulda”, @Dutchess_III.

” I read somewhere that he was specifically a school cop.”
SRO, or School Resource Officer.
Again.

Or maybe they didn’t have to hire a school cop, @Dutchess_III – maybe they just wanted to because they thought it would promote a safe environment. And maybe they were wrong. The cop in question has a lot of things counting against him already and students have been complaining about his tactics for years, apparently.

How is it conducive to learning if kids are actually scared of a grown man walking around, who, I’m assuming, has a loaded gun? That is a learning distraction.

@Dutchess_III “Having a school where kids get to learn only what they want to learn, when they want to learn it might work.”

It works quite well. There already are many schools like that.

@ibstubro Again, you’re comparing the final outcome to the original infraction. The teacher and the principal certainly did not expect that outcome when they asked her to stop playing with the phone or leave the room. I don’t think either of them over reacted. The cop most certainly over reacted, and he got fired. Good.
(And what is this nonsense: “What’s the sense in comparing what a middle-aged white woman in the Midwest would do with the actions of a black teenager in a South Carolina city?”)

@DrasticDreamer obviously, she wasn’t too scared of the cop, was she or she wouldn’t have escalated the situation.

I don’t know why they have a cop onsite. No clue.

@Dutchess_III They have no business being there whatsoever. If a crime has/is being committed then they should be called. We don’t need to use the f!@king police to keep teachers from having to discipline students (A.K.A. doing their jobs) I don’t want to hear the “it’s different now” bullshit either.

I don’t think the police have any business being in the building, on call, either. But, it isn’t my call. I don’t know that school. Perhaps there is so much actual crime and violence going on that it made sense at one time. I don’t know.

It does explain, tho, how the cop got there so fast and why the parents weren’t called first, any more than they were called first before the principal went to intervene. The cop was just the last in a line of onsite offense.

We’ll have to wait and see what other changes come about in that building.

Hell, no, the teacher and principal didn’t over-react, @Dutchess_III. That’s what we keep telling you. They under-reacted in that neither defused the problem, choosing, instead, to escalate to the point that a burly male cop was given control of the situation.

What’s the point in posting informed answers for you when you ignore them @Dutchess_III?

“I don’t know why they have a cop onsite. No clue.”
SRO, or School Resource Officer.

“Perhaps there is so much actual crime and violence going on that it made sense at one time. I don’t know.”
Also
NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks to Seth Stoughton, a professor at the University Of South Carolina School of Law, about the video of a school police officer attacking a student in a Columbia, S.C., classroom:
SHAPIRO: You live not far from this school. Is it a place that has problems with violence, with gangs? Are there shootings? Does it feel like a place that needs a significant police presence?
STOUGHTON: No, certainly not. I – every school has some amount of problems, but other than those generalized problems, no. This is a school that I expect my children will attend and that I have previously been very happy that my children will attend.

“Not consequences as unpleasant as the ones she got for being defiant. In fact, she was given the opportunity, right off the bat, to leave and she refused.”

How do you know that, @Dutchess_III?
If she’d left when the principal asked her too and the SRO was already on the the way, she might have met up with him alone in the hallway. If he was willing to put her in a cast in front of a classroom of witnesses, what might he done if she was surly to him in the hallway? Chokehold, maybe?

Above, @longgone suggested that the teacher may have over reacted. I don’t think he did, so you can stop freaking out now, @ibstubro.

I know that she was given the opportunity to leave because I’ve looked a little further into the situation.
From this article, ”A teacher had complained that the student… was being unruly during class and refused to leave even after an administrator was called in.” From that I can also extrapolate that the RSO wasn’t called in until after she defied the principal as well, so he wouldn’t have been on the way. Plus, the principal would have escorted her so she wouldn’t have been alone.

@ibstubro Q…“If she’d left when the principal asked her too and the SRO was already on the the way, she might have met up with him alone in the hallway. If he was willing to put her in a cast in front of a classroom of witnesses, what might he done if she was surly to him in the hallway? Chokehold, maybe?”

@Dutchess_III A…From this article, ”A teacher had complained that the student… was being unruly during class and refused to leave even after an administrator was called in.” From that I can also extrapolate that the RSO wasn’t called in until after she defied the principal as well, so he wouldn’t have been on the way.”

SRO, @Dutchess_III.

What is your point in defining an SRO yet again? He doesn’t come until he’s called, or witnesses something going down, @ibstubro. In this case, he was called after the teacher AND the principal had no luck in getting the kid to just leave the classroom. If the principal had been successful in getting her to leave, he would have escorted her, the SRO would not have been called, and she would not have come upon the SRO alone, in the hallway where he could put a choke hold on her for no reason.

Every school I’ve ever gone to has had an SRO. They give talks on resisting peer pressure, head up the DARE program, are there if a student needs to report an actual crime.

Not leaving the classroom isn’t a crime, except in South Carolina, due to this one particular badly written law.

I’ve never been in a school that had and SRO. It’s sad that it’s come to that, but I imagine it’s a reaction to the school shootings. It was a bad situation, @Seek. The cop over reacted. And got fired. Which he deserved.

Yeah, I do think calling in reinforcements because a traumatized girl is not following orders can be deemed an over-reaction. Good teachers avoid temper tantrums and power struggles. Great teachers even manage to look for causes of poor behavior, instead of simply applying the “appropriate” punishment.

Columbine happened when I was in sixth grade. The school I was in already had an SRO.

@Seek “Not leaving the classroom isn’t a crime, except in South Carolina, due to this one particular badly written law.”

I was going to ask what on earth made people feel that this girl’s actions were worthy of calling a cop. (Even a school cop.)

Like… having a phone out in school? Being defiant? On what PLANET is any of that illegal? That’s, like, detention-worthy at best. Fucking South Carolina.

It’s so disheartening to see people picking apart her actions (@Dutchess_III‘s Rest of the Story) while the SRO escapes the same scrutiny. She refused to leave a classroom; he physically assaulted a minor. WTF?

Here’s the relevant law, which was passed in 1976 in an attempt to quell Vietnam protesters.

Universal Citation: SC Code § 16–17-420 (2012)

(A) It shall be unlawful:

(1) for any person wilfully or unnecessarily (a) to interfere with or to disturb in any way or in any place the students or teachers of any school or college in this State, (b) to loiter about such school or college premises or© to act in an obnoxious manner thereon; or

(2) for any person to (a) enter upon any such school or college premises or (b) loiter around the premises, except on business, without the permission of the principal or president in charge.

(B) Any person violating any of the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, on conviction thereof, shall pay a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or be imprisoned in the county jail for not more than ninety days.

(C) The summary courts are vested with jurisdiction to hear and dispose of cases involving a violation of this section. If the person is a child as defined by Section 63–19-20, jurisdiction must remain vested in the Family Court.

HISTORY: 1962 Code Section 16–551; 1952 Code Section 16–551; 1942 Code Section 1129; 1932 Code Section 1129; Cr. C. ‘22 Section 28; 1919 (31) 239; 1968 (55) 2308; 1972 (57) 2620; 2010 Act No. 273, Section 12, eff June 2, 2010.

Source

Yes, according to this law, it’s argued, one could spend up to 90 days in jail for tossing a spitball in math class.

I just read about half the responses (above) and I haven’t had time to think about this much, just wanted to add what I learned yesterday – the girl hit the resource officer first. Not condoning his actions, just adding info.

In light of the new information showing the girl striking the officer as he reached for her phone I am a little less inclined to be as harsh on the guy. We don’t hear what was being said either, or if she has a history of problems or anything like that. I’m sure that all will come to light with the investigation. I hope the officer who is willing to put himself on the line for the kids isn’t fired but rotated back in to the regular patrol. That’s how they do it in our city when SRO’s get a little burned out.

“He picked a student up, and he threw the student across the room; that is not a proper technique,” Sheriff Leon Lott of Richland County said at a news conference in Columbia, where he told reporters, “Deputy Ben Fields did wrong this past Monday, so we’re taking responsibility for that.”

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/28/us/south-carolina-school-arrest-videos/

I have not changed my view on the officer’s actions. He had no business being in a high school if he can’t handle a belligerent child, a female at that, any better than that. She may have struck him, but how much damage could she really do? I think his actions could be justified only if his life was in danger, which it wasn’t.
I think that her striking out did give him the right to maybe pin her arm behind her back and escort her out, but not sling her across the floor. As @jca‘s video points out, it was excessive.

To all who say the phone was no big deal. It was a big deal. Those kids are supposed to be learning the material the teacher is presenting. That is the only reason they are even in school. If she was playing on the phone, she was not learning what the teacher was presenting and, worse, she was a distraction to all the other students who also were missing out on parts of what the teacher was teaching.

The rules are there for a reason. They aren’t arbitrary and unfair. You raise your hand to speak, you don’t just shout out. You need to stay in your seat, not get up and start wandering around the classroom. You don’t carry on conversations with the student next to you.

What point are you trying to make, @jca?
I believe I had the same link posted above?

@Dutchess_III if a teacher can’t deal with a distracted student without resorting to assistance from an officer of the law, they are not fit to teach.

“The rules are there for a reason. They aren’t arbitrary and unfair.”

“He picked a student up, and he threw the student across the room; that is not a proper technique,” Sheriff Leon Lott of Richland County said at a news conference in Columbia, where he told reporters, “Deputy Ben Fields did wrong this past Monday, so we’re taking responsibility for that.”

It’s not clear in the video because it happened pretty quick. Was he trying to disengage and then decided ‘to hell with it’ and yanked her out of her chair? Or was it all one big WWE event? I saw stills of the student kind of flailing around trying to get at him, probably shouting obscenities. Does this student have a history of disrespect and disruptive behavior that she may have had run-ins with this officer before this encounter?

Apparently this SRO was known among the students as “The Incredible Hulk”.

Hey. The kids have learned that they can get away with just about anything that they want to @ibstubro, with impunity. He told her to put the phone away. She refused. He tried to take the phone from her. She refused. So, what would you have done in that case? You aren’t allowed to use any kind of physical force. You can’t touch her. You can’t grab her wrist and wrestle the phone from her. So exactly how would you have handled it, @ibstubro. I’m sure you’ve had a ton of classroom management experience to share with us.

@majorrich to my mind, the fact that she would even consider going up against an officer (or a teacher or a principal) suggests that she probably does have a history of belligerence.

It’s sad. She’s going to be out in the real world before long, and people aren’t going to be bending to her will. She won’t have the protection of being a child any more and it will be a rude awakening.

And “Officer Slam,” @Seek. He probably should have been gone a long time ago.

It’s funny, because I only have fond memories of the school officers. One signed me up for a summer camp for at risk kids and served as a counselor. He was a great dude. Another, we never saw him unless some kids got into a fight or there was a locker search for drugs (they did that about once a quarter, randomly). If people did get into a fight, he just bear hugged them until they stopped struggling, then led them to his office. Most of the time it was just for a cool-down period, unless weapons were involved.

That’s what an SRO should be, @Seek. They should be trying to make as much of a positive difference in the kid’s lives as the teachers try to do.

What part of “empty the classroom and deal with the child one-on-one” did you miss, @Dutchess_III.

In fact, you dismissed it as unworkable.
The teacher, the principal and the SRO had failed at all other non-violent means of dealing with the girl. The next non-violent option, to my mind, is isolating the child and dealing with her one-on-one.

Wasn’t that in my first post to this question?

And maintaining that all teachers are always trying to make a positive difference in all kid’s lives is just pure bullshit.
Pure, naive, bullshit.

I’d sooner give credence to the idea that the brute was justified in mopping the floor with an unarmed teenaged girl.

It’s not only unworkable, it’s ridiculous @itbstubro. This is a school. A center for learning. Not a counseling center for for troubled teens. You can’t have an entire classroom pay the price, day after day after day, for one kid who keeps fucking up. They’d be emptying every class that kid had, every day. That’s why it’s ridiculous and unworkable.

Most teachers try to be a positive influence, @ibstubro. Most of them genuinely care about the kids. They go home with broken hearts because they know that little Mary is most certainly being abused at home, and they have to send her back there day after day and there is nothing they can do except report their suspicions. And nothing comes of it.

They share their concerns with other teachers at break. They talk about ideas of how to handle this situation with a kid, or that. The teachers who have had that child in previous years share what worked for them.

Most do care. Or they get out. You’d have to care to even stay.

It’s hard to play armchair quarterback and probably a very tough job, dealing with defiant kids who are disruptive. Maybe a kid like this one should be in a special class where very little learning goes on and they just act out all day. I had a friend that went to a school like that. It was a high school for kids with disciplinary issues and learning issues. The work they did was equivalent to about third grade work, but it enabled the kids to meet the requirements for a diploma.

In this case, throwing the kid was definitely not the appropriate thing to do, but if I were to guess, he’d been pushed to his limit.

Defiant kids can be so infuriating. I’ve told this story before so skip on past if you’ve read it already.

I was in a 4th grade classroom. There was one kid who’d been “testing” me from the git go, since I was a sub.
At one point he was sitting on his desk with his feet on the seat.
I said, “Clarence, sit down in your chair.”
He just sneered at me and said, “No.”
I moved in and put my face close to his. ”I Said. Sit. Down.”
He just laughed and said, “No. And you can’t make me! If you put your hands on me you lose your job and go to jail!”
I got even closer, if that was even possible, and in a low, menacing voice that only he could hear I said, ”It. just. might. be. worth it.”
His eyes got wide, he looked deep in to my eyes, saw I wasn’t playing, and sat down. He was no more trouble for the rest of the day. In fact, he became one of my favorites that day. I went out of my way to give him certain responsibilities that I was pretty sure his teacher wouldn’t normally trust him with.
I asked him to take something to the office for me. He looked at me in surprise and said, “Me?”
I said, “Of course! Just come right back.”
I showed a trust in him that he probably didn’t deserve. I knew this, but I also knew I could count on my position as a “stranger” to pretend I didn’t know, and had no reason to think he couldn’t be trusted.
He never let me down.

Of course, that was 4th grade. Not 10th or 11th or 12th grade. That would be a whole different ball game. I could never get away with intimidating a line backer, you know?

I have a friend who is a high school maths teacher in the US.

He was asked on the other “F” site the following question. I have his permission to post here:

“what would you have done if a student refused to get off her phone and defied an order to leave the room?”

His answer:

That’s a complicated answer – the short version? Never have gotten there in the first place. The right community, and sense of trust, between student and teacher is vital to avoiding the pitfalls that can happen.

That being said, I’ve had obstinate students. Sometimes, children (of all ages) are children and throw tantrums (of many varieties). I would explain, again, the rules or expectations, explain what they were supposed to do and then walk away to move on with teaching the class. I’ve had situations where I’ve told a student that their actions have earned themselves a referral, and that they can avoid additional consequence by going down to the office.

The “wait time” here is key. If you challenge a kid for authority, in front of their friends, you lose. Every time and without fail. Set the rule. Expect the action. Don’t fight for dominance, be dominant. When you move on, and take the attention away, it both gives them the chance to back down safely as well as removing the thing they want – attention.

Good advice there, @Seek.

So you’re saying that every classroom is visited by a SRO every day, @Dutchess_III? Because what I was saying is that by the time the SRO is called in, class is already disrupted, they might as well empty it and have someone talk to the girl, one-on-one.
Well, no, let me walk that back. What I did was repeat the advice that professional educators gave on NPR. I can’t find the actual piece I heard.

I student taught under a woman who had quit teaching to open a florist shop. The shop failed, so she fell back on teaching. My first day, she went down the rows, kid by kid, and gave me the ‘low down’. Which ones to ignore because the whole family was nothing but trash “All you have to do is make the assignment clear to them and move on.” Which ones had a parent teaching at the university, so “They can do the work, but you’ll have to stay on them.” Needless to say, I failed student teaching.

There are just as many burned out teachers putting in their time as there are anywhere else.

I have no idea what the habits of the SROs are. I’ve never encountered one. I imagine they vary by the person with the position.

I have no doubt you failed student teaching. And I have no doubt that the woman who quit teaching just didn’t like the job, probably didn’t like the kids. It’s hard. You have to love the job, and love the kids to put up with all the shit you have to put up with. But, I already said that here. “Most do care. Or they get out. You’d have to care to even stay.”

I just thought of something…can you imagine a kid with some emotional and behavior issues, one who is craving attention and power, can you imagine that moment when she realized that she had the power to empty out an entire classroom at will!?

I failed student teaching because I did the opposite of what she told me to do regarding the kids. I showed interest in the ‘trash’ and figured the professor’s kid could sink or swim. I had enough college credits that I was later certified to teach at a juvenile detention facility. 5–20 kids of all ages with a custom designed independent study course I planned based on testing their proficiency. I never had an incident. Well, but for the 2 times I had a kid run away while we were out for recess. That sucked, because I was the only one that would take them outside.

I imagine that kid craving attention and power would be much like the girl who had the full and undivided attention of the teacher, the principal and the SRO, @Dutchess_III.
Minus the cast, of course.

Well, that explains your answers. However, as I said above, these are public schools, institutions of learning, not juvenile detention facilities. At such a facility much of your focus is on “rehabilitating” them, changing their behavior. Teaching is secondary. You do it because it’s mandated by the state.
It’s the other way around at a public school. It isn’t our job to rehabilitate the students, only to teach them.

Yes, that kid would be exactly like that girl, and she’s not an unusual case. You have kids like that acting out every single day at schools all over the country. You have students attacking teachers. I don’t think giving them the power to empty out a classroom would be wise.

No, during the school year, I was the teacher, @Dutchess_III, nothing more. The counselors had offices on the floor above the detention. We weren’t trained in or for “rehabilitating”. I was trained for teaching, and that’s what I did.

The more I think about your comment, @ibstubro, ” I showed interest in the ‘trash’ and figured the professor’s kid could sink or swim.” The sadder I feel. How is that any different than a black teacher catering only to black kids, or white teacher only catering to white kids? It’s just sad. Every kid counts. Every kid wants their teacher’s approval, even when the kid acts out.

There is one kid who really stands out in my mind. I had a 6 week assignment in a 6th grade classroom in Wichita.

At some point I instituted “You have the floor,” rule. That meant that if a kid had a grievance to air, he had 3 minutes to air it, and no one could interrupt them for those three minutes. Then the kids could discuss it from there. It worked very well in this particular classroom.

There was one kid who just every so often would pop out with some slightly disruptive, hilarious comment or motion or something. It would stop the class. But he was so good natured about it. If I said, “Joe, stop!” He’s just grin…and he’d stop. He didn’t drag it on and on and on.

Sometimes I could just look at him exasperated and he’d grin and go, “OK! OK! I’ll quit!” And he would

Then that assignment ended. About 3 weeks later I was called to sub in the classroom again, for a day. Beginning of the day, I’m at the desk, and the kids start coming in, happy to see me.
Suddenly Joe came flying in, threw himself on the floor and slid about half way across the room on his stomach.
Since I knew him I just looked at him curiously. I said, “What?!!”
He said, “I have the floor.”
Oh brother! That kid just cracked me up. I sighed, in pretend exasperation and said, “Yes. Obviously you do!”
But he was never any real trouble.

I wonder how much the teacher liked the “open floor” rule when they returned…

Exactly, @Seek.
“Popular” substitute teachers usually disrupt the class routine days beyond their physical presence.

Reminds me of the two creative boys I baby sat for. They’d say, “But mom always lets us ______.” Fill in the blank, but one I remember was playing LPs on the stereo. I’d say, “That’s great, and when your mom gets home you can play them all you want! But for now, lets take a walk down to the park.”

Probably best to discourage kids from spontaneously throwing themselves on the floor in a school room.

^ “Probably best to discourage kids from spontaneously throwing themselves on the floor in a school room.”

That’s not what @Dutchess_III was encouraging, I think. I read the story as her only encouraging the kids’ conflict resolution techniques (letting others say their part, gaining confidence in sharing feelings). I rather like that.

But for the fact that, as a substitute teacher, she was seriously disrupting the regular teacher’s routine, @longgone. I believe that – for all concerned – the best thing a sub can do is maintain the classroom routine as closely as possible.
If you believe the professionals at all, the whole ‘getting up in his face and growling at him in front of his peers’ describes the worst possible behavior when there is conflict in the classroom.

Well, she specifically requested me for all future subbing needs. In fact, the entire school specifically requested me, and I taught in that building a lot, if that tells you anything.

You guys are fretting over things you don’t understand. It was a 6 week position. The routine was the same, the subjects were the same, the methods weren’t. Couldn’t be. I wasn’t her.
Besides, it wouldn’t take but a half a day to reacquaint them with her way of doing things.

Escalating the conflict only works if you win. Something that the SRO in SC obviously got. The teacher escalated the problem and failed. So the principal stepped in and escalated the problem further. Clearly, the SRO was called in to win, and he did his job.

Take the case of the boy who had his personal space invaded, and was then “growled at” in front of his peers. What if he’d spit in the teacher’s face instead of backing down? What then? Slap the shit out of him? Throw him to the floor? How do you “win” if you’ve backed everyone into a corner?

If he’d spit in my face he would have been out of that class and at the office so fast he wouldn’t know what hit him. That would have been considered “assault,” and I would have been justified in grasping his arm and escorting him out and that is what I would have done. He would have faced severe discipline, including suspension, possibly expulsion, depending on his history. He knew that.

Anyway, it worked. I won, if you insist on viewing it that way. We went the rest of the day with no problems. He didn’t test me any further, and, in fact, became one of my favorite students that day.

@ibstubro The growling, I don’t like – I agree with you on the concept of “winning”. I was referring to the other story.

“I got even closer, if that was even possible…” did it for me @longgone. I come from a physically abusive family and I have an exaggerated sense of personal space. I can’t say how I would have reacted, but ‘wide eyed’ wouldn’t have been at the top of the list.

Yep. I don’t agree with teaching children that they should accept intimidation, from anyone. I don’t want a child to do what I say just because I am stronger and, thus, scary. That’s bullying. But then, I don’t like the idea of “obedience” in general.

Since this is in social I think I can tell this story as I think it relates.
I graduated from a High School completion program in 1978. Everyone in this program had dropped out of High School but had come to our senses and decided that we really needed to graduate. This was at the Community College and was NOT free. We had to pay for every class we took.
For the most part, the teachers treated us with respect. If we didn’t want to be there, they really didn’t want us there and the respect was reciprocated.
One day there was a substitute in an English class. I don’t know what she expected but she started the day laying down the law. She actually told this class of mostly adults (some of us were as young as 16) that they had to raise their hand to go to the bathroom. She was trying to create the environment that most of us had rebelled against in High School.
That poor woman had chaos on her hands. Most of us reverted to the kids that had failed in regular High School. People were throwing spit balls at her when her back was turned, farting or making fart noises, interrupting and ignoring everything she said. The entire dynamic of the room changed from a class full of adults trying to get something accomplished to a zoo, all because this woman thought she could demand respect without giving it.
I don’t have all the answers for classroom management, and I know that teachers are way over worked and don’t have time to be personal counselors or social workers, but one thing I know is that when you lose respect it’s all over.