As a swedish expat for most of life, it's always struck as very strange the American insistence on personal responsibility and railing against the nanny state, yet public schools are treated like jails for children. Going to the bathroom requires a special pass??
Freedom is a dog whistle for, 'I'll do what is I want, unless I'm forcibly stopped.' Personal responsibility is a dog whistle for, "We don't care why or how things got the way they are, we are taking it out on you."
Consequently, children are policed, or they won't stay in their classes. And, there's no collective understanding of a better way to handle the situation.
In Los Angeles the schools feel like jails in disguise. I was home schooled and arrested for being outside when I was 15. The cops didn’t trust I was homeschooled and said it’s illegal to be outside of school.
Aside from the fact that this would never actually happen. Who in their right mind would put it in a letter asking parents to please make sure their kids attend classes...?
You should visit a CPS facility. Kids being locked up in open facility (the facilities are "open" in the sense the door is unlocked, they do send the cops after you the second you walk through) for minimally not attending school, for that matter without any actual proof of that beyond that a single teacher reported it (not even the attendance sheet, just a phone call) happens all the time.
Oh and if they do walk out, which they often do, getting sent to an actual cell for up to a year (mostly -thank god- 2 weeks) is the normal reaction. I'm not sure if those qualify as juvenile hall -they probably don't- but they certainly are cells.
CPS can do whatever they want to a kid. The kid "is not being convicted or punished" (just incarcerated and ripped from their environment, sometimes for decades), just "protected", so none of the normal protections apply. Often one has the clear impression that kids are imprisoned, not because of any problem with the kid or parents but because some CPS facility has a quota to meet (X children "helped" or no more subsidies). I even found an article that said judges felt pressured to lock children up because otherwise the closed facility claimed they would go bankrupt and the judge would lose the possibility of sending anyone there.
This is a problem because juvenile delinquency is and has been dropping like a stone for decades now, so those facilities have an ever smaller share of actual juvenile offenders, and a large majority of kids where some CPS worker (an individual) decided they needed help, and mostly the kids and parents refuse, of course, because these facilities are not seen as any kind of improvement for problems (and of course, they aren't).
Kids get sent to mental hospitals for skipping class (happened to my brother in California) and many other kids. Pretty much the same as incarceration.
Please don’t laugh things away because you think they don’t happen.
[+] [-] pessimizer|5 years ago|reply
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/California-court-rules-t...
Also, although this one is a disturbing incident, publishing about it this week is probably meant to be sneakily political.
The Human Costs Of Kamala Harris’ War On Truancy
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-truancy-arrests...
[+] [-] tomohawk|5 years ago|reply
Just receiving such a letter is stressful, and creates a paper trail documenting neglect.
What if CPS (child protective services) ends up getting involved?
[+] [-] fredthomsen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WalterSear|5 years ago|reply
Consequently, children are policed, or they won't stay in their classes. And, there's no collective understanding of a better way to handle the situation.
[+] [-] alltakendamned|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfischer|5 years ago|reply
The schools even look like prisons at this point.
[+] [-] Simulacra|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zachware|5 years ago|reply
Schools lose funding when a student falls below a certain attendance.
[+] [-] iso947|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] davidgerard|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iso947|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] variable11|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Aeolun|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] candiodari|5 years ago|reply
Oh and if they do walk out, which they often do, getting sent to an actual cell for up to a year (mostly -thank god- 2 weeks) is the normal reaction. I'm not sure if those qualify as juvenile hall -they probably don't- but they certainly are cells.
CPS can do whatever they want to a kid. The kid "is not being convicted or punished" (just incarcerated and ripped from their environment, sometimes for decades), just "protected", so none of the normal protections apply. Often one has the clear impression that kids are imprisoned, not because of any problem with the kid or parents but because some CPS facility has a quota to meet (X children "helped" or no more subsidies). I even found an article that said judges felt pressured to lock children up because otherwise the closed facility claimed they would go bankrupt and the judge would lose the possibility of sending anyone there.
This is a problem because juvenile delinquency is and has been dropping like a stone for decades now, so those facilities have an ever smaller share of actual juvenile offenders, and a large majority of kids where some CPS worker (an individual) decided they needed help, and mostly the kids and parents refuse, of course, because these facilities are not seen as any kind of improvement for problems (and of course, they aren't).
[+] [-] rjkennedy98|5 years ago|reply
Please don’t laugh things away because you think they don’t happen.