Six other students at a different school were charged after a series of fights broke out in January 2015, resulting in the use of pepper spray on students by a school resource officer—and later that month, two girls were charged after an officer prevented
Six other students at a different school were charged after a series of fights broke out in January 2015, resulting in the use of pepper spray on students by a school resource officer—and later that month, two girls were charged after an officer prevented a third girl from getting attacked in a school hallway.
When people talk about the “school-to-prison pipeline,” these are the cases they’re talking about.
The concern is that when students are funneled into the justice system for mostly typical adolescent behavior, it can result in potentially lifelong consequences for them and the community.
This fall, a pilot program in Roanoke will start with the goal of handling these types of incidents differently.
“Nationwide, a lot of attention has come to this issue of how we’re dealing with school misconduct,” said Yolanda Conaway-Wood, executive director for student support services for Roanoke schools.
“It was quickly realized that we were handling routine disciplinary issues by removing students from school and, unfortunately, they got involved in the juvenile justice system,”
In Roanoke, Va., this problem came into focus after a 2015 Center for Public Integrity report showed that Virginia schools referred students to law enforcement at a higher rate than any other state. The report indicated that referral rates in Roanoke far outpaced the national average.
Roanoke’s pilot program, which borrows a concept from Fairfax County, is aimed at changing the culture of disciplinary practices in order to divert students from suspension, expulsion, police referrals and arrests. The schools will emphasize the increasingly popular con