Observations of a teacher on the school to prison pipeline.

                One afternoon, I opened my classroom door to step out during lunchtime and get some air while working at a high school in an outlying area of a major metropolitan area.  Near my classroom, there was a line of disgruntled students standing outside of the on campus probation office, checking in with the probation officer, a mandatory chore that must be done before students can take their lunch break.  Dozens of students walk in and out of this room every day.  I do not know how long public schools have been equipped with their own probation officer, but I thought it was a strange sight.  After some investigation, I learned that even some middle schools in this local area now have them as well.

                This little experience began to open my eyes to how much the educational system and correctional system are beginning to merge.  I saw the huge black gate that surrounds the school and now see it in a different context.  There is an armed sheriff that stands in the middle of the lunch quad everyday, that I hardly even noticed before.  There was one at my high school 17 years ago, so I always thought it was normal to be policed at school.  Now he seems so menacing and intimidating.  Why do we need a guy walking around with a weapon in plain view?

                Upon entering the front office, there are signs posted that boldly read,  ‘If you have a felony, see so and so’ and pictures of guns and knives crossed out.  One would hardly expect this to be an institution to educate children.  If one really were perceptive, one would notice the students walking and talking in small groups around the campus.  They are not allowed to socialize in large groups or in enclosed circles, not even at the lunch tables placed outside for that particular purpose. 

                There have been times in the past few years that these matters have been discussed in the classroom.  I have heard stories from students about being berated by administrators and threatened to be sent to the sheriff for not stopping to pledge allegiance to the flag during morning announcements in the front office.  Students are searched without consent. There is a particular security guard on campus known for heavy-handed tactics; he is said to have tackled a kid for not handing over his skateboard.  A youth was reprimanded for an altercation with another student on the third day of school, the first thing he was asked is if he were a ‘blood’.  This same student reported being forced by security to stand still or he will be slammed.  One white student reported how he wanders the campus during class time with out a pass carefree and notices how African American students are harassed and made to dig their passes out of their pockets and backpacks.

                Students of all ethnic groups and backgrounds agree that students are racially profiled and some students are treated with more regard than others.  There were also comments made like, “I’m on the football team so I ain’t gotta worry about all that”.  Apparently all students are not subject to the same rules and regulations, some are more prone to be reprimanded in a harsh manner.  This is no longer controversial as all the recent educational literature says the same thing. 

                The school in which I worked is being praised as having made a “turnaround” in the last three years.  This is likely in part attributed to the ‘problem students’ being closely watched and recorded for every little instance of misbehavior creating a paper trail and being pushed out of school.  There have been students in my classes that don’t know how to fit into the box they are expected to for some reason or another.  Some have real problems at home and act out.  Nothing is done to address the root problems of the students or to actually help them.  They are simply penalized for their failure to conform until they are expelled or end up in court.  This is the school to prison pipeline in action.  I have had numerous students doing relatively well, showing up regularly or semi regularly, trying to keep in line with the dictates of their probation and getting violations and sent to court and sentenced for smoking cigarettes in the bathroom or defending themselves.  One can even get busted for carrying a lighter on probation as a minor.

                The most vulnerable of our young men and women are being caught in a system that leads from the classroom to prison.  Minor infractions that would once land a student in the principals’ office such as fighting, truancy or minor vandalism can now land students on probation, in juvenile hall and with criminal records.  They end up with lengthy records before they graduate, all for misbehavior at school.  The school to prison pipeline is part of the system of mass incarceration.  Youth are already being accustomed to being treated like criminals before they are adults.  Presumably, most adults in the penal system spent time in juvenile institutions as adolescents, there is no mystery as to where this pipeline will lead for many of the students that get in trouble in school.