Teacher batters students - Santa Fe Public Schools sez; no blood, no foul

Apparently, a middle school teacher in Santa Fe grew so frustrated by willfully disobedient students that she threw some books at them, link.

We will for the time being, sidestep the issue of the frustration even the finest teachers experience while trying to "teach" out of control students, and with the abject failure of the administration at all levels, to deal with chronically disruptive students.

But, we really, really should get back to those subjects sometime soon.

It seems clear from the report that assaults and batteries occurred.  Those are criminal acts no matter how we feel about the circumstances leading up to them; whether they were provoked or justified.  Whether to "prosecute" a criminal act is the purview of law enforcement; police officers and district attorneys.

Santa Fe Public Schools has a better idea. Rather than refer all criminal acts to law enforcement, the Santa Fe Public Schools has decided to empower administrators at all levels, with the authority to decid which crimes will and will not be reported to law enforcement.

The principal's defense according to the Journal;

“based on common school practice, if there is an altercation at the school where medical assistance is not required, then law enforcement is not contacted and the incident is handled internally.”

Santa Fe Public Schools are not alone in believing they have the authority to decide which crimes should and should not be reported to law enforcement.

When APS senior administrators were involved in state and federal felonies, link, the board and senior administration simply decided to "not report" those felonies to law enforcement.  They took it upon themselves to decide that prosecution wasn't appropriate.  They continue to think it is appropriate, as they are spending operational dollars to this day, hiding public records and maintaining the cover up.

There is an appearance of a conflict of interests created when administrators are allowed to manipulate crime statistics.  A recent audit of the APS found that principals routinely falsified crime statistics at their schools to protect their public image.

I was once told by an APS deputy superintendent that, when he was a high school principal, if he had told the truth about what was going on in his school, the realtors in his neighborhood would have had his neck.

He would also not have found himself promoted out of his "crime free high school" into a deputy superintendency.

Ayn Rand pointed out;

"To fear to face an issue is to believe the worst is true."

School boards and superintendents refuse to talk about the issues of student discipline and chronically disruptive students, not because there aren't any, but because there are so many.

The same can be said for the Journal.

They wouldn't be afraid to investigate and report on student discipline problems and chronically disruptive in the APS, if they weren't genuinely afraid of what they might find and then be compelled to report to stake and interest holders.