Supervising children is not an easy task; managing a classroom of more than 30 adolescents is a monumental feat. It should go without saying that teaching is a profession that is at times both rewarding and thankless. Those who choose to go into the field do so because of a desire to help young people achieve their highest potential even though the classroom is usually the last place students want to be for more than 200 hundred days of the year. Those of us without the task of overseeing youngsters find it challenging to understand how teachers do it; we were all children once, so we know firsthand the patience-trying nature of teenagers.

Most adults can remember the handful of troublemakers they had to share classrooms with, those who made it a point to disrupt lesson plans day-in-and-day-out. It seems like the sole mission of some kids was to be the bane of the faculty’s existence. Although, it is likely that few of us could grasp, at the time, why certain classmates acted out; we could not know that forces outside the classroom may have driven some youngsters to rebel.

Some people can probably remember instances of their school throwing in the towel with specific students, deciding that the best thing to be done was to suspend or expel a student; if asked, the school would justify removing a problem child as being a service to the rest of the class and the teacher. Dismissing a student might lessen distractions in classrooms, but it probably did nothing to help the student in question and potentially was a jumping off point to more severe problems. Those who are expelled from high school are far more likely to face the juvenile justice system.

While people most often associate violence and drugs with suspension and expulsion, up until not too long ago faculties could adduce “willful defiance” — virtually anything that disrupts a class — as a reason to expel or suspend students. Then, in 2014, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 420, eliminating willful defiance as a cause for expulsion. Since that time, California school districts have had to focus on what was behind a student’s behavior, address the problem, and help a child change their ways.

Classroom Management

If a classroom is a ship of enlightenment, the teacher is the captain, which make the students the crew. Those teens who pay attention and do their work may one day grow up to oversee a team of employees, or maybe even become teachers him or herself. As with any voyage, the captain must be both stern and fair; and, perhaps more than anything else protect the mission from mutiny. One could argue that students prone to disrupting the class are, in a sense, mutineers; on the high seas the captain might throw the offender overboard, but in the California classroom of today that frankly isn’t an option anymore. It seems the only course of action is to ensure that the “classroom captain” can manage their students effectively.

With that in mind, you may find it hard to believe that very little of a teacher’s education involves taking courses on how to manage a classroom effectively. It’s one thing to tell a teacher that a disruptive student is going to be around whether they like it or not, it’s another thing altogether to say that to an educator who lacks to the necessary skill set to manage the future generations.

“Classroom management is extraordinarily absent in teaching certification programs,” Mike Lombardo, director of prevention supports and services for the Placer County Office of Education, tells EdSource.

In fact, a survey shows that when it comes to classroom management, more than 40 percent of new teachers reported feeling either “not at all prepared” or “only somewhat prepared.” The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing is responsible for establishing best practices in teaching; last year, the commission made a requirement that new teachers have an excellent understanding of non-punitive methods of discipline, EdSource reports. Restorative justice is one such method, a technique that involves relationship building and making amends. Instead of permanently removing kids from a classroom — a practice that can have a lasting effect (i.e., run-ins with the juvenile justice system, otherwise known as the “school-to-prison pipeline”) on a student who likely is only acting out because he or she needs more support — teachers work to better understand the misbehaving student’s social and emotional needs.

“[Beginning teachers should] promote students’ social-emotional growth, development and individual responsibility using positive interventions and supports, restorative justice and conflict resolution practices to foster a caring community where each student is treated fairly and respectfully by adults and peers,” according to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing’s new performance expectations.

Juvenile Defense Attorney

The Law Offices of Katie Walsh specialize in juvenile law. If your son or daughter is facing criminal charges or school expulsion, Attorney Walsh can advocate for you and your family in several ways. Please contact our office for a free consultation.

Kids who get in trouble with the law, more times than not, lack parental supervision. Without direction, adolescents often fall in with the wrong crowd. From there, anything is possible, from drug use to committing petty crimes. Such teenagers, at one point or another, get arrested by local authorities, and may have to serve time, receive probation and/or pay fines. As you can probably imagine, the process is both slow and costly. So, who is going to pay for it all? One’s family?

Well, yes, a teenager’s family is usually stuck having to foot the bill for the infractions. But, if we already know that many of the kids caught up in the system come from broken or dysfunctional homes—there is a good chance that such families are not at the upper end of the socioeconomic spectrum. Even a middle-class family may be severely strained by court fees associated with the son or daughter’s indiscretion.

Any adult who has had a run-in with the law will tell you, “it isn’t cheap!” Hiring an attorney (even public defenders carry some cost), paying fines and restitution can all add up. Even if one is sentenced to probation, there are monthly supervision and drug screening fees to be budgeted. The same is the case for juveniles. The difference is that minors have few financial resources at their young age. Which means that mom and dad need to step in to cover the costs, failing to pay such costs could harm their child.

Bankrupt on Juvenile Justice

A new report conducted by researchers from the UC Berkeley School of Law indicates that some families in counties across the state are losing their homes and having to file bankruptcy, because of fees associated with their child’s arrest, Public News Service reports. Juveniles living in San Diego, Orange, Kern and Ventura counties are subject to the highest fees. Covering the costs of:

• Public Representation
• Detention
• Probation
• Electronic Monitoring
• Drug Testing

“Many families can’t afford to pay even $50 a month, let alone $500 a month,” said study co-author Stephanie Campos-Bui, a clinical supervising attorney with the Policy Advocacy Clinic at the UC Berkeley School of Law. “When these fees are assessed, they become a civil judgment against a family that is enforceable through wage garnishment and tax-rebate intercepts.”

Senate Bill 190, currently before the California state Legislature, would ban the collection of fees in the juvenile-justice system across the state.

Juvenile Justice Help

A good defense could result in lower costs in the long run, please contact Katie Walsh to discuss your options. Attorney Walsh, a former prosecutor familiar with the OC adult and juvenile justice systems, can provide your son or daughter a solid defense. Please reach out for a free consultation today.

Adolescents, like adults, are disciplined for certain offenses with the hope that said offender will not do it again. It starts at a young age, a child does something wrong—a parent determines the appropriate punishment to mete out. Life is about standards and rules, if one falls short or breaks a rule, punishment follows suit. The hope, it seems, as that by the time adulthood rolls around, an individual will be an upstanding citizen.

Unfortunately, sometimes a punishment does not match the caliber of the offense—especially in American schools. Across the country, what is known as “zero tolerance” policies are in place at practically every public school. Zero tolerance policies were specifically directed towards drugs or weapons. Students found to have either are subject to either suspension or expulsion. While that type of policy would seem to make sense, such policies may actually do more harm than good.

A new book is coming out soon that explores the nature of zero tolerance, with the hope of starting a conversation that could put an end to draconian rules in public schools. Professor Derek W. Black’s “Ending Zero Tolerance: The Crisis of Absolute School Discipline,” highlights the flaws of zero tolerance punishments on school-aged children, according to the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. Black teaches law at the University of Southern California. He writes:

“One of the most obvious flaws or irrationalities of zero tolerance and harsh discipline is that they lump so many dissimilar students in to the same groups. The first grader whose mother puts a cough drop in his backpack without him knowing is treated the same as the seventh grader who knows that cough drops are prohibited but brings them anyway because his throat hurts and he does not want to miss school. And the seventh-grade cough-drop smuggler is treated the same as the student who brings Advil to school and sells it. And the Advil-distributing student is treated the same as the student who sells steroids or marijuana to his classmates. They are all drug offenders according to their schools and subject to long-term suspension.”

The book covers a number of different areas, sourcing individual narratives, case law—and could prove to be an invaluable tool for both teachers and counselors. Hopefully, it will lead to more understanding and compassion when it comes to discipline in American schools.

“Harsh discipline practices,” writes Black, “are contrary to many of our many basic values, both social and legal.”

Katie Walsh is an attorney in Orange County, California. Attorney Walsh concentrates her law practice on juvenile defense, criminal defense, and victim’s rights.

Contact the Law Offices of Katie Walsh online or at (714) 351-0178.