Charge dropped

The disorderly conduct charge brought against a 12-year-old special education student in Danville (PA, US) has been dropped according to a story carried by the Associated Press. As I noted in an earlier EBD Blog entry, the child was charged with disorderly conduct after she wet her pants during an encounter with the school principal.

Superintendent Steve Keifer said Thursday that it was a mistake to bring police into a case of school discipline.

“I think the situation was one where the parents and school officials were frustrated, and that’s why it was done,” Keifer said. “At the same time, it was probably not a good idea.”

According to the earlier report based on the child’s mother’s account, in December 2006 the child had been preparing holiday food with other students and refused to go the kitchen to wash pots and pans; teachers notified prinipal Kevin Duckwork who reiterated the directions. The child wet herself.

In the school administration’s view, the girl wet herself deliberately. According to the mother, the child is scared of Principal Duckworth, and wet herself out of fright.

I’m concerned about this dust-up both because it seems like another example of the mis-use of police authority and because it also is another example of the danger inherent in interpreting children’s behavior as having hidden meaning. We are mistakenly concerned about the motives for behavior. We so often are misled by our interpretations of others’ intentions. It’s better, in my view, to hold the interpretation of behavior to a minimum. Instead, it’s important to examine systematically the functions that the behavior serves. This is part of the rationale for using functional behavioral assessments.

Instances of schools calling on police—here are a few: a 5-year-old who was handcuffed 14 March 2005, a 6-year-old on whom police used an electric stun-gun, and an 8-year-old who was arrested at school after an altercation with a teacher and assistant principal—reflect a clear lack of competence in managing behavior. Here I’m restating Superintendent Keifer’s sentiment more strongly.

Apparently, the school officials—teachers and principal—need to learn some more effective methods of securing compliance with directions. I’d bet that this was a confrontation, a “power struggle.” When teachers and principals require immediate and unconditional compliance, they should expect that the strategy will sometimes backfire. I’d recommend that the adults in such situations act like adults. Take the longer view and realize that the contingencies in the situation are clearly not properly arranged to engender compliance. Figure out how to rearrange those contingencies so that such confrontations do not occur in the future. I know that children can misbehave, and one has to respond to misbehavior; I’m just begging us to use methods that don’t require shows of force.

Link to the AP story, as carried by the Washington (DC, US) Post. The writers over on Sacred Monkeys had a reaction to this story that was similar to mine, but still a bit different. Their comments in this entry (scroll to get to their coverage of this issue) are worth a read.