School Safety
As students at David Crockett High School, in Austin, Texas see it, the average person today plays a key role in the way our government and educational processes flow. People seem to have the idea that without their contribution the governmental and educational systems will run fine, but this is far from the truth. "The People" is what our government is based around, and without their opinions or voices, the people have to accept what their government proposes. This is why, in our democracy, we must voice our opinions to our representatives and congressmen so that we can have a better society for ourselves and our children.
When studying economics, we deal with money, taxes, private and public alternative solutions, displacement and incentives and disincentives. What does economics have to do with public schools? Well, our school district is facing a $20 million budget crunch in the coming academic year, and the year after that, so it is faced with some very tough decisions. For instance: should they cut back (1) security in schools, (2) teachers or (3) some academic programs.
Our class conducted polls to see what various groups of citizens want. We targeted the general public, academicians (anyone holding a college degree; mainly teachers and professors) and our elected officials. We tried to find out if public education was among their top priorities and if they support a "zero tolerance" policy. Zero-tolerance refers to a policy whereby students who exhibit disruptive behavior—attitude problems, public lewdness, inappropriate behavior towards classmates or teachers, carry weapons and so forth—can be expelled from school and sent to an alternative school.
When we say, "Is public education their priority?", we mean would they rather keep or lose public education compared with health care, welfare, transportation and highways, for example. We divided the work among class members. Every student had to contact one elected official and as many ordinary citizens and academicians as possible. Two of our classmates went to a mall and tried to get as many people as possible to complete our survey.
The results showed that education was the last thing the majority of those polled wanted to cut. A total of 69 people responded and of those, 54 wanted public education and 15 said public education was not their top priority. As to the Zero-Tolerance Policy; a total of 45 people responded and of those 28 supported the policy and 17 were opposed. These polls were very important because they showed us what the public felt and from that information we attempted to come up with our alternative.
Security is great but when it comes to cutting back teachers and school programs, police officers on campus might not be worth the price. Our class debated for two days on whether or not officers were a good idea. At first everyone was dead set on having extra security, but by the end of the second day, the group decision was to do away with Austin's Independent School District officers.
There merits of safe school campuses, were obvious, the disincentives were few and there was little resistance from group members—at first. When we changed our collective minds it was because we realized we'd rather keep our teachers and enhance our school programs than pay for campus police.
Of course we first tried to find the funds to keep the security officer we currently have at our school. One of our proposals was to cut down on academic programs; those where there was little student interest, or the classes were expensive or simply "blow-off" classes. Right off we failed to agree which classes are "blow-off" and which were "non-blow-off". We discussed the merits of classes like Auto Mechanics, Home Economics, Child Care, Landscaping, and Food Catering and decided that these classes help provide career opportunities for a lot of students. The classes that are expensive, and those that generate the least amount of interest, are usually advanced or honors classes—like our class. Academic Decathlon alone costs $1,000 just to enter the competition and all the materials required for it are extra and the teachers that teach it receive a stipend. Finally our class feared students would not be motivated or benefit academically if classes were cut. We discarded the idea thinking it would hurt the reputation of our school and even cause some parents to enroll their children in other institutions.
Our next solution was to cut staff; mainly the assistant-principals. We reasoned their main job is discipline, and if we have a police officer in school we would not need an assistant-principal. We immediately discovered cutting staff was not an option because it was up to the District Office.
We could not come up with a solution so we made phone calls to elected officials. We mostly talked to secretaries who told us, in fancier words, that basically their bosses favored good education and safe schools. However the state senator who proposed the Zero Tolerance law told us he would fund police officers' salary from our sales tax and the lottery revenue. We discovered that would mean the legislature would have to pass some new bills and get the new Governor's support and the support of the voters. That could take years because it is such a long tedious process.
We debated among ourselves for two days, which was frustrating, maddening and made us realize this is a huge problem and solving it will not be easy. The trouble, as one student put it, was the more we found out, the more we began thinking differently. Finally, we decided as a class that our school would benefit more with no police officers and additional teachers and educational programs.
Because, like most adults, what we really want is to "have our cake and eat it too", we came up with an alternative that would give us both campus security and quality academics, despite public sector budget cuts. To do this we had to turn to the private sector for our alternative.
We decided to involve our school in getting companies like Motorola, etc. to "adopt" David Crockett High School. "Adopters", as these private companies are sometimes called, donate computers, books and much needed materials to their "adoptee" schools. An adopter could sponsor programs like the Academic Decathlon and other competitions that require money. These businesses often provide jobs and or internships to students and even mentors so that students will be discouraged from hanging with gangs and directed towards school and other constructive activities. Our class thinks this alternative will help our school tremendously and will help us deal with the budget cuts.
We all worked together and helped each other see the various aspects of the problems and we all had our own personal views. In the end, most of felt that if the school budget were used for better learning facilities and stricter rules were enforced, then we would not need officers on campuses. [A big "if".]
We decided that we need education more than we need protection. Our school district shouldn't have the burden of trying to keep crime off campuses. Our city police department should be responsible for that. Our school district shouldn't over protect and under educate our students. Their main concern should be to keep public education at the top of their priorities. Educate now so we won't have to imprison/punish in the future.
Excerpted from Alternatives: Proposals For Local Governments Struggling With Limited
Resources
( a 1995 Harry Singer Foundation book published by Wellington Publications)
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