Letters: Modify SC disturbing school law

South Carolina’s disturbing schools law is taking some students from an education in their communities to an education at the Department of Juvenile Justice. The law was passed to protect students from potentially dangerous outside intrusions, but schools are using it as an umbrella to punish mostly any incident that occurs in the school, instead of addressing the incident for what it is.

Some students who start the school year in August are suspended or up for an expulsion hearing by October, often for “disturbing school.” These children, of working parents, may have nothing to do but get into more and more serious trouble. The gangs await them.

I hope our Legislature will pass a law that allows resource officers to perform the duties that they were assigned to do; hold the schools accountable to fairly address student incidents and, most of all, allow our children an education in their communities instead of at DJJ.

Let’s stop the school house to jail house pipeline.

This story was originally published April 24, 2016 at 3:36 PM with the headline "Letters: Modify SC disturbing school law."