“Shut your mouth, Marvin.” It was a hostile exchange for certain. Marvin Rudnitsky, president of the Selinsgrove Borough Council, did not like being told that his own rules would be used against him. In citing the Rudnitsky Rule, Marv, a progressive politician, ironically didn’t like being told to comply or the police would be used to make him. The impotent smirk of a man who made his money bilking old folks of their savings faded as it was clear triggering him was being used to illustrate the point.

If we were actually talking about doing our best to keep kids safe, we wouldn’t be discussing putting police in the classroom. We would be talking about how to best allow teachers to maintain their personal firearm and protect their students. Obviously!!! For God’s sake, who in the building is more committed to protecting their students than the many great teachers in our school? Countless would give their lives to protect ‘their kids’.

The problem with putting police in schools isn’t that it would be ineffective or a waste of money –even if the backdoor taxing of grant prostitution is being utilized until it runs out– rather, the problem is the shortening of a classroom to prison pipeline. The problem is with giving school administrators access to arrest powers. Handing over to bureaucrats who have already shown their willingness to bring politics into the classroom the ability to turn what used to be a detention into a lifelong criminal record. What if they adopted the tactics of Mr Rudnitsky, using the police in attempts to quash dissent, criticism, or self-assertion because it upsets his feels?

Imagine, a student who chooses not to participate in an administration backed walkout? Would we now have the resource officer force compliance with charges of disorderly conduct? To say it is beyond the realm of possibilities is ignoring realities around the country where a badge has been used to enforce schoolhouse discipline. Seriously, when police remove a student from a classroom it isn’t a stern walking to the principal’s office. It is a cell extraction for what is often nothing more than a common teenage disruption. Google it, watch a video on youtube.

‘It won’t happen here’ — yes, yes it will. This is not a mark against cops, they have a dangerous job and it requires treating every situation with the seriousness it deserves. They are the government’s tool of intimidation. Follow the rules or face arrest. Combine that siren of a challenge with the invincibility of young people and the question of a confrontation is not ‘if’ but ‘when’?

‘Our school district would never let it get that far’ — yes, yes they would. Since publishing a brief, but pointed, criticism of the plan to put police in our school more than one parent has come to me to say an administrator has RECENTLY threatened their child with arrest for simple offenses. Not months, in the recent weeks. And, they weren’t necessarily teenage kids being threatened. What used to be a detention or no recess was now being threatened with a permanent criminal record. Take a second to that sink in.

This is not to say that a police officer would not have the same care and devotion for the students in their trust. Of course they would. But, why have one person there to protect the kids when we already have an adult in every classroom committed to the children’s safety. Why not allow those committed people to choose to maintain the means to protect their students?

School house discipline is already applied disproportionately to male students. Our criminal justice system is already applied disproportionately to young men, particularly poor young men. Why condense those two systems into one, each of which we are trying to fix ? Young men are already not doing well in school, dramatically falling behind their female peers. Are we simply trying to make a culling more efficient?

Councilman Rudnitsky and Borough Manager Paul Williams have attempted multiple times to use our local police to silence criticisms. The objective truth of it is why triggering them was so easy. It is silly to think that school officials who have already threatened arrest will not become similarly frustrated in demanding obedience.

#Liberty
~v