Texas School Fights 'Dangerous' Designation August 22, 2003
News Summary
The superintendent of schools in San Marcos, Texas, is trying to calm the fears of parents and teachers after the local junior-high school was included on a federal list of "persistently dangerous" schools, the Christian Science Monitor reported Aug. 20.Sylvester Perez said Doris Miller Junior High School doesn't belong on the list. He insists that the school is safe, despite the classification under President Bush's Leave No Child Behind Act.
The school is one of six in Texas and 100 nationwide to make the list. Doris Miller Junior High was cited because 15 violence incidents were recorded between 1999 and 2002. In Texas, schools are deemed "dangerous" if they report a minimum of three expellable offenses per 1,000 students per year for three years in a row.
As a result of the classification, many parents are transferring their children out of Doris Miller Junior High, as allowed under the law.
Critics of the law said it encourages administrators not to report all the violence that occurs in their schools. They question why more-dangerous schools elsewhere didn't make the list.
"It's very, very difficult to believe that Los Angeles, Calif., doesn't have any schools that are persistently dangerous, given the gang activity in that city," said Kenneth Trump of National School Safety and Security Services, a consulting firm in Cleveland, Ohio.
Experts said that national statistics of school crime show that more schools should have qualified for the "persistently dangerous" classification.
The data shows that in 2000, 72 of every 1,000 students ages 12 through 18 reported being victims of crimes at school.
"It's the scarlet letter in education today," said Trump. "Administrators have said to me privately that they would rather be academically failing than be a dangerous school."
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