Kentucky Thinks Maybe Treating Children Like Armed PCP Freaks Not Such A Great Idea After All

This is way overdue. Spitball behavior that in my day was addressed with a sharp reprimand and after-school detention is today referred to militarized police euphemistically named "School Resource Officers."

Kids in Kentucky today are sent to juvenile detention - another euphemism: "juvenile detention facilities" are prisons in all but name - for talking back to teachers.

Anything short of perfectly obedient corporate drone behavior is punished with abuse no judge would tolerate if meted out to adults, because adults have constitutional rights. Children don't.

From the Courier:

While there is no Kentucky law governing how schools use restraint or seclusion, more efforts are being made to guide schools on properly using restraint and seclusion tactics with seemingly uncontrollable or difficult to manage children.



The state Department of Education, for example, is proposing administrative regulations creating guidelines for the use of restraint and seclusion in schools, as well as requirements for training teachers on de-escalating and other techniques, and practices for informing parents.



The regulations would allow physical restraint of students only when the child’s behavior poses imminent danger of serious physical harm.

“The only intervention the proposed (Kentucky) regulations prohibit are those types of restraints that have been proven to kill children,” said Lucy Heskins, attorney for the Kentucky Department of Protection and Advocacy. “The regulation does not prevent teachers from breaking up fights or intervening with students who are misbehaving or destroying school property.”

An enforceable definition of "imminent danger of serious physical harm" and a requirement for more than one adult witness are essential - leaving that open to interpretation by stressed-out teachers and principals is the same as having no definition or requirement at all..