Teens beat up a girl in McDonalds, get arrested. In school, a suspension - maybe.

[parentologist]

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The only thing about this that's newsworthy is that, since it happened in a restaurant, not in a school, and was caught on videotape, the assailants are being arrested. Had it happened in school, the girls would have only been suspended, possibly the victim, too. Inside school - a disciplinary matter. Outside school - a crime.

Unfortunately, for many kids, this is the reality of their school day, every day. They have to worry about being assaulted in school. They are frequently threatened with assault, and on occasion actually assaulted. And their assailants are not arrested and prosecuted - they are at best suspended, if they get caught. Imagine if you had to go to work in an environment where your coworkers frequently threatened to assault you, and sometimes did. And if you went to complain to your boss, you were told that it was partially your own fault, that if you only acted a certain way, or dressed a certain way, or had the right friends, that you wouldn't get threatened and assaulted. Of course, since the boss isn't going to get rid of the assailants, you might not even go to complain, out of fear that you would surely be assaulted again for "snitching". That's school for some kids. Who could blame them for dropping out?

We need to deal with in-school threats of assault and actual assaults, the same way that we deal with them outside of school. Arrest the perpetrators and prosecute them. Imagine if we dealt with forcible rape in school as a matter for the school to handle, with a suspension for the perpetrator, instead of.... oh, wait, I forgot, we DO have that same issue going on - on our college campuses. With a hearing for the proposed perpetrator, and perhaps a leave of absence, instead of an arrest and a trial.