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NC law requires attending public school, private school, or home school until age 16. Wealthy families can afford private school and simultaneous mental health treatment. That's not to say that troubled teens from wealthy homes never commit felonies, but those kids have better options. Working-class families seldom can afford private school or mental health treatment, much less both. Many of the expelled kids will be nominally home schooled until 16 and shortly thereafter reach adulthood with little or no mental health treatment and few if any skills to support themselves.
*shrug*
What's the alternative? They've already proven to be a threat to other people's children, so they shouldn't be sent back.
The problem and solution are far deeper, but one thing is for sure they shouldn't be allowed back into school. Maybe that will provide some incentive for parents/guardians to try and drive the point home.
I agree they should be taken out of school -- just like a kid who has a contagious disease should be taken out of school. In both cases, though, when treatment is successful, the kid goes back in. What "success" means, how is it determined, who pays for it, who has custody of the kid while treatment is underway, and what happens when there is no success... those are the hard questions. My impression is that most kids show symptoms long before they do something bad enough to get themselves suspended from school or brought into juvenile justice. Not always, but often. Parents are reluctant to address the problem for a variety of reasons (denial, lack of understanding of mental illness, fear that their own parental mistakes will be uncovered, fear of having someone else take authority over the kid, no availability of mental healthcare, mistrust of the system, etc). The schools aren't resourced to do it, and community mental health services are basically a joke. So, we wait until something happens, send our thoughts and prayers to the victims, send the kid into the juvenile justice system without actually accomplishing anything except getting him off the street, and someday spend a ton of money to house the untreated in adult prisons from which they will ultimately be released into recidivism.
I agree they should be taken out of school -- just like a kid who has a contagious disease should be taken out of school. In both cases, though, when treatment is successful, the kid goes back in. What "success" means, how is it determined, who pays for it, who has custody of the kid while treatment is underway, and what happens when there is no success... those are the hard questions. My impression is that most kids show symptoms long before they do something bad enough to get themselves suspended from school or brought into juvenile justice. Not always, but often. Parents are reluctant to address the problem for a variety of reasons (denial, lack of understanding of mental illness, fear that their own parental mistakes will be uncovered, fear of having someone else take authority over the kid, no availability of mental healthcare, mistrust of the system, etc). The schools aren't resourced to do it, and community mental health services are basically a joke. So, we wait until something happens, send our thoughts and prayers to the victims, send the kid into the juvenile justice system without actually accomplishing anything except getting him off the street, and someday spend a ton of money to house the untreated in adult prisons from which they will ultimately be released into recidivism.
I definitely agree - if the child is proven to be "better", then by all means bring them back. Like you said though it's not that simple.
The problem is, while no doubt there is true mental illness involved in at least some of these cases, I think the more common problem is the parents. A child who has parents that may or may not be involved, haven't taught them right from wrong, are bad examples themselves, isn't mentally ill in my opinion. They just haven't been brought up well, and are likely surrounded by family and friends who have led them down the incorrect path. Social media, movies, video games, etc certainly don't help from a normalizing violence perspective.
That may be even harder to fix than someone who is truly mentally ill.
I definitely agree - if the child is proven to be "better", then by all means bring them back. Like you said though it's not that simple.
The problem is, while no doubt there is true mental illness involved in at least some of these cases, I think the more common problem is the parents. A child who has parents that may or may not be involved, haven't taught them right from wrong, are bad examples themselves, isn't mentally ill in my opinion. They just haven't been brought up well, and are likely surrounded by family and friends who have led them down the incorrect path. Social media, movies, video games, etc certainly don't help from a normalizing violence perspective.
That may be even harder to fix than someone who is truly mentally ill.
Agree with this. Young kids bringing guns to school is not a mental health problem, it's a parent problem. Same with any other weapon and while this is all getting a lot of play right now, we all know it's not new, it's just getting a lot of attention. We also know it's not the only weapon coming into school.
Honestly the clear bag policy in force at almost every stadium and arena may be the best solution, if people don't want metal detectors (which may not be feasible anyway).
Yeah, that's not the main issue but look at what happens in the US - all these toddlers and 6 year olds get a hold of guns and bring them to school? 120 guns per person, way ahead of any other place on Earth.
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