The state Capitol featured theatrics Wednesday, but not on the Assembly floor.In a committee room, student actors put on a 10-minute play called "Willful," in which a black high school student named Tom heads to the principal's office for yet another disciplinary action. His mother is sick, and his family has problems at home.
Tom expects a suspension. But this time, Principal Burton decides to send the student to counseling and urges him to seek similar help whenever he's feeling troubled.
That sympathetic response happens too rarely, according to the Black Parallel School Board and Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, among those who brought the play to the Capitol on Wednesday. Nearly half the 2,200 students suspended from California schools each day are punished for "willful defiance,"