The school to prison pipeline just got a whole lot shorter
Listen… do you hear it? CLICK! Buzzzzz... Whirrr… Do you see it? Locks! Cameras! Action!
All across America public schools are looking more like prisons. With every school shooting more and more security measures are being put in place, and that effort ratcheted up exponentially after the massacre at Newtown. But who pays, and at what cost?
My school district is spending $300,000 on security upgrades, including hiring a security consultant to do a top-to-bottom review of our entire district. This isn’t unusual. The new normal in American schools is more cameras, more monitors, more locks, more check-in procedures, and more—and new—security drills.
$300,000 is a lot of money to a school district. Where does it come from? Well, when Gov. Christie slashed education spending and called back school surpluses in 2010, my district laid off about 8 teachers and outsourced all 62 of our special education aides. Many of the aides were certified teachers who had worked with our neediest students for years, and all were making a modest salary with benefits. Almost all left rather than work for half the pay and no benefits. Turnover is high now because $10 an hour is not a sustainable wage for someone looking to make a career in education.
My point is not to dredge up the past. At the time I was very critical of my school district, but that’s water under the bridge. My point is that we all pay with the continued loss of staff and services at our schools because these security upgrades are not required by the state. But no superintendent in their right mind wants another Newtown. And parents must have the peace of mind knowing their children are safe for 7 hours a day. But with Gov. Christie slashing school funding by billions, and a 2% property tax cap now the law in New Jersey, school districts are scrambling to find the money to pay for all this. In the meantime the day-to-day operations of our public schools have suffered: teachers, classes and after school activities have never been fully restored, and fees to parents for