Dismantling Our Public Schools
– Cheryl Ortega
Under what circumstances should the police be called on a five-year-old child? According to parents at Mayberry Elementary School in the Silver Lake/Echo Park area of Los Angeles, the principal has called the Los Angeles Police Department about students under her charge on six different occasions. In one incident, a kindergarten student was questioned by police after he “pulled his pants down to a playmate”. When the boy’s mother, Britney Ingram, attempted to find out what was happening, she was told by the officers that the matter was a “confidential problem”, that she could not “be present while they questioned her son” and “that if her son did not testify they would take him to the police station.” Another parent who attempted to record the events was removed from the school at the direction of the principal despite the fact that she “was a registered [school] visitor at the time this happened”.
If Ingram lived in one of the six Board Districts that currently has an elected representative on the School Board, she could have sought assistance from this Board Member. Unfortunately for her, she lives in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board District 5, the area CONTINUE READING: Dismantling Our Public Schools