Beaufort County Schools make the New York Times | Eastern North Carolina Now

     Beaufort County Schools has made the New York Times. The Times is running a story on the extensive use of suspensions and expulsions in the nation's schools and the disproportionate impact of these methods of punishment on minority students. The local case they cite is the Southside suspensions in 2008, which have been extensively covered here.

     You can review one of the summative articles we did, including a link to view a video of the fight that got the two girls kicked out of school for the year by clicking here.

    The case is being heard in the N. C. Supreme Court Monday. The court is expected to hand down a decision within three to four months.

    Viktoria King (pictured above and in the NYT article) was one of the students kicked out of Beaufort County Schools for the remainder of the year. In the video at the link above, Viktoria is the girl in the fight with the white shirt on. The girl with the orange jacket and blue shirt is Jessica Hardy the other student involved in Monday's court hearing and referenced in the NYT article.

    When asked why she has pushed to case all the way to the Supreme Court, Viktoria King's mother, Revondia Barrow said: "we tried everything we could possibly do to get the School Board to give us a fair hearing but they never would. I did not object to my daughter being punished. I punished her myself. But to punish her much more severely than other students when she was actually jumped while some who planned, organized and provoked the fights that day were back in school within a few days was just not right. Then when the Superintendent and School Board refused to tell us why they had such disparities in the punishments we had no other choice but to go to court. The issue is not whether the students should have been punished. The issue is the fairness of the punishments. What the principal and superintendent did was wrong and the School Board just ignored our pleas for fair treatment."

    "I hope the outcome of this entire situation will be to cause schools to treat students fairly. If they need to be punished, punish them. Even if students make a mistake they should still have access to educational services. In this case those services were available at the Alternative School but some of these students were not allowed to go there, yet others were. The school system should have some rational basis for punishing some much more severely than others for essentially the same offense. That's the School Board's job to see that every student is treated fairly under the policies they adopt." Ms. Barrow said.

    Commentary

    In the NYT piece School Board Chairman Robert Belcher seeks to justify the punishment of Viktoria being the same as Jessica's and other students receiving considerably less significant punishments as because the principal's judgment was what the School Board (or Mr. Belcher--who ran the hearings) based its decision on. The obvious problem with that is that it is the School Board's job to review appeals of administrative decisions and base its decision on the evidence presented.

    Ms. Barrow told us that she asked them in the hearing to review the video but Mr. Belcher denied that appeal. Absent any other evidence it seems clear to us that Viktoria was attacked and that she was more a victim than an instigator. Jessica was headed toward the bus parking lot as the video begins. She turns around, going against the flow of traffic, walks several yards toward Viktoria, throws her jacket down and goes after Viktoria. It appears from the video that Viktoria simply defended herself.

    School officials to this day have refused to disclose the punishment of the students involved, much less the basis in policy for the wide variations in punishments. We can also report that Ms. Barrow requested a public hearing so the evidence could be reported by the press and known by the public, but Mr. Belcher refused to allow that. We believe to this day that had the School Board had all of the evidence presented in an open hearing that the evidence would not have supported the principal's decision and would have shown that the extreme punishment could not be supported by the evidence.

    But the fairness of the hearing is not being heard by the Supreme Court Monday. The issue there is confined to whether alternative services should be provided any student suspended for long terms such they they lose the year's credits.

    It has often been said "bad cases make good law and good cases make bad law" (when ruled on by an appellant court). If that is true in this case we will get some good law from the Supreme Court's decision. The Beaufort Administration and School Board handled this situation very badly. And as seen in Mr. Belcher's comments in the NYT piece, they continue to do so.

    Mr. Belcher's justification is that it would cost too much to educate students suspended. In fact, it would not have cost the school system any more to educate Viktoria and Jessica in the Alternative School than it already cost to operate that school. Mr. Belcher knows that. He is throwing up a Paper Tiger argument. All of these students had already "drawn down" the ADM money for their education for the entire year. So when the school system kicked them out, they took money the State gave to them to educate these students and spent it for something else. And we're not talking an insignificant amount of money. Just for these two students it amounts to over $8000 BCS had that it spent somewhere other than on these students' education. Just one more example of how disengenuous Mr. Belcher is in his "explanation."

    For those who really want to sink their teeth into this case you can read the briefs here. The link will take you to the Appeals courts library. Look on the left sidebar for "search" and click on that button. That should open a window that allows you to search the dockets. In the box for "Case Number" enter "480A09". That should pull up a page with all of the documents that have been filed in the case (King v. Beaufort Cty. BOE). The brief with the student's case was "Appellants's Brief" filed on 12-21-09. The School Board's brief is the "Appellee Brief" filed 1-21-10. "Amicus Briefs" are "friend of the court" brief filed by various parties with an interest in the case. The one we feel that is most instructive is the brief filed by former Supreme Court Justice Orr. Enjoy.

    Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.