Help protect and prevent Pre-School children from being arrested

Help protect and prevent Pre-School children from being arrested and possibly face criminal charges for merely behaving badly and having a temper tantrum while attending elementary school.

On Oct 12,2010,a Police Officer from the Fort Pierce Police Department was called to a local elementary school in response to a disturbance.

"An unruly 5-year-old student has been suspended from Garden City Early Learning Academy after he threw a toy car at one student and kicked a teacher and the principal after they intervened."

The Officer reported that the child could have faced battery charges but he did not charge the youth, and he was released to his parent. A better choice would have been to notify the parent first, before wasting an emergency call on something that could have been handled by the school administration or paternal intervention.

Although this behavior is unacceptable and inexcusable, it is also unethical to seek legal intervention in situations such as this; as the child was not an immediate threat or danger to safety and well-being of the public. It is a 5 year old child for crying aloud who kicked a couple of adults in the shins!
Any child under the age of 18 years can be legally charged with a criminal offense in the State of Florida and detained in a Juvenile Detention Center.

Any responsible and mature adult who has wilfully taken on the responsibility of educating and caring for children should be properly trained and competent enough to know how to deescalate an irate child or at least handled this issue in a more appropriate manner.

Perhaps a more sensible and logical approach would have been to:
1. Verbally reprimand
2. Isolate to an in-school detention classroom
3. Suspension
4. Notify the parents/guardians
5. Only call Law Enforcement as a last resort for absolutely necessary and unavoidable circumstances.

It is very unprofessional to take advantage of a resource that should only be used as a last resort, after exhausting all other means of relief.

We ask the School Board Administration to establish a standardize procedure for handling cases such as this. We also request that our educators and administrators receive sensitivity awareness training to help them to be more proficient and sympathetic to the needs of their students, regardless if they are the best or worst behaved. Behaving badly does not make a Pre-K child a criminal that deserves to be treated as such. He/she is merely a tyrant that needs appropriate discipline and guidance.