The mother and family of an eight-grade student at McDonogh City Park Academy in New Orleans are irate after the teenager was put into a cage March 15 for disruptive behavior. The school doesn’t deny he was enclosed inside a fence, but dispute the family characterization of the room the boy was placed in.
The room that Eugene Allen, 14, was detained in resembled a municipal jail, according to the photos the boy took of the location that were shown on WDSU TV. The room appears to have been created with floor-to-ceiling fencing in one corner of a room.
The boy’s mother, Latreshia Davis, said her son was serving an in-school suspension with other students. She said her son told her that he and the other students were put in the cage and left unattended for periods of time, with school officials checking on them periodically.
“This speaks in volumes to me,” Davis said. “It puts things in the kids’ minds saying, ‘You are not worth anything or it’s OK to be behind bars or locked up in a cage.’ It’s so many things, and it hurts my heart because I would not lock my own child in a cage, so I don’t appreciate someone else doing it.”
The head of the charter school board is trying to mop up the mess by stating the school is investigating the matter. “It is true that the room is equipped with a mesh fence, because it was formerly used as an equipment room. At the present time, the gate to the fence is not and cannot be locked. The students were under the supervision of one of our teachers, who was present throughout the entire seven minutes that the students were in the room.”
Officials added that the mesh fence would be removed before the room is used again in such a manner.
It’s a little too late, however. To be caged, or for the boys to feel like they were being jailed for typical teenage delinquencies, far exceeded the supposed transgressions committed. If the boys represent such a threat to the internal stability of the school, then they should receive administrative punishments up to, and including, suspensions and expulsions. The action the school chose to take cannot be rationalized. –terry shropshire
