Pope Francis should make us rethink Louisiana schools’ zero-tolerance policies

Pope Francis knelt before 12 children and washed their feet, choosing to perform the Holy Thursday ritual at a juvenile detention facility in Rome. One of the most important men in the world showed his willingness to serve troubled children, to exhibit the values of compassion and forgiveness that we hold dear in our society.

As Pope Francis visits the U.S. this month, he will spread a message of love, forgiveness and service. It’s the service that makes me sit up and take notice. He didn’t just preach to the children and give them guidance about how they can live better lives. He knelt down and washed their feet. He cared and took action.

I spend a lot of my days talking to people entrusted with educating Louisiana’s children. I’m not just talking about teachers and administrators; but also policymakers, parents, community members and church leaders, all of whom have a stake in the success of all our children — although sometimes they don’t act that way.

In doing this work, I am always struck by the happiness of the little kids who come into my office, often accompanying a parent who is struggling with an older child. The young children are blissful while the older kids usually seem so sad. So often the adults around them have either stopped paying attention, or they have started telling them — in many different ways — that they are not good enough.

Kids believe us when we tell them they matter, but somewhere between toddler and teen we lose them. When we wake up and finally take notice, it’s because they are getting in trouble. Our children are being beaten down instead of built up. One of the places I see this the most is in the schools, especially those with zero-tolerance policies.

Many Louisiana schools are holding kids accountable with zero-tolerance policies. Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC) knows that these policies are misguided and go against normal adolescent development: kids are not problems, kids have problems. A zero-tolerance policy tells a kid “you did something wrong, as adults we don’t care enough about you to help you develop and make better choices and so we don’t want you.” These policies punish students for minor infractions, such as wearing the wrong belt or bringing a toy doll to school, without considering that as adults we can redirect them or that such a behavior may be an indication of problems in their lives.

If we take the time to investigate, we might find that we can help. Maybe a parent needs a job, or a sibling needs addiction counseling, or maybe the student just doesn’t understand algebra and no one takes notice and provides the extra help he/she needs. We could find so many opportunities to intervene positively in these students’ lives, if we just take the time to look.

Instead, these children are kicked out of school. For a day, two days, five days. They miss more algebra, which makes them fall further behind and, even more importantly, they get the message that they don’t deserve our time. Only total compliance will make them worthy of an education. This is not the message we want to send our children.

Some will survive this, others will not! I see a lot of kids overcome tremendous obstacles and go on to higher education, good jobs and stable families. But too many will go from school suspension to expulsion to juvenile detention and, ultimately, into prison. That’s their education: We teach them that they don’t matter and have no place in society.

We need to stop looking just at what kids are doing and, instead, look at what we are doing to children.

There is a long list of things we could do to support our children better. But if we can do just one thing, let’s cut the school-to-prison pipeline off at the source by banning zero-tolerance policies. And let’s support schools by putting effective policies in place to reinforce positive behavior, provide caring discipline, and respond to problems on a case-by-case basis.

Let’s follow Pope Francis’ example by showing children that they are worth our time. Tell your local lawmakers to support children by banning zero-tolerance policies in all K-12 schools. That would be a good start.

– Gina Womack
Executive Director
Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children

This article originally published in the September 28, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.