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Lawmaker: Keep your troublemakers Human services agencies are exporting violent juveniles to unsuspecting school districts By Lee Leonard -Dispatch Statehouse Reporter When Montgomery County Children Services dropped off a first-grader in March for enrollment in Troy city schools, the principal was surprised to learn that the boy had shot his brother to death. The boy also had been suspended from Dayton schools for hitting and kicking, possessing a weapon and throwing furniture, said John E. Miller of the Troy schools. Miller, through state Rep. Robert E. Netzley, R-Laura, is trying to place a provision in the new state budget allowing local boards of education to keep human services agencies from exporting violent juveniles to unsuspecting school districts. "Our school district continues to be targeted by out-of-county juvenile courts, children's services departments and for-profit foster care agencies as fertile territory in which to enroll emotionally troubled and extremely violent children," Miller wrote Netzley. "In addition to posing as a serious threat to the safety of other students, teachers and staff, these children continually disrupt the educational process, act as negative role models for our own marginal kids, (and) are major contributors to discipline situations," he said. Miller cited two dozen cases in which problem youth had been shipped into Troy schools from Cleveland, Springfield, and Columbus. Some assaulted teachers and students, others caused pregnancies. One student "threatened to jump from the second floor of the school, talked to trees at lunch time, cussed, smoked, beat up other students and got drunk, Miller wrote. Miller said two psychiatrist found the boy from Dayton was not fit for public schools; he has been assigned a tutor at his foster home. But Miller said the school district couldn't afford to hire enough people to take care of all the imports. Netzley pushed through an amendment to the budget, House Bill 215, to allow local boards of education to remove disruptive children. But that was changed when the budget reached the Senate. As House Bill 215 now exists in a joint conference committee, a board of education would have to petition a juvenile judge for removal of a child. The board would have to prove that the child is causing a "significant and unreasonable disruption" at the school. Netzley said he wants the budget to return to his original proposal. He refers to "drive-by enrollments" where foster care and children's service agencies drop off the unruly pupils with incomplete paperwork, missing records and little background information on the children. "Some records never show up," Miller said. "You don't know what kinds of problems they've got. They're living with somebody they've never known before, and they don't at know anybody at the school." Jeannette Oxender of the Ohio School Boards Association said counties with residential treatment centers usually are responsible for placing children in schools, but foster care networks may not be as cooperative or supportive. Oxender, who used to work for the Ohio Association of Child Caring Agencies, said some counties don't have facilities for aggressive children, and juvenile judges try to move them to a better environment. Miller said Troy, Piqua, Sidney and other communities along the I-75 corridor are being targeted because they represent "small city, hometown America." "Nobody wants to do anything to hurt these kids. But we need to know what we're getting, and the resources need to be in place." |
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