Last night the MSAD 9 school board debated a proposal which would require students to waive their rights of privacy and allow school officials complete access to police reports that currently are kept confidential as a matter of law.
Despite the facts that (1) these young students may not yet have been convicted of any offense whatsoever, and (2) any non-felony juvenile charges students face are completely closed to the public by court rules, and (3) police reports in general are broadly protected from public disclosure by current state law, apparently local school officials still feel the need to force this intrusion on their students.
This new proposal is a bad idea. For one thing, there is the presumption of innocence – it is the bedrock of our legal system, and if it applies to adults with long criminal records then there is no reason it shouldn’t similarly protect a 16-year-old field hockey player with a shoplifting allegation. As well, police reports can often be incomplete and sometimes even one-sided. It would be very unfair to be forced to turn over such an otherwise confidential document and then suffer some administrative punishment as a result.
Additionally, particularly when alleged offenses occur in a family setting, police reports can often be rife with personal details about parents or other family members. It may be that in investigating a household charge of assault that issues of substance abuse or medical conditions or spousal disharmony figure largely in the officer’s write-up of the incident. It is hard to imagine that any family wants to give up its privacy rights in these circumstances.
In a perfect world, our children would grow into adults and pass through their high school years without any slips along the way. Unfortunately, the world’s not perfect and some of them will perhaps try alcohol or pot or shoplift or be persuaded to break into the abandoned house down the street. My hope is that any of these one-time transgressions wouldn’t be the basis for depriving a student from being a part of a sports team or a musical or theater group. My hope is that school officials will recognize that the most important thing is for our students to be able to admit their mistakes and learn from them.
Perhaps my view will never be shared by MSAD school officials, but whatever policy they employ to sort out these situations, it should not require students to forfeit important rights which the rest of us will continue to enjoy.
