In a letter sent to Pawtucket school district superintendent Patti DiCenso on Tuesday and shared with school superintendents across the state, ACLU of RI Executive Director Steven Brown noted that school districts cede an “enormous amount of control” when they sign Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) with police departments, and that this “unnecessarily set the stage for last week’s series of ill-fated events” in which an SRO’s attempt to handle a single student’s behavioral issue led to the injury and arrest of the student and his brother, the arrest of eight other individuals, and the pepper spraying of numerous youth.

Reviewing the MOU in effect in 2011 between the Pawtucket school district and the police department, the ACLU noted that it designates the SRO as the school’s “law enforcement unit” who reports to the police department, not the school principal. In fact, the MOU authorizes the SRO to remove a student from school without notifying school officials, and, if the SRO charges a student with a crime, requires the principal to support the officer’s decision in any legal proceedings.

The Pawtucket MOU further specifies that all SRO assignment and retention decisions are made at the complete discretion of the Chief of Police, not school officials. In addition, while the MOU recognizes the importance of selecting officers with demonstrated abilities and skills in working with students, officers are not required to receive any training on addressing behavioral issues or understanding the needs of students. The ACLU questioned how seriously those interests and skills are considered in light of the fact that the SRO at the center of last week’s incident had been investigated for a videotaped incident in which he pepper-sprayed and repeatedly hit a man with his baton just months before he was assigned to the high school.

In the letter to Supt. DiCenso, the ACLU’s Brown stated: “Despite the tremendous power that SROs wield in an educational environment, your school district’s MOU allows police officers to walk the halls of schools with little responsibility to school officials themselves. That is because, at bottom, they serve the police, not the school.”

The letter acknowledged that Pawtucket should not be singled out for such problems. A 2011 review by the ACLU of SRO use across the state found that many school departments had similar “one-sided” MOUs and that there were many incidents in which the presence of a police officer escalated a student’s minor infraction, such as wearing a hat in school, into an arrest for disorderly conduct.

“When a student’s immature behavior is addressed by a law enforcement official trained in criminality and arrest, not in getting to the root of a behavioral issue, neither the child nor the school is well served. In short, the presence of SROs redefines as criminal justice problems behavior issues that may be rooted in social, psychological or academic problems, for which involvement in the juvenile justice system is hardly the solution,” Brown stated in the letter.

The letter called on school districts to take responsibility for the police officers in their schools in order to prevent incidents similar to last week’s from happening again. In a series of recommendations, the ACLU urged Pawtucket and any other school departments that continue to use SROs to revise their MOUs to ensure school officials have a meaningful role in the selection of SROs and that, absent a real and immediate threat, school officials, not police, handle all disciplinary matters. The MOUs, the ACLU said, should also require SROs to receive annual training on issues such as restorative justice and adolescent development and psychology; establish clear limits on the use of force; and put in place simple procedures for students to raise concerns about the SRO.

Following delivery of the ACLU’s letter, a news article in the Valley Breeze indicated that Pawtucket school officials plan to review their agreement with the police department. The ACLU welcomes Pawtucket officials and officials from any other district re-evaluating their policies to contact its office for guidance.

[From an RI ACLU press release]

According to student Layla Vafiadis, English teacher William Ashton was teaching a class on early American literature at the Jacqueline Walsh Arts School for the Performing and Visual Arts (JMW). In a discussion about the Virginians, the Mayflower and William Bradford, Vafiadis asked about the availability of birth control back then. She didn’t think the question was a big deal.

“All that was mentioned was that back then they had a chemical that was used to kill off sperm and that was it. And he said that back then some people might view it as abortion.”

Vafiadis is not mad at whoever made the complaint, but she is angry that one of her favorite teachers may potentially lose his job for answering a question she asked. She wonders why she isn’t allowed to ask certain questions in class.

The students were taken out of class on Monday and into a meeting with Pawtucket Superintendent Patti DiCenso. Students say DiCenso told them they were being inappropriate and shouldn’t be protesting. They were also told they shouldn’t be bullying the student who made the complaint, though that never happened, and the students are only protesting the suspension of William Ashton, not the student who brought the complaint.

Isabelle Long was in the class during the discussion. The comments happened on either a Monday or a Friday, she said. She can’t remember exactly because the comments didn’t make that much of an impact on her. Long says that the class was talking about the Puritans and their conservative beliefs and “how that plays nowadays.”

According to Long, at the meeting the students had with Superintendent DiCenso on Monday, they were told they shouldn’t be protesting and that they were only “harming Mr. Ashton” in doing so. Two students, Maggie Roberts and Hope Norton, were separated from they others and told that they were bullying the other students into protesting.

DiCenso told the students that Ashton had “strayed from the curriculum” but Long asked, “Does the curriculum say what questions we are allowed to ask?”

Hope Norton was one of the two students (the other was Maggie Roberts) who organized the original Bring Back Ashton back in March when he was suspended for his comments about PARCC testing. Hope assumes she and Maggie Roberts were separated from the group because DiCenso is angry about their role in organizing the previous rally. DiCenso has blocked Roberts from accessing her Twitter page. (I have also been blocked.) Given that DiCenso’s Twitter account is @PawtucketSup, an account she uses for outreach to the public in her official capacity as superintendent and not a personal account, the blocking of one of her students is problematic. (Blocking me, on the other hand, is no big deal.)

DiCenso told Norton and Roberts that they were being bullies because they were demanding the return of their teacher and threatening to peacefully protest if he wasn’t reinstated, they said. This is not bullying, this is organizing. One would hope that a superintendent of schools would understand what bullying is and isn’t.

Ashton is, by all reports, an amazingly popular teacher. Norton remembers Ashton telling her that teen pregnancy hurts a young woman’s chances of having a college career. She was not very happy that she was going through this again.

Patti DiCenso’s office will only confirm that a teacher has been placed on paid administrative leave, and will not give the name of the teacher or discuss the nature of the offense.

A high school  English teacher in Pawtucket has been suspended from his job for mentioning birth control in class during a discussion of the Puritans, says students who are organizing a protest on his behalf.

William Ashton, who teaches at the Jacqueline Walsh Arts School for the Performing and Visual Arts (JMW) has been placed on leave, according to the “Bring Back Ashton” Facebook page maintained by students Hope Norton and Maggie Roberts. Superintendent Patti DiCenso’s office (401-729-6332 / dicensop@psdri.net) confirmed a teacher from JMW has been placed on “administrative leave, pending review” but when I asked about the identity of the teacher and the reason for the review, I was told, “no comment.”

Students are planning a protest tomorrow at JMW after school, starting at 2:20pm.

The Facebook page offers possible clues as to why Ashton is being disciplined:

During one of his classes last Monday the topic of sex and birth control was brought up while talking about the Puritans and one student got upset by this, she has not been in school since. Today Ashton was not in school and students that were in that class were questioned individually, what happened in class, were you offended and did you tell your parents what happened.”

William Ashton is also not speaking to the press at this time.

In a Facebook conversation, Hope Norton told me that school officials held a meeting today with students, “but they separated Maggie and I from the rest of the group and tried to tell us we weren’t helping Ashton and that we were being bullies. They want us to keep quiet but we aren’t!”

Back in March, Ashton was escorted off school grounds for telling students that opting out of PARCC testing would not affect school funding. A student lead protest and media attention preceded Ashton’s reinstatement.

Students at Jacqueline Walsh Arts School for the Performing and Visual Arts (JMW) in Pawtucket are protesting the suspension of William Ashton, a favorite English teacher. About 30 students gathered on the sidewalk before and after school to demand Ashton’s immediate reinstatement. Spokespersons Hope Norton and Maggie Roberts vow that the protests will continue until Ashton is back.

According to students, William Ashton was escorted off the school premises by “people in suits” after he told students that school funding will not be affected by student’s opting out of the controversial PARCC testing. Another teacher had informed the students that if 95 percent of the students did not take the test, funding would be cut and the school would be closed. After telling his students that this wasn’t the case, Ashton was escorted from the school grounds halfway through the next period.

Calls and emails to the office of Pawtucket School Superintendent Patti DiCenso have gone unanswered.

The kids have shown a real talent for organizing and utilizing online social networks. The BRING BACK MR. ASHTON Facebook page has 2,300+ likes as of this writing and an online petition has 600+ signatures. The kids have developed a Twitter hashtag, #‎BringBackAshton and have collected hundreds of dollars on GoFundMe for tee shirts.

From everyone I talked to I got the impression that William Ashton is exactly the kind of teacher you want in your school. After watching the video, consider contacting Superintendent DiCenso (401-729-6332 / dicensop@psdri.net) and supporting these kids.