5 Yr Old Cuffed On Principal's Orders

What has gotten into this principal???!!!!!

St. Louis Charter Principal Put on Leave

By CHERYL WITTENAUER
ST. LOUIS (AP) - The board of a St. Louis charter school on Wednesday placed a principal on leave after he had police handcuff a 5-year-old and drive him around the block in a squad car to curb his unruly behavior.

Principal Sam Morgan is on leave from Thurgood Marshall Academy pending an investigation into last month's incident, board attorney Wayne Harvey said.

Morgan declined to comment Wednesday, but last week said he had spent more time on the boy ``than any kid in this building, trying to steer him straight.''

He said he had police ``put the handcuffs on one arm, put him in the back seat of their car and drive him around a little bit.''

Morgan added: ``This kid is heading for the Department of Corrections at 5. He fights, strikes somebody practically every day on the bus. He's a constant disruption.''

Morgan, a longtime principal at East St. Louis High School in Illinois, also spent eight years working in the Department of Corrections.

The boy's mother, Aroni Rucker, said Wednesday her son had trouble adjusting to his first year of school and may have been disruptive, but he did nothing to warrant such treatment.

``They put handcuffs on my baby,'' Rucker said. ``That's for adults who murder and kill. He's 5. He's in kindergarten.''

Rucker said she was planning to pull the boy and her second-grader from the school at the end of the semester when Morgan told her last week that the kindergartner could not come back.

St. Louis police spokesman Richard Wilkes said the department was looking into the incident. ``Handcuffing 5-year-olds is not a practice of the department,'' he said.

The University of Missouri-St. Louis announced in August that it would end its sponsorship of the charter school, meaning the school must find a new sponsor by June or close. The university placed the school on probation twice, citing fiscal mismanagement, board corruption, poor academic performance and high turnover in leadership - seven principals in five years.

University spokesman Bob Samples, part of the sponsorship team, said only that ``it's inappropriate to handcuff a 5-year-old.''

netrox said:

Tough. He should be handcuffed and understand that it is what happens if he doesn't abide with rules. He was violent. You are gonna let him hurt others? No?

-jeff

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There are much more appropriate ways to teach the kid. Fear does not help a kid stop bullying. Fear only compounds everything.

Any principal should have been able to know many other more feasible ways to deal with the boy.

WHOA!!!

Recently I have read about a little girl who brought a pair of scissors to school, and she was handcuffed.

Maybe we will meet someday.
Better get it into your head who love freedom and those who don't.

The boy was VIOLENT! You get it? He should be handcuffed if he's not controlled. Fear is necessary at times.

And Beowulf, if you have your way, we'd have no freedom because you are so interested in protecting the bad guys. That kid is a brat and deserves a whipping!

-jeff

When I was younger, I had a friend who was having trouble dealing with his parents divorce and started to get into a lot of trouble... He was put in a 'scared straight' program where the kids went into a jail and were scared sheetless by inmates and the guards. He came out a changed person and for the better. It really scared him sheetless and gave showed him what is life would be like in jail. I think the principle had the right intentions but the wrong solution. He saw a kid who was heading down the wrong path and took an extreme measure to thwart it early on.

``They put handcuffs on my baby,'' Rucker said. ``That's for adults who murder and kill. He's 5. He's in kindergarten.''

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Handcuffs aren't just for adults who murder and kill. Many people get handcuffed for different reasons.

If an unruly child is unwilling to abide to the rules and the principal has done what s/he can do but remains unsuccessful. They may have to resort to an extreme solution and find a way of scaring the child and hope that s/he would come to sense of humanity.

Otherwise, the principal would had expelled the student. But a lawsuit would be brought up, so how the hell do you get a child to behave?

If the mother is doing nothing to help, then call the child services on her. I hate it when parents try to put responsibility on the principals and teachers for their children. The mother in the article didn't even assure any responsibility for the child's behaviour. She only said that her son had trouble adjusting to his first year of school and may have been disruptive.

The principal had more to say on that and he would know because he's on-site of the school while the mother isn't.

The principal said this..

Morgan declined to comment Wednesday, but last week said he had spent more time on the boy ``than any kid in this building, trying to steer him straight.''

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I imagine he may had tried to help the kid in many ways. The mother is the responsible one, he must had informed her of the problems and nothing was being done about it.

In this case, the mother need to be held accountable due to not taking responsibility for his son's behaviour. No such burden should be put onto a principal. A principal has many kids to focus on, and he don't have the time to focus on one all of the times.

If I was the principal, I'll just expel the boy. Doesn't matter if he's 5 year old, because if he don't respond to any punishments or warnings, other students are at risk of getting hurt which is already happening according to the article.

Bewulf, kids have to be controlled. They can't be allowed to hurt anybody. This child wouldn't stop hurting people everyday and the mother was doing nothing about it. The principal shouldn't have to take responsibility for this, the mother should.

Handcuffing a girl for bringing a pair of scissors to school is stupid. But if a child don't stop hurting the other children, it is to be taken seriously. The parents must take responsibility and try to educate the child on these issues. The principal isn't responsible for that.

Fear does not help a kid stop bullying. Fear only compounds everything.

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That is ideology, not a fact. One size doesn't fit all. Actually, it is necessary to instill fear in people at times in order to make a positive change.

Taylor, what you said is true. It was an extreme thing to do, but how do we know if it was the wrong solution? All they did was handcuffing the kid and drove around a bit.

It's not like they were going to give him lethal injections. I can see how it would scare a child very much, but who knows? Maybe it did help, but I don't see how it will help now that the mother is trying to punish the principal which is giving the child the wrong idea. Therefore, encouraging the child to do even more bad deeds.

Taylor, what solutions would you suggest?

Good for you, Taylor.
It is my understanding that exaggerating something backfires.
I remember those shows well.
Do you, Taylor?? grrrr

Tell the truth.
Those Scare Me shows backfired.
They committed MORE crime.

There got to be more more than what the artifcle is saying.

It could be part of the woman's fault for her son to be like that way.

I recalled hearing on the local news where the police was called in to handle the little toddler and it turned out he was born to a crack-addict black woman. She was later charged and jailed for endangering the unborn baby.

That little bastard deserved it!

Brian says:

It could be part of the woman's fault for her son to be like that way.



Why blame it all on the mother? Fathers take equal responsiblity too. Perhaps his father abandoned the boy. We do not have any facts so it is not our place to cast judgements on the parents.

Meg said:

Brian says:

It could be part of the woman's fault for her son to be like that way.



Why blame it all on the mother? Fathers take equal responsiblity too. Perhaps his father abandoned the boy. We do not have any facts so it is not our place to cast judgements on the parents.

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Who knows? The father isn't mentioned in the article at all. If the mother is a single parent, then it rests on her. Not the father becaue he isn't in the picture.

Oh my goodness give me a break here the kid is only 5 years old and first time in school? Maybe he doesn't know how to get along with children yet. So don't go around blaming that 5 yrs old kid. geeze!


Brian, Don't go around blaming the mother here, You have no clue what the real story is behind the 5 yrs old and what his problem he is having so don't go jump overboard and amusing people.


I think it was wrong to put a handcuff on a 5 yrs old he is too young! I have never heard a child that young with handcuff, That is child abuse!

Taylor said:

He was put in a 'scared straight' program where the kids went into a jail and were scared sheetless by inmates and the guards. He came out a changed person and for the better.

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I remember that there was a lot of interest in the Scared Straight program in the late 70’s and early 80’s. A lot of people (including some of my professors) were touting it as a highly effective deterrent to future criminal behavior. Didn’t subsequent studies show, however, that the Scared Straight program was only minimally effective?

Cheri said:

Oh my goodness give me a break here the kid is only 5 years old and first time in school? Maybe he doesn't know how to get along with children yet. So don't go around blaming that 5 yrs old kid. geeze!

Brian, Don't go around blaming the mother here, You have no clue what the real story is behind the 5 yrs old and what his problem he is having so don't go jump overboard and amusing people.

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The mother in the article showed no signs of taking responsibility for her son's behaviours, period. Therefore, she is part of the blame, period. Parents need to learn to accept the responsibility of their children and not to put it on their principals or teachers.

The problem is, this child had been constantly getting in trouble according to the principal. The mother said absolutely nothing of doing anything to improve the situation. She only mentioned of the problem, but she described it as a small problem. To the school, it is a big problem because they cannot have the child hitting other children just for the heck of it. The child is a liability to the school.

I think it was wrong to put a handcuff on a 5 yrs old he is too young! I have never heard a child that young with handcuff, That is child abuse!

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Is putting a pair of handcuffs onto a 6 year old child for murder a form of child abuse?

http://capub.aol.ca/netcenter/news/topstory/

Answer the question please.

The problem I have with the mother is, as I said earlier in this thread. She is sending the WRONG message to her son by getting the principal punished for his actions.

It just encourages him to do even more bad deeds because the mother will try to press charges, punish, and more against the principal or teachers who tries to punish the student when needed.

Today, God forbid that a child be sent to its room for a time-out because it's just plainly child abuse. People are over-protective of the children, period.

No wonder why a lot of children are so rude today.

Banjo,

Matter of facts I have a son who goes to school with this kid who been in trouble since first grade, He always has a desk by the teacher's desk because of his problems with not keeping himself under control. But, they still let him in school. It is not the parent fault. Sometimes Kids end up being bad on their own it's true! Have you ever watched a show that had bad kids who abused their own parent and even their brothers and sisters and the Parent doesn't even know why the child acts that way. That 5 yrs old boy needs professional help yes but putting handcuff on the boy is wrong period!

Number two. If a child murdered someone that a totally different story.

Cheri said:

Have you ever watched a show that had bad kids who abused their own parent and even their brothers and sisters and the Parent doesn't even know why the child acts that way. That 5 yrs old boy needs professional help yes but putting handcuff on the boy is wrong period!

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The parents don't even know why the child acts that way? Perhaps they need to learn the word, discipline. Once the child act up, don't let the child get away with it.

Once you let a child get away with it, it'll get worse. It's very rare for a child to go bad for no reason. Yes, there has been cases of that happening, but it's very rare. Talk shows often distort these facts and show them as if they were posessed by the devil.

I don't believe most of the crap I see on Montel or any of these talk shows. They often don't bring up the facts, just the sob stories.

The majority of child problems rest on the parents.

Banjo said:

The problem I have with the mother is, as I said earlier in this thread. She is sending the WRONG message to her son by getting the principal punished for his actions.

It just encourages him to do even more bad deeds because the mother will try to press charges, punish, and more against the principal or teachers who tries to punish the student when needed.

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Because the Principal did the wrong thing, You don't punishment a child by touching a child such as handcuffs, beaten, spanking, hitting, etc.. If I was a mother and if the Principal did that to my son, I will press charge! Nobody touch my child but me.

Today, God forbid that a child be sent to its room for a time-out because it's just plainly child abuse. People are over-protective of the children, period

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That is not child abused I don't know where u getting that information from, But the only thing most people today say that spanking is child abused not time-outs.