KENT – Security officers with the Kent School District may continue to use handcuffs when restraining students, the school board decided.
“Our bottom line is to provide a safe, secure learning environment and working environment for all of our students and all of our staff,” board member Sandy Collins said Wednesday before the unanimous vote in favor of the policy.
The school board’s decision ignores a recommendation of an independent review panel that the policy be abandoned.
Superintendent Barbara Grohe appointed the panel in response to allegations that guards have used excessive force in disciplining black students, who make up about 10 percent of the district’s 26,000 students.
Parents of 14 black children have filed complaints against the school district seeking a total of $46.4 million in damages. They claim security officers pulled hair, twisted arms and handcuffed students as young as 11 years old.
Cheryl Green, the stepmother of a Kentridge High School student named in one of the complaints, was unhappy with the board’s decision.
“It’s not what you use, it’s how you use them,” Green said. “If they don’t know how to use (handcuffs) properly, then they shouldn’t use them.”
In its recommendation to the district, the panel said schools should call in the police if weapons or physical restraints are necessary to quell a threat.
After receiving the panel’s report May 26, the school board met to revise the security policy. However, a letter from Grohe accompanying the report questioned possible consequences if officers waited for police to arrive.
The Seattle chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has called for Grohe’s resignation. The group will sue the district if claims are not resolved, said Carl Mack, chapter president.
Kent, unlike other districts that rely on local law enforcement, uses its own security officers to patrol its schools.
In March, administrators estimated officers used handcuffs three or four times at each of the district’s 11 secondary schools.
At the time, the district did not keep precise records because handcuffs were considered a means of restraint. Under new record-keeping procedures, officials have tallied 15 such incidents, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Thursday.
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