Local opinion: Sharing student data poses risks

Re: the March 4 article “TUSD to share data with the goal of reducing juvenile crime, helping youths.”

On March 4, the Daily Star reported on an agreement between Tucson Unified School District and the Pima County Juvenile Court Center to share information about students involved in the juvenile justice system. While I applaud both TUSD and PCJCC for their commitment to providing specialized resources to children in our community who may be most in need of support, this data-sharing plan raises three important issues.

First, the scope of information to be shared appears broader than the Daily Star reported. According to the text of the plan, TUSD can provide PCJCC with detailed information not only about students arrested for school-based offenses, but any student suspended or expelled from TUSD — regardless of age or severity of the offense. A second-grader suspended for a computer network violation, for example, could have their personal information, including discipline records and special education documents, sent to the juvenile court. And PCJCC can send information to TUSD about their students who are arrested, even if the offense is unrelated to school. This raises the stakes for childhood misbehavior and risks undermining children’s privacy.

Second, sending data about students to PCJCC may result in harsher punishments. After reading a student’s discipline file, a probation officer might conclude that the child needs more intensive intervention than otherwise would be warranted. Although this approach could provide additional services to some children, it might also result in unnecessarily harsh consequences. This is particularly concerning because school discipline lacks due process protections that are present in delinquency cases, and students might not have a meaningful opportunity to contest the school’s accusation.

I direct the Education Advocacy Clinic at the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law, and we represent Tucson-area children in school discipline proceedings. In our experience, students facing disciplinary hearings are typically not told who their accusers are; the names of witnesses or participants in a behavioral incident are redacted in school documents. Suspensions or expulsions might rest on second-hand information, and the burden of proof in disciplinary hearings is much lower than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard in delinquency cases. Many students facing school disciplinary hearings feel the process is unfair.

PCJCC should take school disciplinary records with a grain of salt, understanding that school-based investigations are not as thorough as those conducted by the police and that discipline hearings miss hallmarks of due process that are present in a courtroom.

Third, the data likely reveal as much about schools as about the children themselves. The line between student misbehavior and criminal activity can be blurry, and some schools report their students to the police for behavior that other schools would handle in the principal’s office. Some school administrators might address a schoolyard scuffle in the principal’s office, while others report their students to the police for assault. As it turns out, most school-based law enforcement referrals are for misdemeanor offenses, including assault, disorderly conduct, or disruption of an educational institution. Often, how a school reacts to student misbehavior determines whether the child becomes involved in the justice system — an outcome that can have lifelong consequences.

I anticipate that data collected under this agreement will reveal which TUSD schools are most likely to lean on law enforcement measures instead of adopting de-escalation strategies and school-based solutions to student misbehavior. My hope is that TUSD uses this information to develop targeted strategies supporting the schools that frequently refer their students to the police, building their capacity to handle behavior concerns at the school level instead of resorting to law enforcement intervention.

Both TUSD and PCJCC work tirelessly to support children in our communities. In implementing this plan, I urge TUSD and PCJCC to consider the risks that sharing information like this can pose and to limit the use of this data when making decisions about individual children.