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When the School Rejects a Kid, What Next?

Ohanian Comment: The community should be up in arms about the expulsion of students. If they don't want to look at the humanitarian aspects, certainly the practical aspects of kids wandering the streets should bother them. And those kids grow up to be unemployable adults. What then? Taking no chances is not an appropriate philosophy for working with students. Life is a risk. Why should school be any different?

DURHAM -- Before he was kicked out of high school last month, Kendrick Lamont Mason didn't know whether he was in ninth or 10th grade.
Kendrick, 16, did know he had a reputation as a troublemaker. Still, he doesn't understand why the school board is so afraid of him.
"They're trying to pin this gang stuff on me," Kendrick said.

In its antigang campaign, the Durham Public Schools system has made an example of Kendrick Lamont Mason.

Though violent acts reported in Durham schools declined last year, school officials are convinced they're battling a gang insurgency. They offer few details, but their actions show they're taking no chances.

A fight and an ensuing lunchroom fracas at Jordan High School were so disturbing to the new principal and his bosses in the central office that they suspended 16 students for 365 days and asked the Durham school board to do something it had never done: throw students out of school, forever.

Last month, the board reviewed dozens of pages of confidential disciplinary and academic records before voting 4-3 to expel Kendrick and two other students.

"This should be taken as a clear message to the whole community that this is very serious business," board member Phillis Scott said. "In some ways, it's not in his best interest. But it could be in his best interest if he sees this as a real wake-up call."

Superintendent Ann Denlinger could not be reached for comment. The school system has remained tight-lipped about the gang problem and why the three students were considered so dangerous.

But Denlinger sent a letter to parents of middle school and high school students last month encouraging parents to demand that schools not succumb to "gang-related activities."

Lots of spare time

Kendrick lives with his grandmother, Irene Mason, in a small house the color of pistachio ice cream in Durham's West End neighborhood. Two certificates on the wall commend Kendrick and his grandmother for 10 years of participation in a Duke University program to prevent aggressive, antisocial behavior in at-risk youth. They graduated in May.

It was Mason, a tiny, hunched woman of 60, who brought Kendrick home from the hospital after he was born and reared him until he was 12. He then moved in with his mother, but they clashed and he returned to Mason in December. No one knows where his father is, Mason said.

With lots of spare time now, Kendrick plays basketball and video games and races other boys in the neighborhood. In a recent interview, he said he doesn't know what he's going to do.

He once was wild at Jordan, he admits, always in trouble. He won't say whether he is in a gang. But this year was different, he said.

"I was trying to change, but they automatically have it in their head that I'm the same boy from last year," he said. "Last year, I was doing all that tough stuff, but this year I just wanted to do my work and graduate from high school."

Law enforcement officers have a different perspective.

On Sept. 9, police said, Kendrick and another student began fighting, cursing and flashing gang signs. The next day, during lunch, two groups of students in white T-shirts stormed the cafeteria and pushed and shoved each other until sheriff's deputies calmed the situation. As a result, Principal David Christenbury banned white T-shirts for the rest of the year.

Kendrick said he never threw a punch. Still, he was charged with felony inciting to riot and a misdemeanor charge of resisting an officer. On Oct. 1, the felony charge was reduced to a misdemeanor, and he was sentenced to 20 days in jail with credit for time served. The other charge was dismissed.

Sheriff's Deputy Hampton Robinson Jr., the school resource officer who arrested him, said he first met Kendrick Sept. 8, when he had to end an argument between Kendrick and a group of students.

The next morning, the same thing happened. Then, in the afternoon, there was trash-talking and gang hand signs. To prevent escalation, the deputy subdued Kendrick with pepper spray.

Kendrick may appeal his expulsion after July 1, but he doubts the vote will change.

"I know the schools argue that we need safe schools, but expelling him is a danger to the community at large," said Al Singer, director of the Child Advocacy Commission of Durham. "It's kind of like the old movies where the sheriff says, 'Get out of Dodge,' and then they go to Tombstone and cause trouble."

School board member Jackie Wagstaff, who voted against the expulsions, went to the courthouse last month to offer support to Damion Wilson, another of the expelled students.

"The punishment is just too harsh," she said. "Think about it. The average young man out of school -- what's their future?"

That's what Kendrick is trying to figure out. He may go to Durham Technical Community College and then look for a job. He'd like to go back to high school, though not Jordan.

Mason said her grandson has changed. He doesn't talk back, even accompanies her to church without her nagging. He'll clean the yard without giving her lip. He has a mentor, a Big Brother, who tries to steer him away from trouble.

"He's not in a gang that I know of," she said. "He's a good kid. If he wasn't, he'd have to go, because I can't take it."


— Bonnie Rochman
Expelled teen left in a void
News Observer
2003-11-19
http://newsobserver.com/news/story/3034846p-2777387c.html

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