WENTZVILLE — The Wentzville School District says it’s reviewing a recent change to its student code of conduct that calls for peace disturbance charges to be filed against middle or high schoolers if they assault anyone at school, with the same punishment a possibility for elementary students.
The applies to first-time offenses and says students in grades six through 12 would also receive out-of-school suspensions lasting five to 10 days.
Assault, as defined in the regulation, involves “a physical attack, either provoked or unprovoked, which may or may not cause personal injury†to anyone on school property.
The regulation says peace disturbance charges “will†be filed “on behalf†of the district.
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In a statement to the Post-Dispatch, district officials conceded the policy may imply a mandatory or automatic practice to refer unruly student behavior to law enforcement.
But that doesn’t reflect the district’s actual practice, they said.
“Each situation is evaluated on an individual basis, and the outcome depends on the facts of the incident and the discretion of law enforcement,†the district’s statement reads.
“The language in the code of conduct stating that ‘charges will be filed on behalf of the WSD’ is currently under review,†the district said.
Bill Koski, a lawyer and founder of Stanford Law School’s Youth and Education Law Project, said the regulation appeared to be a far drift from how schools have approached discipline in recent years. Educators have mostly moved away from so-called exclusionary discipline practices such as suspensions as experts argue the practice doesn’t remedy the causes of bad behavior and feeds the school-to-prison pipeline.
Some districts in the 51ºÚÁÏ area, including 51ºÚÁÏ Public Schools, Maplewood Richmond Heights School District and Normandy Schools Collaborative, banned out-of-school suspensions after a 2015 UCLA study found Missouri suspended Black elementary students at a higher rate than any other state.
Wentzville’s code of conduct says elementary school students would face up to five days of in-school suspension or 10 days out-of-school suspension if they’re found to have assaulted anyone on school property.
Koski said there was also a movement toward “de-policing†schools after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. But following the pandemic, schools have generally moved back to exclusionary discipline, he said. Police are common in K-12 schools.
Even so, Koski said the wording of Wentzville’s code of conduct was surprising.
“It’s highly unusual to see a school district writing into its own (regulations) what appears to be a mandatory use of law enforcement,†Koski said.
Wentzville School District contracts with O’Fallon and Wentzville police departments to staff school resource officers, or SROs. Each of the district’s secondary schools have a full-time SRO.
District officials said the SRO determines if the student’s conduct requires additional legal involvement.
“When a physical altercation or act of violence causes a significant disruption to the educational environment, the District may refer the matter to law enforcement as a potential peace disturbance, since the school is an impacted party,†the district said in a statement. “The decision to pursue legal charges, however, rests with law enforcement.â€
Sgt. Bryan Harr with the O’Fallon Police Department said peace disturbance charges usually go through municipal courts as ordinance violations.
He said the department hasn’t seen any recent upticks in violence at the schools.
The Wentzville Board of Education approved an updated version of the district’s student code of conduct to include the peace disturbance charges on June 18.
Tempers flared near the end of a nearly six-hour long meeting of the Wentzville school board on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, during discussion of whether to hire a second police officer to staff future meetings. Two women had to be escorted out of the gymnasium where the meeting was held, where there were three police officers. Board members eventually approved the plan. Video provided by the Wentzville School District; edited by Beth O'Malley
