JCPS' 117 student arrests only part of story

The word “arrested” was written in all-caps across the Western High student's publicly available arrest citation.

The 18-year-old was handcuffed in school after what police said was a classroom confrontation over a cellphone that turned physical. He was charged with two counts of third-degree assault and one count of second-degree disorderly conduct in the April 2015 incident. He got a jail booking number and a mugshot.

Yet his arrest was not counted by Jefferson County Public Schools in data that it is required to send to the state.

Neither was the arrest in October 2014 of Andre Banks, who shot a classmate at Fern Creek High School. Nor was the arrest of an Eastern High student in March 2015 on drug charges.

A monthslong review conducted by the Courier-Journal found JCPS did not report hundreds of arrest cases to the state — many of which it contends it didn't have to — leaving parents and the public with an incomplete picture of what’s going on in the state’s largest school district.

In the 2014-2015 school year — the most recent year for which data is available on the Kentucky Department of Education's website — JCPS reported that 117 of its students were arrested for school-related offenses.

But the CJ review found that:

• Roughly 500 juveniles were arrested that school year for school-related offenses, state court data shows. Students were charged with offenses that included assaults on teachers, disorderly conduct, possession of marijuana and terroristic threatening, police records indicate.
• Even though the state Department of Education requires arrest numbers be reported, it doesn't define arrests for schools, leaving room for districts to have their own interpretations. At JCPS, arrests only count if a student is charged and removed from school property by police. That excludes a host of other times when students are arrested and charged, including when students are then released to their guardians while at school. 
• Some JCPS campuses are inconsistent in reporting arrests even under the district's definition. In fact, dozens of arrests that should have been counted under the district's definition were excluded because schools neglected to report them.

JCPS maintains its count is fairly close to the correct total under its definition, which it says is the "layman's definition." "There is no desire to underreport," JCPS spokeswoman Jennifer Brislin said. "Everyone understands how important it is to have data."

But some officials contend the numbers that JCPS reports are nevertheless a fraction of how many students encounter the criminal justice system because of a school-related infraction.

"It’s disingenuous," Beth McMahon, chief of the Louisville Metro Public Defender's juvenile trial division, said of JCPS' 117 reported arrests. "It may be accurate based on their definition, but it’s not readily apparent to the public what that number really means."

And that has implications for parents looking to understand the culture of a school and for officials trying to make policy decisions using the data.

"Calling police or arresting a student is one of the most monumental things you can do in a student's life," said Dan Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the California-based Civil Rights Project.

Defining arrest

Trying to get a clear sense of how many students are arrested for school-related offenses — on school grounds, on school buses or at school functions — is no easy task.

A variety of law enforcement agencies respond to schools in the district, creating a patchwork of different systems that record arrests at schools but don't comprehensively track the number of students arrested.

The state court system began tracking arrests inside schools a few years ago, recording roughly 500 school-related arrests of juveniles in the 2014-2015 school year. But its records only cover juvenile students — those under 18 years old.

As such, no single database from law enforcement or the courts provides a complete picture of how often students are criminally charged because of something they allegedly did at school.

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State law requires that the Kentucky Department of Education maintain a data collection system to which school districts report a number of things, including the number of arrests, the charges and whether civil damages were pursued by the injured party.

Department of Education spokeswoman Nancy Rodriguez said the state asks school districts to record all arrests, but the state only pulls those that are "reportable" by state law into arrest totals in "School Report Cards." That practice could reduce the number of arrests posted by the state. For instance, arrests for disorderly conduct and burglary don't have to be reported under state rules, unless the incident also results in a suspension or a restraint or seclusion or other "resolution" at the school level.

Rodriguez said that behavior incidents are still reported in the "School Report Cards" in other ways.

Probably much more of a factor affecting the number of reported arrests in the state's database is JCPS' definition of what constitutes an arrest.

Brislin said JCPS uses its definition — an arrest occurs only when a student is hauled away from school by police — because it is school staff members, not law enforcement, who record arrests and submit numbers to the district that are then forwarded to the state.

But some experts say use of that definition creates an incomplete portrayal of what's happening, pointing out it eliminates cases where students are removed from the classroom, taken into police custody and charged but eventually sent from school with a parent or guardian.

In Jefferson County, while some criminally charged students are taken to a detention facility, the majority of juveniles are not. Most are detained and charged while at school, then released to a parent or guardian. Even when students are taken off campus by law enforcement, they might be handed off to a parent or taken to YMCA Safe Place if a guardian can't be reached.

Libby Mills, executive director of the youth-focused Restorative Justice Louisville, which works with victims and criminal offenders to try to make amends and repair relationships through a court diversion program, said she doesn't know why JCPS would "have a definition that's that narrow."

"There’s a commonly understood definition of arrest, but that’s not necessarily the full definition of arrest," Mills said.

Stan Mullen, JCPS' director of security and investigations, said it makes sense why his school district would use the layman's definition but also added that, whether a student is transported off campus during an arrest or not, "both end up at the same place in the juvenile court. Whether you go through the juvenile detention center or you drop the kid off (with parents), at the end of the day, it's in juvenile court."

Fayette County Public Schools — the second-largest district in the state — defines an arrest as when court workers who process juvenile cases direct police to take a student into custody, spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall said.

She said the Fayette County Public Schools' in-house Department of Law Enforcement informs schools when an arrest is made, so it's not left up to school administrators to determine whether an incident should be counted as an arrest.

Deffendall said she wondered if other school districts use different definitions of arrests when reporting information to the state, saying that could create disparities in the data.

"As a state, we want consistency in the data that we collect," she said. "We have a responsibility to the general public to ensure the data we report is giving an accurate picture of their public schools."

Rodriguez said that school staff members are supposed to indicate if a student is arrested every time it submits documentation of student misbehavior to the database.

"Arrests are determined by law enforcement, and the expectation is school personnel will communicate with law enforcement to determine whether a student was arrested or not," Rodriguez said.

Mills said having correct data on student arrests is necessary to analyze the numbers for trends and disparities. Such an analysis of what JCPS reports to the state, she said, is impossible using such a limited definition.

Josh Gupta-Kagan, an expert on juvenile justice at the University of South Carolina School of Law, said there is a difference "between putting a kid in handcuffs, shoving them in a police cruiser and holding them downtown for a few hours versus holding a kid in the principal's office until parents come."

But he said that both types of interactions need to be counted and recorded.

"Those actions have real impacts," Gupta-Kagan said.

Exploring the differences

A CJ review of the district's 2014-2015 data found some notable differences when compared with information on arrests from law enforcement and the courts.

For instance, Moore Traditional School and The Academy @ Shawnee both reported no arrests to the Kentucky Department of Education for the 2014-2015 school year.

Yet five juveniles at Moore Traditional who were arrested that school year were transported by police off school grounds, according to data provided by the Administrative Office of the Courts' Court Designated Worker Program.

That court data said that, overall, 24 juveniles from Moore Traditional were arrested that school year.

Similarly, court data indicate that two juveniles at The Academy @ Shawnee were arrested and escorted off campus, headed for the youth jail or an eventual release to a parent at YMCA Safe Place. Thirty-seven were arrested overall.

Mullen said he was surprised when told that JCPS had reported that Moore and The Academy @ Shawnee had no arrests.

"We need to follow up on that," Mullen said.

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Former school resource officer Jeff Harris, who worked at Westport Middle from 2005-2011, said he has long been frustrated by the seeming discrepancy between the arrest data that the state shows and the reality of what he said he dealt with in school.

Harris, now a law enforcement training instructor, submitted yearly reports that detailed arrests, criminal incidents and other law enforcement actions he was involved in. He said his numbers often differed from what showed up in the annual "School Report Cards."

"It's about being honest to the parents," Harris said. "When parents look at the report cards, they need to know what they are getting their child into."

Because Louisville Metro Police doesn't specifically track student arrests — instead recording incidents by geographic location — the CJ filtered its data to try to exclude as many non-students as possible. The CJ eliminated all arrests of people over the age of 19 and limited arrests to those on days when school was in session. When possible, the CJ also filtered for times during and around the school day.

Using such filters, the CJ found about 500 arrests recorded by LMPD at JCPS campuses in the 2014-2015 school year — including arrests of some students as young as 9.

These arrests include those at the 17 schools with an LMPD school resource officer as well as at other schools where an LMPD officer responded to a call for service, but the arrests do not include those made by other police agencies, such as the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, which has SROs in eight schools.

A further filter to only include arrests for offenses that would be reportable under the state's guidelines — removing, for example, disorderly conduct and trespassing — still came back with more than 300 arrests.

Christopher Brown, chief juvenile prosecutor with the Jefferson County Attorney's Office, said the confidentiality requirements that accompany juvenile cases help shroud most student cases.

“I think the best we can do to show the public how busy it is, how involved some of our juveniles are in the system, is to look at the numbers, where cases come from and how they’re handled,” he said.

He and McMahon, co-chairs of the Jefferson County Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee, both said the number JCPS reported to the state didn't reflect the volume they see pass through the courthouse doors.

McMahon questioned the role and influence of the numbers that the district reports to the state.

"Does the school board know? Does it matter to them?" she said. "Are they basing decisions about the code of conduct on this 117 number and not what’s really going on in the schools?"

David Jones Jr., chairman of the JCPS board, said he doesn't believe the board has looked at student arrest data during the four years he's been on the board.

He said he isn't surprised that different agencies have different definitions, saying the organizations have different missions.

Jones added that it is important for educators to know what is going on in students' lives, including arrests.

"The questions about student involvement with the criminal justice system and the importance of the school's understanding of the impact on the school of arrests and court appearances, those are important topics," Jones said.

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JCPS said it’s including information on how to properly record school-related arrests in training for all school administrators this fall.

"We have clearly seen through this investigation that there is a lack of clarity, and we want to be clear," said Katy Zeitz, area superintendent over alternative schools, referring to the CJ’s analysis.

In the past, she said, there have been issues with consistency on arrests and other data points.

Brislin said even if JCPS' "data wasn't as exact or as clear" as the district will make it in the future, JCPS principals and assistant superintendents are in constant contact.  

"I don't want to give the impression that... we don't know what's going on in our schools," Brislin said.

Zeitz said JCPS is now telling principals that if a student flees campus after an incident but school officials know that the student will be arrested, that arrest should be noted.

Brislin said in the past there was an understanding by school staff that arrests that happen off school property or after hours didn’t have to be reported. That was why the arrest of Banks, the Fern Creek High student who shot a classmate, was not recorded, Brislin said, noting that Banks had fled the school campus after the shooting and was arrested later that day.

Zeitz said the definition of the word "arrest' is less important to her than knowing what’s going on in schools.

"We need to have a clear picture of trends and things that are happening in our district so we can provide supports or interventions to reduce or remove behaviors that would result in a student being arrested," she said. "It’s hard to stop or change behaviors when you don’t know with clarity what’s happening."

Reporter Matthew Glowicki can be reached at (502) 582-4989. Reporter Allison Ross can be reached at (502) 582-4241.

Data Note

The CJ used multiple sources to try to get a sense of how many students were arrested for school-related offenses in the 2014-2015 school year, which runs from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2015. Efforts were made to exclude arrests unrelated to schools and students. The data discussed below also do not reflect complaints taken out by teachers, parents and others that are reported to the Court Designated Worker Program that eventually can lead to criminal charges.

KDE: The Kentucky Department of Education has some caveats on which arrests get reported in its School Report Cards. The department’s guidelines filters out arrests if the incident neither results in a restraint, seclusion, corporal punishment, in- or out-of-school suspension or expulsion from the school nor if the infraction falls into a list of "safe schools" violations, such as assault, violence, use of weapons, alcohol, drugs, bullying or harassment.

LMPD: Data provided by the Louisville Metro Police Department is based on geographic location, not from a designation as a student arrest. As such, reporters filtered from the department's data to exclude weekends and other days when school was not in session and also excluded defendants ages 20 and older to arrive at a more accurate count of arrested students. Where possible, reporters also filtered based on time, excluding incidents that appeared to happen outside of regular school hours. As such, this data is not perfect. Detailed records of each juvenile arrest were not made available, as LMPD cited juvenile confidentiality statutes.

JCPS: Data provided by Jefferson County Public Schools only includes arrests that fit KDE's reporting requirements and fall under "the layman's definition" of the word – when students are charged and removed from school property by police.

AOC: Data provided by the Administrative Office of the Courts is drawn from the Court Designated Worker Program, which processes all juvenile petitions in Jefferson County. In other words, all juvenile cases pass through this clearing house. The AOC breaks down "school-initiated complaints" for juvenile students. These are criminal offenses that take place on school property initiated by the schools that result in a charging by law enforcement. The court data tracks arrests by school based on which school initiated the complaint, not whether the juvenile is enrolled at that school. That means that it's possible that some of the arrests are of students from other schools - such as if a student from an opposing team is arrested at a football game - although a court official said that is rare.

Data not included: Other law enforcement agencies could have executed an arrest, including but not limited to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, St. Matthews Police Department, Shively Police Department, the Jeffersontown Police Department and JCPS's own in-house security staff.