November 2008 ACS event

What is the impact of “zero tolerance”?
How can we help our kids avoid lockup and succeed in school?

On November 13, 2008, Bill Paine, Lia Poorvu, and the ACS Board of Directors hosted an event at The Union Club of Boston.

Our featured speakers were Gail Garinger and Charles Ogletree (pictured).

ACS Board Member Bill Paine welcomed guests and explained:
"ACS is a great example of a public-private partnership. The state provides significant resources and ACS amplifies their effect, accessing a population that the state wants to reach."

Gail Garinger began talking about the ways that school "zero tolerance" policies impacted the Juvenile Court:
"I had been an attorney at Children's Hospital. I thought I'd seen it all, but I don't think anything could have prepared me for what I saw in the Juvenile Court.

One case I still remember is 8-year-old Tommy. He was being bullied in school regularly and his mom wasn't around that much. So one day, Tommy brought a kitchen knife in his backpack. And when he was cornered by the other kids, he pulled out the knife, asking the kids to back off. The school brought Tommy to Juvenile Court, charging him with Assault and Battery with a Deadly Weapon. He was held in detention, his mom was too busy partying to come get him, and the Department of Social Services said it didn't have a place for Tommy. It was cases like this when the court clinic and specifically ACS was essential. I needed to find out if Tommy was competent to stand trial as an 8-year-old? Was his special education plan appropriate? Did he have his own mental health issues? Did his mother have the potential to be a support in his life?

As a Judge, when I needed more information to make the best decision, it was ACS that provided it. ACS understands the nexus of complex systems – many agencies, many interests – and pulls it all together to see the bigger picture.

As I began as statewide Child Advocate in April 2008, ACS has continued to be a resource whenever I need background materials or research about children's mental health needs."

Charles Ogletree underlined why it's so important to address this issue:
"There's a crisis in education. We have young boys and girls who are learning that the punishment for missing school is getting kicked out of school. Judge Garinger talked about a case involving a kitchen knife. But it's rare that cases involve an actual weapon. I've hard of cases that involve a straw & a piece of paper as the weapon – a spitball – and the child was facing expulsion.

The system doesn't do enough to keep on asking kids: "what's going on?" We don't ask runaways: "Why are you running away?" When we do, we find out that the young girl who was truant from school was hiding under the porch to escape an abuser. She was a victim of a system that didn't understand that she was a victim.

It's unthinkable in the 21st century that where you live, where you pay taxes, determines the kind of education your child will get. These kids are not someone else's problem. We're all responsible.

I was raised to believe: It's not where you start, it's where you finish. It's how good you can be that matters.

ACS is doing remarkable work. It's the model for what community-based organizations should be doing."

Rebecca Pries, ACS Executive Director, added:
"School is absolutely critical to the success of a child, second only to the family. ACS began as a Learning Disabilities project that focused on the special education needs of court-involved youth. Since then, ACS services have expanded to respond to the many other vulnerabilities that challenge our kids and to identify strengths in each child and family. Our mantra has remained the same: ACS makes sure that we ALL try again, one kid at a time, to find successful outcomes."

ACS Board President Lia Poorvu concluded the evening:
"Thank you, Charles. You inspire us all!"

Gail Garinger

First statewide Child Advocate, Gail Garinger was appointed to this newly-created office by Governor Deval Patrick in April 2008. Previously, she was a Juvenile Court Judge for 13 years and served as First Justice of Middlesex County Juvenile Court from 2002 to 2008. Judge Garinger’s firsthand knowledge of the needs of court-involved children is what fuels her passion for proactive, systemic changes in the systems that serve youth.

Office of the Child Advocate website

Professor Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.
ACS Advisory Council member Charles Ogletree has focused on equal rights throughout his career. He graduated from Stanford University with a BA and MA in political science and earned his JD at Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and on the board of the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Program.

Professor Ogletree has been a part of Harvard and the Cambridge community for many years. He has lectured at Harvard Law School since 1984, was named Jesse Climenko Professor of Law in 1998, and became Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice in 2004. In addition to his expertise on issues of racial justice, he became involved in juvenile justice in the 1990s, when he directed the Harvard Law School intern program at the Cambridge Juvenile Court.

Professor Ogletree is the award-winning author of All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education (2004) and From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America (2006). Most recently, as Co-Chair of the American Bar Association’s Juvenile Justice Committee, he moderated a lively post-election panel at Georgetown University Law Center that was designed to make recommendations to the Obama administration about how to improve juvenile justice policies.

Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice website