District wants names of juveniles charged as adults

Hattiesburg Public School District officials say they are working with the Hattiesburg Police Department to make sure students are not exposed to other students who are juvenile offenders charged as adults.

The district got a complaint last month from a parent whose ninth-grade daughter had made friends at Hattiesburg High School with a 14-year-old ninth-grader who had been arrested in April and charged as an adult for sexual battery of a child under the age of 14.

District officials were not aware, until the parent's complaint, that the student had been charged.

Superintendent James Bacchus said there already is a procedure in place to make sure students charged with felonies as juveniles are not in class with the general school population.

"Normally, we get a report from the juvenile judge and the juvenile detention center," he said. "This particular (student) was charged as an adult and somehow there was a communication breakdown."

District spokesman Jas N Smith said Central Office staff also work with the district police force to check the jail dockets and the newspaper for any students who may have been arrested and charged as adults.

"We try to stay as informed as we can on our end," he said. "If what the student is charged with poses a safety issue to students or faculty, we will then do whatever we can to make it a safe environment for students and staff."

Examples of serious crimes are listed in the district's student handbook. They include, but are not limited to, assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated assault, rape, sexual battery, stalking, armed robbery, sale or distribution of a controlled substance, and threats against students or staff.

Smith said a student accused of a crime can be removed from the general population.

"We will continue the education for the student," he said. "The student may be served out of the alternative center or it may be the student is served at home by a homebound teacher or the student is provided materials for correspondence courses.

"We're going to find some alternative way to educate that student, but all of this hinges on us knowing about (their situation)."

According to a state Attorney General's opinion, as cited in the district's student handbook, "when a district receives notice that a student has committed an act away from school that is of such a nature that to continue the student in his regular education environment would have a direct effect on the school environment, school officials may assign that student to an alternative program, in-school suspension or alternate site instruction, so long as that action does not constitute a suspension or expulsion from the district."

Smith said, in the case of the ninth-grader accused of sexual battery, once the district was made aware of the information by the parent, it confirmed the information and took action. He declined to say what action the district took because it is a student disciplinary matter.

Bacchus said the district acted immediately.

"Once we found out, we took the appropriate action," he said. "It wasn't lack of action. It was lack of information."

Bacchus said to prevent the situation from happening again, he had a phone conversation with Hattiesburg Police Chief Frazier Bolton.

"We talked over the phone, and I told him, by law, we had to have this information," he said.

Hattiesburg Police Department spokesman Lt. Jon Traxler said the department is still waiting to get clarification on a policy on releasing juvenile names to school districts.

"As for a current policy or procedure as to our direction on contacting the Hattiesburg Public School District or any other school district as to the arrest of one of their students, we are currently working on establishing that with the assistance of the Forrest County Youth Court Attorney," he said in an email. "Due to the fact that juvenile records are sealed and are not releasable, we cannot call every time one gets arrested for any type of charge.

"Once a procedure has been established based on current state law, we will work with any and all school districts to follow that procedure, but again, based on the current law we cannot just release anytime a juvenile is arrested."

Bacchus said the district is entitled to the information, and he is sure it will be forthcoming.

"We aren't going to make it public, but we have to take action," he said. "I believe it is going to happen, and I am confident we have closed the crack."