Detention: District Takes on Rowdy Parents

The Capistrano schools are demanding a new level of civility on campus.

Not from the students. From the parents.

In what is believed to be a first in the state, the fast-growing South County school district on Monday adopted a civility policy that could result in misdemeanor charges against parents who refuse to stop screaming, using obscenities and otherwise acting rudely to school staff. Such incidents have become more and more commonplace in the district and throughout California, school officials said.

“In general, society has become very aggressive,” said Ron Wenkart, general counsel for the county’s Department of Education. “That is reflected in our parents. More and more we’re getting parents crossing that boundary of civility.”

Capistrano Unified School District officials say the campuses have been awash in incidents of verbally abusive and threatening parents. Verbally abusive attacks have been a constant problem for everyone from top administrators to teachers to secretaries, according to the policy. The district, with about 40,000 students, does not keep statistics on such incidents, but Supt. James A. Fleming said they occur at least once a week.

The policy uses the existing state Education Code, which allows schools to take action when someone is unruly, and to seek charges against them when they refuse to leave campus. The district is extending the code to spell out which kinds of behavior--including the simply offensive--will not be tolerated.

“If anyone raises his voice, threatens or insults employees, the meeting is over, no matter what you are talking about. . . . If you need to insult people or raise your voice, you can do it somewhere else,” Fleming said.

Under the policy, anyone who threatens the health and safety of students or staff, or uses obscenities or other highly offensive behavior first will be “calmly and politely” asked to “communicate civilly,” the policy states. If they refuse to settle down, they may be asked to leave campus and not to return within a certain time, usually a week to a month. If they refuse to leave, school officials may call the police to issue a misdemeanor citation for trespassing or fighting on school grounds, which will then be prosecuted by the district attorney’s office or city attorneys.

Fleming has a collection of wild stories about angry parents.

At Del Obispo Elementary School in San Juan Capistrano, Principal John Allen told a speeding parent to slow down and move out of the parking lot’s bus lane. But instead of heeding the principal’s warning, the parent threatened to punch him out, Fleming said.

A Capistrano Unified bus driver who showed up late one day because the bus had broken down caught the ire of a parent, who Fleming said ordered the driver to hand him the keys. When the driver refused, the parent sprawled in front of the bus to keep it from leaving, Fleming said.

“He demanded the keys and wanted to hold the bus hostage until his questions could be answered about why the bus was late,” Fleming said.

The father, Bruce Rockwell of Trabuco Canyon, denied demanding the keys, but acknowledged in an interview Tuesday that his behavior had been out of line and said he wrote apologies to the bus driver and the children on the bus. But he said the policy would be of little value.

“Even if they had this policy I would still do what I was doing because I knew what I was doing when I did it,” said Rockwell, adding that he teaches at a school in Santa Ana. He said he was “acting crazy from my heart” because the bus was more than an hour late.

After a student at Fred Newhart Middle School was sent to the principal’s office because his bright red hair violated dress codes, the boy’s mother and sister came in and began arguing the matter.

“I asked [the mother] to calm down and her daughter went off and started yelling obscenities at me,” said Katherine Muelder, principal of the Mission Viejo school. “I had to call the police to have them escorted from the campus.”

The mother, who asked that her name not be used, said in an interview that she was forced to wait an hour to speak with the principal, and that she naturally speaks loudly and was not yelling. Muelder also was speaking loudly, she said.

“She can raise her voice but you can’t raise yours,” the mother said. The sister denied using obscenities.

Attorneys at other school districts interviewed Tuesday have noticed similar unruly behavior among parents and other relatives of students.

In Sacramento County, an angry parent ran his index finger across his throat in an intimidating gesture to the principal, said Diana Halpenny, general counsel for San Juan Unified School District. Another parent drove his car onto an elementary school lawn and brought it to a screeching halt next to a principal who was supervising children on their way to class, Halpenny said.

“He just started screaming at the principal in front of kids,” said Halpenny, “still in his pajamas and slippers.”

Halpenny and other attorneys said the subject of uncivil parents has been a hot topic at recent statewide meetings, and Capistrano’s policy is a welcome initiative to address the thorny problem.

“Every year school administrators face parents who become unreasonable and unpleasant,” Newhart Principal Muelder said. “This policy is welcomed support from the superintendent and trustees. It’s our right to have a civil environment in our schools.”

Wenkart, of the county’s Department of Education, said school districts have always had a small group of parents who are “just more impolite than others.” But in the last two or three years, that group “seems to have increased,” and what was impolite is bordering on the edge of violence, Wenkart said.

“They’re screaming, yelling and pounding on tables,” Wenkart said. “Many are threatening physical injuries and physical harm. They say things like, ‘I’m going to get you.’ ”