Melée expulsion goes too far

A melée at a football scrimmage before the school year began raises questions about our justice system and about Cape Henlopen School District Code of Conduct.

There's no question a fight occurred; in its wake, police filed felony riot charges against five adults and two teens. That is the same charge filed against inmates following the prison riot in Smyrna that left a correctional officer dead.

Adults who should have de-escalated tension that day instead cursed and threw punches, fueling the fight.

Still, a video shows one teen, an honor roll student at Cape, did not throw a punch; she is shown doing little more than standing with her family.

Yet, once informed of the riot charge by the Attorney General's Office, Cape began expulsion proceedings. The district Code of Conduct states even if the charge were dismissed, that finding is not binding on the district.

The district is apparently using the charge itself – not actual behavior – as grounds for its most serious punishment, expulsion, without waiting for trial. How can this be just when our system is based on innocent until proven guilty?

While the parent whose arrival set off the mayhem pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, the Cape student, now in her senior year, has been expelled.

School officials cannot have it both ways. If they don't wait for trial, their process must not depend largely on police charges that could later be dropped.

The student, 16 when the fight occurred, has occasionally faced school discipline, but that is no reason she should pay the heaviest price for the behavior of adults that day.

Like many students charged with a crime, this is a student who would benefit from being in school with the counseling and mentoring that Cape has the resources to provide.

Excluding children from the school structure they most need accelerates the schoolyard to prison yard path. It demonstrates a deeply troubling failure of justice and the school district. Cape Henlopen must do better.