I write often about the connection between schools and future incarceration. This is because it is my deep belief that for many youth of color and other marginalized youth the American “educational” system is really something more akin to prison prep. As an educator and organizer, I find this immoral and destructive.

Today I read about another illustration of the school to prison pipeline as a 5th grader was forced to clean toilets during an in-school suspension. From the article:

A 5th grader at Wheatley Elementary School was serving an in-school suspension for fighting at school and given what the school calls a special work assignment. This means instead of being in the classroom, he follows the custodian around all day — cleaning everything from the floors to the toilets.

“They make me clean the whole school around. Cleaning paper around the school inside and outside the school too,” the student said.

Predictably most of the commenters on this story, see nothing wrong with this as a form of “punishment” for the students’ “offense” which was fighting. The “tough on crime” contingent apparently has no boundaries. This view apparently also extends to how we should treat 10 year olds.

The young boy described his day this way:

“I went to the laundry room [to] sweep and mop. Then I went to the restrooms and they didn’t give me any gloves,” the student said.

The student said he was handed over to a custodian who then took him into the bathroom, handed him different cleaning chemicals and told him to scrub the toilets.

Orange County Public Schools said having a child clean the school, as part of a suspension, is not out of the ordinary. But the student would never handle cleaning products.

Yet, the student said he did.

“They told me to clean the toilet and to get this liquid, like it was green. Then that thing would put my hands red,” the student said.

The boy’s father and brother later took him to the hospital for what they are calling chemical burns.

“He started to feel like his hands were itchy and my mom noticed he had bumps,” said Jose Nogueras, the boy’s brother.

His parents only speak Spanish, so his 18-year-old brother is speaking for the family.

“He felt like he was a prison-mate. That they had him clean outside the school, inside the bathrooms, the cafeteria. It was just too much,” Nogueras said.

The school insists that the boy did not handle any cleaning products. Though the boy and his family dispute this claim. The boy was subjected to an 8 hour workday which the district does not dispute.

What lesson was the school trying to teach this young man? What did he learn? I would suggest that he learned that fighting will get you sentenced to 8 hours of hard labor. Great lesson Wheatley School… Great lesson..