Michelle Villanueva’s son was just 11 when Douglas County school resource officers handcuffed him and put him in a patrol car, leaving the sixth-grader for two hours before booking the boy, who has autism, into juvenile jail for poking a classmate with a pencil.
After the August 2019 incident, Villanueva no longer felt comfortable sending her son to Sagewood Middle School in Parker.
“There was just a whole lot of trust broken,” she said.
But Villanueva’s son, who The Denver Post is only identifying by his initials — A.V. — because he is a minor, struggled to attend another school with a school resource officer, or SRO. He missed weeks of classes and would shake and cry when he did attend because of the presence of uniformed officers, Villanueva said.
Not only did Villanueva have to find another school for A.V. to attend, but she had to deal with the aftermath of the arrest, including criminal charges and posting bail.
“I didn’t know what I was doing and he did get way behind in school,” she said.
A new statewide hotline is in the works in Colorado to help parents like Villanueva navigate the education system after their children have been arrested, ticketed or otherwise engaged with the criminal justice system.
The state must launch the hotline by Sept. 1, 2026, according to legislation passed by the Colorado General Assembly earlier this year, but a nonprofit called Generation Schools Network is aiming to get the program up and running next year.
“There’s a lot of kids that are otherwise going to be out of school or missing educational opportunities and not really progressing for the next couple of years,” said Wendy Loloff Cooper, chief executive officer of Generation Schools Network, of the plans to get the hotline started early.
The goal of the hotline is to help break down barriers children and teens face in continuing their education after being arrested or ticketed, including helping them find another school, connecting them with career training programs and setting up an individualized education plan, or IEP, if they have a disability and need extra support in the classroom, she said.
The hotline will also help connect families to other resources outside of the education system, such as legal support, housing and tutoring, Loloff Cooper said.
“It can be very stigmatizing and isolating,” she said of when a minor is engaged in the criminal justice system, adding, “There’s not a clear pathway to continue educational containment.”
The hotline will employ five to eight navigators who will help facilitate conversations between a family and a school. And when it is fully operational, another 40 to 50 volunteers will help staff the hotline, which Generation Schools Network plans to house until the Colorado Department of Education finds an organization to run the program, said Jose Silva, the nonprofit’s vice president of equity initiatives.
Generation Schools Network is aiming to get the hotline started by July 1 via fundraising and volunteers. Loloff Cooper said it will cost about $500,000 per year to run the hotline once it’s operational.
The state estimated that the education department will spend $50,000 per year on a contract with whichever organization the agency picks to run the hotline.
Villanueva, the mother, said that if the hotline had existed in 2019 when A.V. was arrested, it would have helped her to be better prepared and feel supported while dealing with the aftermath.
At the time, Villanueva didn’t know what an education advocate — someone who helps families find resources for their children with disabilities — was or what type of lawyer she needed.
Villanueva, who lives in Castle Rock, initially reached out to an educational lawyer, but because A.V. had been arrested on suspicion of assault, harassment and resisting arrest, the mother needed a criminal attorney, she said.
“I couldn’t see straight at all and trying to sort all that stuff quickly,” she said.
The 2019 incident began when another student drew on A.V. with a marker. Physical touch is a trigger for the boy, and, in response to being drawn on, A.V. poked the other student with a pencil, Villanueva said.
The other student told the teacher that A.V. stabbed him, Villanueva said, which led to administrators removing A.V. from the class. The boy was sitting calmly, listening to music, with the school psychologist when SROs approached A.V., according to a lawsuit filed against the Douglas County School District and the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office in 2021.
A.V. began screaming when two officers grabbed him by his arms and forced him into handcuffs, according to the lawsuit. A.V. has selective mutism and depending on the environment he can become non-responsive, Villanueva said.
The SROs, she said, took A.V.’s behavior, which included walking back and forth, “as defiant rather than a disability.”
The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, alleged the district and sheriff’s office didn’t properly train SROs on how to work with children with disabilities. While they work in the district’s schools, SROs are Douglas County Sheriff’s Office deputies.
The ACLU reached a settlement with the school district and sheriff’s office last year, with the district agreeing to require advanced training for any officers working in its schools, including training created by disability rights advocates.
The district and sheriff’s office also agreed that SROs will review students’ behavioral plans and comply with the de-escalation techniques included in the documents, according to a news release announcing the settlement.
“While all involved have denied any wrongdoing, an opportunity recently arose to fully resolve and settle the lawsuit, which has been agreed to by all parties,” the Douglas County School District and sheriff’s office said in a joint statement last year.
Both the district and sheriff’s office worked with an external consultant during the 2023-24 academic year to evaluate and train SROs on restraining a student with disabilities, according to the statement.
“I feel like we won to some degree,” Villanueva said of the settlement.
The hotline for justice-engaged youth would have helped A.V., who cycled through schools following the incident, get back into a classroom quicker, she said.
A.V., who is now 16, is finally getting back on track with his education five years after the 2019 incident. The criminal charges were dropped.
But, Villanueva said, he still struggles being around uniformed officers.
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