Near-Adults Don't Belong in Ninth Grade

Wilson High School in the affluent Tenleytown section of Northwest Washington, home to some of the D.C. school system's highest-achieving students, is not accustomed to a stream of fights and arrests. But this year, the school's online bulletin boards are ablaze with accounts of unprovoked assaults, some with video (everybody's a documentary filmmaker these days).

Blame for this year's spike in violence has been placed squarely on the arrival of a group of students who nearly everyone agrees should not exist: Ninth-graders who are 16, 17 and even older, students who supposedly came to Wilson from the city's Oak Hill juvenile detention center in Laurel, boys who were left back or missed so much school that they tower over their classmates, a perfect recipe for frustration, shame and a desire to show who's boss.

Except for one thing: The kids who've been making trouble did not come from Oak Hill.

Wilson, like other District high schools, did add a lot more ninth-graders this year, as the system dismantles its junior high schools and moves to create middle schools limited to sixth through eighth grades.

"Everybody's quick to say, 'Oh, it's Oak Hill kids, those Oak Hill kids,' " says Vincent Schiraldi, the city's director of Youth Rehabilitation Services. "It's just shorthand for, 'We're scared, and we need someone to blame it on.' "

That's a bit much. The fights did happen, and someone is responsible for them. The school must hold those students accountable and ensure a safe environment for the majority of kids who want nothing to do with hallway battles. But Schiraldi has a point. In the assault case that most upset Wilson parents, five students were arrested. Not one came from a city-run group home near Wilson that parents were quick to blame. Only one had ever set foot at Oak Hill, and that boy was there two years ago for one week of detention.

But the offending kids came from somewhere, and although the city isn't saying exactly what path the troublemakers took, everyone agrees that a toxic mix of classroom failure, juvenile crime, dysfunctional families and a broken vocational education system has produced a cohort of kids who are way too old for their academic levels.

And the school system inserts those older ninth-graders into buildings such as Wilson with wholly inadequate preparation, either for the new students or for those in the school.

"Being behind in school contributes to being marginalized, which contributes to not showing up, which contributes to delinquency," Schiraldi says. "Now you put a bunch of 17-year-olds into a ninth grade in a high school where they hardly know anyone else, and what's going to happen? They could invite each other to a prayer group, but that's not typical in my experience."

Schiraldi and Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee have decided that Wilson will get no more transfers from group homes this year. The administrators are looking for smaller, specialized settings for those who cannot handle a big, anonymous school.

What would that setting look like? Oak Hill Academy, the detention center's school, is no academic nirvana, but it is showing how to connect with troubled teens. Inside Oak Hill's classrooms the other day, a few kids snoozed at their desks. Others struggled to read even the simplest of words. And this is still a correctional facility; stuff happens.

A gut-wrenching thud broke the students' concentration as, in the hallway, a body was thrown against the classroom door. We heard a child's outraged shout and then an adult asserting control and ushering the boy away.