Informant Program Puts Students’ Lives in Jeopardy

I am responding to the Jan. 22 Valley Commentary (“Turning Schoolchildren Into Informants Carries Risks”) by Diana Beard-Williams.

As a resident of the Antelope Valley, she pointed out a new and potentially hazardous trend in the school system there. This January, the board of the Antelope Valley Union High School District readopted a 2-month-old policy where school administrators would give cash rewards to students who informed them about other students breaking the law. In other words, administrators were encouraging school kids to tattle on each other.

I agree that there is a big problem with violence and drugs in our nation’s public schools. Practically every day one can read about shootings, stabbings and other acts of violence going on in our schools. In the effort to curb this violence, school officials have made a wrong turn by turning schoolchildren into paid informants.

Telling on another student is supposedly done under a promise of confidentiality. However, this promise of confidentiality cannot be guaranteed. We all know how easily a promise can be broken and how easily word can get out. Such occurrences can put students’ lives in jeopardy, and they are often unaware of the potential dangers of their actions. If a student has the means to bring a gun to school, it is certainly reasonable to assume that the student could acquire another one. If that student had found out which fellow student had turned him in, a grudge would certainly be held, and in many cases, revenge would be sought. One can easily imagine the potential dire consequences of such a grudge. Although the school would be made safer by the action, who would protect the informant student outside of school?

Turning school kids into informants in not a risk worth taking. Other means of security, such as metal detectors and school police, need to be implemented. As Diana Beard-Williams put it, “the school district is using children as an extension of its security force, making them the first line of defense against crime--an untrained, unarmed, and naive defense.”

The school administrators, not the students, are to provide for the security in our schools. Handing out cash for information is not only an unsafe means of controlling school violence, it also teaches kids bad values. It implies that you can get a person to do anything for the right price.

BRIAN ROBERT FERNANDEZ

Reseda