News-Record.com

Our editorial today about 16-year-old Varren Anderson raises challenging issues about potentially dangerous kids in the public schools.

Anderson and a 15-year-old juvenile were charged with first-degree burglary, armed robbery and second-degree kidnapping in connection with two frightening incidents last October -- basically abducting people and forcing them to withdraw money at ATMs.

The 15-year-old's case is handled in juvenile court and isn't a public record.

Anderson appeared in District Court Dec. 13 where Judge Pete Hunter set bond at $10,000 and put Anderson under the supervision of Pre-Trial Services. He ordered the boy to report once a week in person to that office, observe a 7 p.m. curfew and attend school every day unless prevented by documented medical reasons.

In doing so, the judge passed a big problem to the school system.

GCS sent Anderson to the SCALE school in Greensboro. That's an appropriate setting for discipline problems but not necessarily youngsters charged with serious crimes. How did Anderson do there? Schools don't give out that kind of information for privacy reasons, but I heard unofficially that he didn't do well at all and was suspended more than once.

That meant he wasn't attending school every day and therefore didn't comply with the judge's order. Pre-Trial Services told me he was in compliance, leading me to believe that office didn't check up with the schools as it should have.

Here's where the real puzzler occurred: Sometime around the first of this month, Anderson was sent to High Point Central, which caused a big commotion. Someone quickly figured out a mistake had been made, and he was removed -- but not sent back to SCALE. I couldn't find out where he is.

As Anderson's attorney correctly noted, the young man -- who also has a court date later this month on a charge of affray -- is innocent until proven guilty. A police affidavit says he confessed to the crimes, but that doesn't amount to a conviction in court. He's entitled to due process.

Mixing him into the general student population is another matter. It's simply a bad idea, among other reasons because his presence really disturbed a lot of people at Central.

At this point, it's instructive to mention the Quincy Thomas case. In 2001, he was a senior at Central and was arrested and charged in an armed robbery of a pizza restaurant. The case drew a lot of attention because he also happened to be the star quarterback on the football team, which was headed into the state playoffs. The Central administration did not suspend him from school and let him play.

Why the difference? Because Thomas had never been in trouble before and was considered a fine young man. People simply didn't believe that he had done what the police charged him with doing -- and they were proven right. Thomas was the victim of mistaken identity, and the charges eventually were dropped.

Suffice it to say, attitudes about Anderson are very different.

The bigger issue here, of course, is how young offenders and suspected offenders are handled. We know the schools have to deal with a lot of discipline problems, and part of that is because the court system is telling these kids to go school. How many? Who knows? There are public records about these kids if they're 16 or older but not if they're younger.

These kids shouldn't be denied an education, but there has to be an appropriate setting for that to occur. If the state, through the court system, is going to make them attend school, it should provide the right kind of school.

As adults, a lot of us would be uncomfortable, to say the least, if the courts ordered violent criminal suspects to go to work right next to us. So how do we feel about the courts ordering young violent criminal suspects to attend school right next to our kids?