police were called to a third-grade class party

http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20160629_Why_police_were_called_to_a_South_Jersey_third_grade_class_party.html

On June 16, police were called to an unlikely scene: an end-of-the-year class party at the William P. Tatem Elementary School in Collingswood.

A third grader had made a comment about the brownies being served to the class. After another student exclaimed that the remark was "racist," the school called the Collingswood Police Department, according to the mother of the boy who made the comment.

The police officer spoke to the student, who is 9, said the boy's mother, Stacy dos Santos, and local authorities.

Dos Santos said that the school overreacted and that her son made a comment about snacks, not skin color.

"He said they were talking about brownies. . . . Who exactly did he offend?" dos Santos said.

The boy's father was contacted by Collingswood police later in the day. Police said the incident had been referred to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency. The student stayed home for his last day of third grade.

Dos Santos said that her son was "traumatized," and that she hopes to send him to a different Collingswood public school in the fall.

---------------------------------
Why?

According to district officials, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office (CCPO), has stripped school staff of its authority to investigate any incident that could potentially be deemed a criminal violation, instead ordering the involvement of local law enforcement. The impact of that edict has even kept teachers, aides, and administrators from communicating with children directly about behaviors they may have typically corrected on the spot.

“Their claim is when we investigate on the school disciplinary code, [law enforcement] investigate[s]on the criminal code,” said Collingswood Superintendent Scott Oswald. “If we do ours first, it could interfere with theirs.”

Oswald said that standard has forbidden school staff from doing much more than calling the police for every infraction, no matter how minor, rather than risk failing to follow the statute. For the past several weeks, the first call home about something as routine as a scuffle on the elementary school playground has been made by a Collingswood police officer instead of a representative of the school.

“We were told that if we were deemed to be interfering with an investigation there would be potential criminal consequences for us,” Oswald said, including criminal indictment of school staff or the loss of state licenses.

http://www.njpen.com/police-investigations-mandated-for-discipline-issues-at-collingswood-schools/