A Texas Observer investigation found that thousands of children ages 10 to 12 were arrested at Texas public schools from 2021 to 2025. Dallas ISD was not among the districts with the highest arrest numbers, possibly reflecting its yearslong shift toward restorative discipline.
The Observer’s Josephine Lee has done a deep dive into the troubling trend of arresting schoolchildren, often for things that are “normal schoolyard misbehavior such as angry remarks, poking, spitting, or shoving.” State and federal law does require some offenses to end in arrests and expulsion, but for garden-variety misbehavior, districts and schools have latitude. Lee’s investigation found that thousands of students between 10 and 12 were arrested at Texas public schools from 2021 to 2025. That often means they end up in the juvenile justice system and become less likely to finish school and more likely to end up incarcerated as adults. The number of arrested children is disproportionately Black. Lee found the arrest data from 168 districts in the state, largely from the districts or from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which is required by law to compile criminal offenses in a statewide database.
The story examines a variety of factors that have increased the number of child arrests, including post-Uvalde legislation requiring additional school security. She also talks to families in two different districts whose children were arrested, detailing how little explanation they received about the decisions. One of those families was in Forney, where the family of Renee, a Black student with ADHD, was pushed from her middle school to a district school serving students with disabilities. Her family alleges that she was arrested after they complained she had been unlawfully restrained. Forney ISD, the Observer found, ranked among the top 25 districts for arrests of children between 10 and 12, with four out of every five cases stemming from allegations of misdemeanor assault. “Black students were twice as likely to face charges,” the story says…