Unchecked behavior problems in schools foster juvenile crime

Following another teen shooting, policymakers aim to strengthen New Mexico’s juvenile crime laws. To be proactive, though, we need to fix behavior issues in NM’s public schools.

Parents and teachers should teach kids from a young age that it’s not okay to hit others, take other kids’ toys, or damage other’s belongings. These rules should be consistently applied so they’re engrained by the time kids reach adulthood.

There have always been some parents who don’t raise their kids well, but now our schools are perpetuating the same cycle. There must be consistent enforcement of these rules, no matter whether people are young or old, rich or poor, Hispanic or white, housed or homeless. These are the overarching rules that allow society to survive.

For years, teachers have urged the NM Public Education Department to stop allowing kids to perpetuate violence at school. Kids are throwing chairs in classrooms, hitting other kids or teachers, and even destroying bathroom facilities, yet teachers aren’t allowed to impose real consequences.

Now, the Albuquerque teachers’ union’s 2025-26 report makes it clear that school violence is out of control. The report includes numerous quotes from teachers such as:

"I have permanent spinal damage from being hit with a chair."

"Behavior and aggressive students are pretty much in every class."

"There is absolutely NO DISCIPLINE."

"Students know there are no consequences."

Parents are concerned, too. In our homeschool group, numerous parents have reported that behavior problems, bullying, and violence are among the top issues that caused them to pull their kids out of school.

For example, one mother related that in her daughter’s school class, a girl had intense temper tantrums. Instead of imposing consequences to help this girl learn proper behavior, the teacher would take the rest of the kids out of class and allow the girl to trash the classroom.

It turns out that this situation is now commonplace nationwide: a student starts having a violent meltdown and instead of being allowed to impose consequences, the teachers are supposed to evacuate the rest of the students and allow the misbehaving student to wreck the classroom. All of these kids are learning that no one will stop a kid who chooses to hurt others, steal, or destroy.

One probable root cause is the 2014 Obama-era policy prohibiting race discrimination in schools. Although that sounds like a good policy, it overstepped by threatening loss of federal funds to schools with higher rates of disciplinary actions against minorities.

In 2018, the Federal Commission on School Safety reported that “schools ignored or covered up — rather than disciplined — student misconduct in order to avoid any purported racial disparity in discipline numbers that might catch the eye of the federal government.” According to the report, “[r]esearch clearly indicates that the failure of schools to appropriately discipline disruptive students has consequences for overall student achievement” and “disciplinary decisions are best left in the hands of classroom teachers and administrators” based on student behavior and not racial statistics.

The policy was rescinded in 2018, but a similar policy was brought back in 2023. President Trump’s current administration has rescinded the policy again in an Executive Order titled, “Reinstating Common Sense School Discipline Policies.” NM schools are now under threat of losing federal funding if they persist in allowing children’s violent behaviors to continue without consequences.

Regardless of the federal situation, it’s clear that allowing kids to perpetuate cycles of violent behavior in school isn’t working. I’m not advocating for corporal punishment in schools, but without real consequences, kids will continue down the path of destruction.

By the time these kids are teens, they’ve escalated to fighting, doing drugs, shoplifting, stealing cars and guns, and shooting others. With New Mexico’s lax juvenile crime laws, many of these kids get involved with organized criminal gangs and cartels, who know that youths can break the law here with little consequence. 

It's not compassionate to allow kids to continue their violent behaviors. In the long run, this harms kids and our community. Teachers and principals need to be allowed to impose swift, sure discipline for students who refuse to respect the rules. They need support from the superintendents, school boards, and state lawmakers in changing the culture.

Sarah Smith co-leads the New Mexico Freedoms Alliance, a non-partisan statewide grassroots coalition. She also organizes a group of 200+ school teachers, runs a homeschool group for 100+ families in Las Cruces, homeschools her two teens, and teaches Liberty-and-Leadership classes for teens. Sarah is a natural healthcare practitioner and former NASA aerospace engineer. She can be reached at concernedfornm@gmail.com.