An estimated 275,000 students receive non-traffic-related tickets each year in Texas, and a new report indicates that many of these instances are tied to student misbehavior in class or on the school bus that should instead be dealt with at school rather than in the criminal court system.

For the past four years, Texas Appleseed, a non-profit, social justice advocacy and research group based in Austin, has partnered with pro bono attorneys and child behavior experts to study disciplinary data reported by school districts to the Texas Education Agency. Twenty-two of 26 school districts or jurisdictions surveyed reported an increase in the number of tickets issued to students for a wide array of discretions including bullying/fighting, profanity and rowdiness whether in a classroom, on the playground or on the school bus.

While unable to determine how many of the 275,000 annual tickets are issued to students by campus police compared to local law enforcement officers, the report's authors found that "criminalization" extends to even the state's youngest students. In fact, over the past five years, says school police are known to have ticketed students as young as 5 or 6 years old. The report lumped disruption of transportation under the category of disruption of class, both Class C misdemeanors.

Texas Education Code Chapter 37 states: "Except as provided by Section 37.125, a person commits an offense if the person intentionally disrupts, prevents, or interferes with the lawful transportation of children to or from school or an activity sponsored by a school on a vehicle owned or operated by a county or independent school district."

The Texas Appleseed report also concluded that where a child attends school and not the nature of the school-based offense is a more accurate indicator of whether or not the child is more likely to be suspended or expelled. African-American students were also more likely to receive disciplinary referrals or expulsions.

Special education students were also more likely to be over-represented in the study's findings. The study's primary author, Deborah Fowler, said students can also be ticketed for behavior that is tied to their disability.

Meanwhile, school police officers also arrest students, though not as often as ticketing them. But when students are detained, parents and attorneys are often not present during initial questioning, the study found. The researchers linked an increase in tickets and arrests for school misbehavior to a rise in school resource officers. Fowler also said that previous research findings have shown that early introduction of children into the criminal court system can lead to increased drop-out rates

"In Texas, the zero-tolerance type disciplinary practices implemented in the mid 1990s are not only not research based but research done on zero tolerance shows that they overwhelmingly do not work," said Fowler, Texas Appleseed's legal director. "We have emphasized school-wide Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS), an evidence-based program that has been studied rigorously and shown to work."

She added that PBIS not only improves school safety, discipline and academics but allows teachers to focus less on discipline and more on teaching. All school employees can be trained in PBIS including bus drivers and aides.