Camden prosecutor: Never issued Collingswood school directive

In the aftermath of an incident involving a third grader, a purported racist comment, and a brownie, the Camden County prosecutor said Monday that she never issued an order requiring district schools to report nearly every incident of student misbehavior.

The announcement by Mary Colalillo came five weeks after a meeting at which school officials say they were instructed by the prosecutor's office to do just that.

Since then, students as young as 7 have been questioned by police for incidents including roughhousing in the lunch line and making an allegedly racist comment about snacks.

Collingswood school and law enforcement officials had said that at a May 25 meeting among county prosecutors, school officials, Police Chief Kevin Carey, and Mayor Jim Maley, the prosecutor's office instructed the school district to adopt a new, stricter standard of reporting student misconduct to police.

Colalillo said Monday her office "never issued a new directive."

"My office has no jurisdiction over the schools and cannot change the [agreement] without the consent of all those who signed the agreement," she said Monday.

Superintendent Scott Oswald maintained Monday that prosecutors issued a new policy at the May meeting.

"There were plenty of ears in the room that heard that," he said.

Carey wrote in a June 27 statement that during the May meeting, "we were advised to alter the way we handle juvenile matters within our public schools," and to investigate anything "as minor as a simple name calling incident that the school would typically handle internally."

Carey could not be reached for comment Monday.

Maley and Carey have both said the May 25 meeting was prompted by an incident at Collingswood High School that was reported to police after a brief delay. Colalillo said Monday that Collingswood is the "only" district her office has worked with that "has had a problem implementing the statewide [agreement]."

On June 16, police were called to an end-of-the-year class party at the William P. Tatem Elementary School in Collingswood after a third grader 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 boy's mother said that the school overreacted and that her son made a comment about snacks, not skin color.

eplatoff@philly.com

856-779-3917 @emmaplatoff