COLUMBUS - Robert Richardson thought the 17-year-old at his doorstep with a shirt wrapped around his hands was hurt. The 82-year-old man was pointing to the telephone on the kitchen wall when he was stabbed deeply enough to cut his liver.
The shirt was covering handcuffs and a knife in the hands of Breland Johnson, a juvenile on parole after four years in detention who ran that day from Akron's Firestone High School while authorities were questioning him in an assault there.
The state would have to give school districts more information about paroled or released juvenile offenders, while still protecting the youths' privacy, under a bill a House committee approved 9-1 on Wednesday. It heads next to the full House. The attack on Richardson and his wife inspired the proposal by Rep. Bryan Williams, an Akron Republican.
The Department of Youth Services now can tell a district only that a youth has served detention, said spokeswoman Ann Liotta. Information on the felony offense would be available through the courts for the roughly 1,000 released juveniles who enroll in school yearly, she said.
The agency, school administrators and juvenile advocates support the bill, which would require giving the school psychologist the youth's psychological assessments, behavioral records and education plans developed while in detention. The district office must keep them confidential.
The psychologist would use the information to recommend to the superintendent whether the student should be placed in a regular school or alternative setting for students with behavior problems.
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