Discipline is sensitive territory on school campuses, where staff metes out appropriate consequences aimed at reining in bad behavior. Summoning the help of police is an option to be exercised sparingly.

Unfortunately, existing protocols were not followed as they should have been in a January 2020 incident at Honowai Elementary School in Waipahu. There is certainly room for the reforms being sought, as well as for better staff training to steer clear of any repeat occurrence.

The case — which led to a 10-year-old girl being arrested, handcuffed and taken to a police station, and then a series of private complaints to school and police officials — has now surfaced very publicly in a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union. This incident deserves full attention of the state Department of Education and the Honolulu Police Department.

ACLU Hawaii and private attorney Mateo Caballero, formerly legal director of the nonprofit’s Hawaii office, have teamed up on a demand letter, sent Monday to HPD and DOE officials, as well as the city’s Department of Corporation Counsel and the state Department of the Attorney General.

In addition to changes in protocols, the child’s mother, who is identified in the letter as Tamara Taylor, is seeking $500,000 in damages. DOE and HPD officials have declined comment, citing the possibility of further litigation.

Arguably, some of the urged reforms are already covered in the state’s Chapter 19 rules on discipline. (They state, for instance, that police should be called “whenever there is perceived danger and the behavior cannot be handled by the school staff.”) Here are some of the demands:

>> DOE should adopt policies barring staff from calling police on a student unless the student presents “an imminent threat of significant harm to someone,” and generally allowing parents or guardians access to their children while on school property.

>> Both DOE and HPD policies should require a parent or legal guardian to be present whenever a minor is being questioned by school officials about potentially criminal behavior, and whenever a police officer is interrogating them.

>> HPD should not arrest students on school property absent any imminent threat of significant harm to someone.

These seem reasonable enough. But not all the requested reforms have equal merit: For example, the request for a police policy “forbidding officers from entering school property absent an imminent threat of significant harm to someone” would be excessively restrictive.

This Honowai Elementary case involves a child, who is Black, in a clash with other students. What precipitated the police visit was a drawing made by the child, with contributions from others sitting at her table, said Caballero, Taylor’s attorney. He declined to describe the contents of the drawing, other than to acknowledge that it was “offensive.”

Another child allegedly delivered the drawing to the target of the insult, but it was another parent who later came to the school insisting on pressing charges.

What seems most egregious about the encounter was that Taylor was called to the school, but then kept from joining her daughter while the 10-year-old was being interrogated, and then arrested. This runs afoul of Chapter 19, which states that “prior to any interview, the principal or designee shall inform the parent of the right to be present while the police interview is conducted.”

Taylor believes her child was singled out because of her race. She might not have been left with that regrettable impression had there been a more thorough investigation of all the involved children.

And had the school stopped to consider whether police were needed at all, common sense might have suggested that they weren’t.