Unpopular Opinion on School Safety

I sent the following email to the BOE this morning and wanted to share it here as well.

Good Afternoon,

Schools are safe-  the community-wide and national conversation on school safety is not based on any evidence.

Lockdown drills do not have any evidence of doing anything but traumatize children.

Adding police in schools doesn’t do anything to prevent school shootings; the evidence demonstrates that police in schools only work to make school shootings more dangerous. and schools more problematic in general.

Scissors are more dangerous than AirSoft guns, meaning we are reacting to a symbol of our fears – the nightmare in our head that gets prompted by a representation of a thing.

So here’s an unpopular opinion:

-Not having a lockdown was precisely the proper response

-Mass removal of policies and procedures, along with the announcement of adding two new police officers without any real or meaningful public discussion, harms parents on all sides of the debate.

-And having a child – A CHILD – sit in the police station for bringing what many of us had as kids to school, while I’m sure is probably a requirement, acts as evidence of where we are right now. The root of the issue is what the incident that occurred Friday at CMS provokes or invokes in us as adults. We can be mindful not to allow our emotions to impact our compassion or desire to seek a complete understanding of the incident before coming to a set of conclusions.

This CHILD is now in the middle of a discussion framing his behavior and presence as a threat. In this process, we are scaring OUR CHILDREN into thinking schools are dangerous places and that our focus should be on fighting ghosts versus the real purpose of school – learning.

I am more concerned with how the adults in this community think than I am about this CHILD’s decision.

I want our children to think of schools as they are – safe places of learning where teachers and counselors are their most important allies. A place where they can see and talk to their friends.

With all that being said, can we please do things differently this time and have a conversation about how to move forward that is evidence-based and moderate in approach? Can we start from a place of facts, not fear? Let’s use this as the one time we take family input and evidence and form a policy response where a true partnership involving compromise results in a transparent, coherent, and humane approach to children.

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