Very recently, I received an email from Tom Schell of Waterloo, Ontario. Tom wrote, “I need your wisdom in finding a way to have my cake and eat it too. We know how to create parent engagement, but how do we do it alongside ensuring the safety of our elementary students?” (Personal communication, January 14, 2009).
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Hi Debbie,
I need your wisdom in finding a way to have my cake and eat it too.
We know how to create parent engagement, largely based on your paper, but how do we do it along side ensuring the safety of our elementary students. To help you understand why we are looking at enhanced safety measures including door locking, here are some of the events that have taken place within a 1 year period, within line of sight of our school:
1. A man who had just robbed the local Shoppers Drugmart, found his way into the boy’s washroom at our school. He had presented the pharmacist with a note demanding drugs and indicating he had a gun. The incident took place just before dismissal and the halls were filled with kids. Fortunately he left the school and was arrested later. He was subsequently charged with 2 counts of robbery, 3 drug related charges and 1 weapons count related to the robbery.
2. S.W.A.T deployment directly across the street to remove a massive and “deadly collection” of weapons and explosives. This guy had a photo of himself holding a gun with a silencer; the caption read, “Knowledge that I could kill anyone, priceless.” This precipitated a 4 hour lock down when classes were about to be dismissed.
3. A second S.W.A.T. deployment around the corner. Not as many guns.
4. A man followed one of our grade 6 girls down the street in front of the school and another one on an adjacent street.
5. A man flashed one of our students.
6. A naked lady was sitting in a snow bank screaming obscenities at the drug dealer at a house just down the street.
7. Armed robbery a block away at the Plaza. (not the same one as described above)
8. Stolen van from parking lot.
9. Break and enter at school. Stole most of our computer equipment.
10. Two “crack” houses busted around the corner.
11. Numerous other robberies and attempted robberies in the neighbourhood.
I wish we could go back to the old days. Certainly the long-term solution is to solve the socio-economic problems that cause this sort of behaviour but our immediate problem is how to keep our kids safe in an environment of increasing aberrant behaviour while maintaining parent engagement. Although many parents feel that any negative impact of enhanced safety measures are secondary to the safety of their kids in this environment, how do we keep the bad guys out of our school without alienating parents?
Help!
Best Regards,
Tom Schell
Waterloo, Ontario
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