The Shooting at Chardon High

An important story about a football coach who went above and beyond, not just one day but for all the days that followed when a shooting happened at his high school.   A great piece from 60 Minutes.

I will note - again - that in all the (sadly) multiple stories about school shootings that I have yet to read one where teachers or staff did NOT protect the students in the building.  All the stories I have read have been about teachers/staff who stood between a bullet and their students.

I had the opportunity to this weekend to address a group of young Dems leaders about public education.  I noted School Safety as one of the many education issues in our country.

I took a minute to tell them that when I was in school, I NEVER worried about a gun at school.  Ever.

I told them I did not believe it fair for them and for their some-day children.  And I apologized for my generation's seeming lack of concern and oversight of this issue.

I said that, in my opinion, there were three top issues for public education.  One of them was our society's attitude towards education (and intellectual strength) but really, it also includes our attitudes towards guns and access to guns.

I told them that really, nothing can change, unless we make a commitment to a change in how we think as a country - both about public education AND guns.

Comments

Anonymous said…
The irony is that the same adults are the villains in the story about education. Teachers find themselves on guard, on defense from Administrators, Parents and yes the very children they would end their lives to protect.

All of the gun shooters are largely "children" themselves and they are settling scores or getting 'even' and yet no anger management classes are taught, there is little to few real trained and educated professionals to assess and treat mental health for children which is why we have become the drugged up nation.

And yet we are surveying the same children to assess teachers, schools and the curriculum. Really they need to be assessed not tested and their families involved and engaged in the school but they can't.

How many teachers have lost jobs due to children and their false accusations and claims and the parents who refuse to realize that yes children lie and are unkind and want to drag everyone into their miasma of pain?

Greenberg, the Teacher at Roosevelt, the Sub at Hamilton, a Teacher at RBHS is on "leave" as a student 'said' something and the district doesn't investigate they castigate and point the blame to an adult who would take a bullet.

I am not sure if this is Seattle as it has always been one step removed from the bookend Boston... there is a culture here and dynamic that is quite the parallel. The 70s started the busing issue and Seattle simply did it by closing schools in "white" upscale areas. Today it is institutional racism, Police on a rampage, homeless permeating the streets. So much for "liveable"

-Truth Teller
2/24/14, 8:19 AM
Anonymous said…
When I was a kid, we never worried about guns in school, even though probably half the cars in the school parking lot had guns in them.

Of course, families were far more intact than they are today, positive role models (churches,community groups, neighborhood interactions) played a much stronger role in teaching right and wrong, and the media didn't glorify violence the way it does today.

Virtually every 12 year old boy (the minimum legal age for hunting in that state) I know had a gun, but it was never a problem.

Blaming "guns" for a much more complicated problem only diverts attention from real solutions.

Real solutions
2/24/14, 2:50 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Okay, what's the "real solution"?

I'm not talking about banning guns. I'm talking about making gun owners responsible for happens with their guns if they are not stolen.
2/24/14, 3:25 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

MEETING CANCELED - Hey Kids, A Meeting with Three(!) Seattle Schools Board Directors

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Read more