Garfield High School Murder Updates
Update:
From the Superintendent's messaging this afternoon on well-resourced schools as well as school safety.
Commitment to Safety and Security
Safety is our top priority. Next school year, we are expanding our plans to include gun violence prevention in high schools and increased mental health support for all grades. I have allocated over $2 million for staff to improve school building exteriors and campus security.
Upcoming Safety Changes
I am working on several safety changes for next school year in our high schools to ensure the well-being of our students and staff. Throughout the summer, I will be in conversations with our regional and building leaders about the needs of their school communities. The safety changes being considered may include:
- Increasing SPS security and neighborhood safety organization patrols around our buildings.
- Wearing identification badges on campus.
- Requiring clear backpacks.
- Closing campuses for lunch.
Our campus safety improves when our community reports safety concerns. I urge all students and families to install our district app on your cellphone to report safety concerns.
And please remember—the SPS Safe Schools Hotline 206-252-0510 can be used 24/7 to report any threats to our schools.
end of update
The Seattle Times has yet another "what to do about safety" article. In it we learn:
Jackson Hatch, a rising senior at Garfield, says he understands the arguments for and against increasing police presence on the campus. Beyond the involvement of law enforcement, he says the school still has underfunded security needs, including a way to alert students about danger when they’re not inside the building.
On the day of the shooting, he said many students didn’t know what was going on. He was in a car with his friends, having just come back from lunch, and saw cars zooming away from campus. They had to ask someone walking by what had happened.
“It’s crazy to have danger happening so close to you,” said Hatch, who launched a fundraiser for school security in the days after the shooting. He’s raised more than $13,000 so far, and he says he’s turned the money over to the school’s principal. He said he’s also working with another student and a teacher to develop a text message alert system for students.
Wait, what? Seattle Schools has no app for students to download if there are safety updates for their school? I'm going to check on that.
And Hatch's Go-Fund Me page - Stand with Garfield High School for a Safer Campus was trying to raise $10,000 and is now at over $13,000.
Seattle School Board president Liza Rankin said she is expecting a clear plan to be in place by fall to improve student safety. Rankin said Seattle school Superintendent Brent Jones would need to show community buy-in and evidence that the strategies used would increase student safety.
“Personally, the data I’ve seen on school resource officers show that they do not increase student safety,” Rankin said. “At the same time, I expect the superintendent to be talking to the community to discuss it. If we got a clear message that the community wants it, I don’t think the board would reject it.”
Again, wait, what? When, in the beginning stages of school closures in the fall, will Superintendent Jones have time for community meetings on safety? Or will it be a survey? Hmmm
Odis Johnson Jr., executive director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools, confirmed that research shows school resource officers aren’t particularly effective at deterring armed attackers.
Johnson said new research is expected to be published soon suggesting that restorative justice practices — people in conflict discussing harmful behaviors, building relationships and committing to a mutually satisfactory resolution to the problem — are effectively curbing school violence.
SPD
Even if the Seattle Police Department was to send a school resource officer back to Garfield, it would only be with lots of community input, said Sue Rahr, the city’s interim police chief.
“We have to work together to build a job description,” Rahr said. “Once we understand what their concerns are, hopefully they’ll be willing to try a different approach.”
“What I’ve watched happen in this investigation is a lack of cooperation with some witnesses and some community members,” she said. “This could move a lot faster if we had relationships that already existed in the community.”
On community
Ali Rowhani-Rahbar studies community violence interventions at the Firearm Injury and Policy Research Program at the University of Washington.
“That link to the community is critical because these young people are going to spend a lot of time within the community,” he said. “Without that link, I think we are going to miss a very large part of the story.”
A couple of interesting comments:
As a current GHS parent, I wish the School District Board would be less concerned about potential damage of having an armed resource officer in a school, than the actual damage being done by gun violence at the school. What will it take to finally make them take this seriously? Apparently the tragic murder of a 17 year old boy who was trying to break up a fight is not even enough. Our school administration, as well as staff, parents and students have been asking for a Resource Officer and additional security for more than a year. The response when there is an incident is temporary and anything beyond that is “thoughts and prayers”, then the whole cycle continues again and again with a worse result each time.
Another
As another parent, I could not agree more. There is lot of well-meaning noise but none of the admittedly few practical solutions to the presence of guns on campus. And we will have to send our kids back into this dangerous situation come fall. My kids hated that the parents welcomed them back to school as shown in one of the accompanying pictures (we were there) - they expressed very clearly to us that the adults just did this to feel better. They are quite cynical about our ability to change things for the better. The ideas described in this piece are not much better than the usual thoughts and prayers offered by the gun aficionados.
Apparently even the Seattle Mariners are weighing in, this via MSN:
Seattle Mariners joined the community in mourning the death of a teenager, who was shot at Garfield High School earlier this week. While paying tribute to the 17-year-old, the latest victim of gun violence, the baseball team put out a strong message on Saturday asking the people to wear orange-coloured outfits.
Following another tragic shooting that has impacted our schools, friends and neighbors, we join our community in honoring victims and survivors of gun violence, spreading awareness of this public health crisis and working to help find solutions. #WearOrange," the Seattle Mariners wrote in a message on social media including X (formerly Twitter).
I note that wearing orange comes from an organization I am proud to support, Moms Demand Action. Red is their normal org color but in June, we wear orange shirts for action.
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