Cumberland schools to hold public meeting on safety issues

CUMBERLAND – The Cumberland Public School District is planning to hold a town hall meeting early next month for a community-wide exchange on school safety in the wake of the recent school shooting in Florida.

The community conversation will take place at Cum- berland High School on a date to be announced next week.

Cumberland School Superintendent Robert Mitchell is inviting administrators, teachers, students, parents, town officials, law enforcement and members of the community at large to the session to share their concerns and ideas. Members of the District Safety Committee

chaired by Jason Masterson, principal of McCourt Middle School in Cumberland, will also be in attendance.

In addition to the town hall meeting, Mitchell says he is planning this month to meet one-on-one with each of the district’s Parent Teacher Organizations to discuss school safety concerns.

“The loss of life at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, was an unsettling event that has touched all of us in some way,” Mitchell said at a Cum-

berland School Committee meeting last week. “It’s important for everyone to know that as a school district we are looking at the protocols we have in place around school safety and how to respond in situations that require us to act quickly and efficiently in order to protect our students and staff.”

“We also know this is a difficult time for students and parents, which is why we are holding this town hall meeting. It will give everyone an opportunity to voice their concerns,” he said.

Mitchell says he has received numerous emails from parents in the days since

the Feb. 14 mass shooting in Florida.

“One of the things I’ve been hearing from parents is that not only do we need to have procedures in place in the event something bad happens, there also needs to be a focus on prevention,” he said. “I’ve heard from a number of folks that we really need to pay attention to students that may be having difficulties in some way and do everything humanly possible to intervene and try to resolve whatever issues these students might be dealing with.”

The district’s town hall meeting may coincide with the #NationalSchoolWalkout movement scheduled for March 14, which aims to advance efforts that will keep children and educators safe from gun violence in schools.

“I’ve been really impressed at how students are mobilizing and how articulate and precise they are in expressing their opinion,” Mitchell said.

Earlier this week, Rhode Island established a new “red flag” policy on guns with an executive order that will help keep guns away from people who “could pose significant threats to public safety.”

Five states – Connecticut, California, Washington, Oregon and Indiana - have taken similar action on potential red flags in recent years, but Rhode Island is the first to do so since the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

The policy does not give law enforcement new authority to confiscate guns, but it directs them to use “all available legal steps” to remove firearms from people who have shown warning signs, including recently making threats of violence online or in person, according to the statement.

The order also launches a campaign to educate the public about signs that could indicate if a person poses a threat.