The responsibility of keeping children safe at school
Re: “Staffers wounded in shooting at East” and “Students, parents struggle with ongoing violence,” March 23 news stories
The shooting of two East High School administrators is very disturbing to me as an East High graduate. As I observed the tragic situation unfold on television, I found the reaction of some upset and concerned parents to be totally understandable yet misguided.
As they hammered Mayor Michael Hancock with requests to put armed police back in the school, those distraught parents didn’t seem to understand that the decision to remove armed school resource officers (SROS) from the school was made by the Board of Education a couple of years ago. Therefore, any move to put them back has to be approved by the BOE.
The bad decision to eliminate SROS was fueled by a disdain for police and the fear of having guns in schools. It turns out that when you ban guns, the bad guys always seem to have them and the bad guys tragically prevail, as we saw at East High. The best way to stop the bad guy with a gun is to have SROS with guns.
The real problem is with the Denver Public Schools Board of Education, not the mayor.
— E. John Clarke, Fort Collins
I’m a grandparent of a student at East High. I’m appalled that this evidently dangerous student was allowed to attend school. With his history, including exclusion from another school and imposed terms of attendance — a daily frisk by school personnel — no one was using common sense. The safety of all students and school personnel was put in jeopardy by this irresponsible decision. In addition, were parents notified of this student’s attendance terms? Policy changes must be made for the safety of all.
— Mimi Rigali, Holyoke, Mass.
Another child has died. Another family is grieving. Hundreds have been traumatized again. We are failing our children, period. It is our fault.
When a young man feels he has no choice but to carry a gun, whether from fear or anger, and to kill himself in desperation when the situation gets out of hand and he panics, we are to blame. Not him. Us. Until we are willing to make real changes and give our children real options and solutions for dealing with the crises of life, then this tragedy is your fault, my fault, our fault.
— Lynne Forrester, Littleton
I just read with dismay how Denver’s East High School staff had been conducting a “security search” of a high-risk student daily as part of a safety plan. As a retired police officer, I can say, without any doubt, that the search of another person, especially someone who is considered potentially dangerous, is a high-risk activity that unreasonably places public school staffers in danger.
Police are taught, in great detail and with extensive training, how to search another person safely and successfully. School staff members are not police officers and are not trained in search methods. A search done incorrectly by an untrained person is an absolute recipe for disaster if it turns out the person being searched has a weapon.
How often do we have to experience tragedy before we agree that having a trained school resource officer in our schools benefits us all?