[Football games] present a place where something that started somewhere else may come to be finished, ... It's a large crowd, and crowds provide anonymity. So people may jump in and do things that they might normally not do. |
A lot of times we'll see fences around playground areas but for some reason they tend to be about half that size and if somebody wanted to snatch a kid, they could easily drive up here and reach over and drop in and out real quickly. |
Even if the government had actual real-time data, it's two to three years old, ... School administrators need to know what is happening today and what to anticipate tomorrow, not outdated numbers from yesteryear. |
I don't think the principal is doing anything radical. |
Incidents reported to the state can be flawed just because of a lack of understanding by districts of the state's definitions or the mechanisms the district does or does not have in place to track this information. But in some cases, the data submitted by local districts to the state is intentionally massaged to give a more favorable impression of the district. |
School crisis teams and staff often have unrealistic expectations of police and other public safety personnel response capabilities, which creates a false perception of outside support and less internal capacity building for handling a real school emergency. |
Schools don't create gangs or promote them, but it is their problem. It's important that they don't try to negate their responsibility to manage the safety issues of their campus and to try to educate kids about the dangers of gangs. |
The only thing that is more dangerous than a gang member with a weapon is a parent or an educator in denial. There's no excuse for parental ignorance. Turning their head and looking the other way can lead the kids into gangs in the first place. |
The real test of any governmental agency's priorities is reflected in what it budgets to address a particular issue, not rhetoric. |
The reality is that the behavior is inappropriate, especially for a school climate. Just as if we go in an airport, it's inappropriate to joke about bombs and weapons. |
The reasons change from kid to kid. We can't say that a child joined a gang for x, y and z. The one common thing is that gangs give their members something that is not being provided anywhere else. It can be camaraderie, money or drugs. |
This incident is certainly one more reminder in a list of many that school violence is alive and active in far too many communities. |
We have to teach kids to report, and teach adults to do something, when they hear about it. A matter of hours or days, depending on the facts of the case, can make a difference between life and death. |
We talk about gangs and drugs and guns, and they are all threats, |
We've had 18 school associated violent deaths this year (and) over 50 non-fatal shootings across the country. |