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Schools can't do it alone : Entire city must work together to curb violence
by Dennis Kelly, UESF President
Safety in the schools is every parent’s and every teacher’s priority. But good people disagree as to how to achieve that goal.
The United Educators of San Francisco has long urged the SFUSD to provide the resources and services we know our children desperately need. Young people with goals, with dreams and the means to achieve them, do not pick up guns and shoot other people.
Students who attend school because there is a teacher they admire, a subject they like, or a sport they excel at are doing what they should be doing. We must remember, most students do not pick up guns. Most students do not shoot people. Most students are the children their proud parents raise them to be.
Our schools need more teachers, counselors, coaches, and tutors to help students achieve their dreams and goals and stay out of the criminal justice system. Schools that are under-funded, understaffed, and neglected have little chance of helping students become the productive adults and citizens our society needs.
Violent situations and crises call forth immediate responses. Though stricter security measures– metal detectors, random locker searches, frisking of students, etc., are attractive to some, these measures have limited success. Many of our schools cannot be locked down; we cannot limit access because of the campus design, nor can the schools be properly secured without violating fire codes. Many doors still do not lock from the inside. A great many of our staff and students spend their school days in the isolation of bungalows with little communication to the rest of the building.
Teachers, paras, counselors, and all school staff must be trained and prepared. Procedures to insure safety must be developed and implemented at each site. The little things—little defiances, little threats, little acts of vandalism—must be attended to before they become the tickets to ride to the big events. The message we send to children when we make schools resemble prisons is not healthy.
The responses to violence among our young people must call on the best thinking and planning and resources of the entire city. Schools cannot do it alone. Parks cannot do it alone. Police cannot do it alone. Libraries cannot do it alone. Our children must be valued and their lives must have direction or no measures we take will succeed in turning them away from violence.
District must show will to deal with violent behavior
Linda Plack's presentation to the Board of Education on December 2.
