Hundreds Of Students Brought Guns To School
Not toy guns, mind you. If the data from a survey carried out in the middle schools and high schools of San Francisco is accurate, then students have been bringing guns to school. ETR Associates of Scotts Valley carried out this particular survey in the school year of 2007-2008. The results are pretty alarming: almost 900 students in the middle schools and high schools of San Francisco brought guns to school campuses in the period covered.
More than the guns, however, students also admitted to carrying other types of weapon to school. These weapons included knives and clubs. Perhaps many of them were home made weapons – anything that can help protect the school kids. The interesting thing about this study is that school authorities – principals among them – admit to being aware of the issue. Guillermo Morales, principal of Thurgood Marshall Academic High School says:
I don’t think any principal here can deny … that everyday there’s got to be a gun on campus and we just don’t know. I would be very naive to say we don’t have that problem here.
More interesting is his statement to the effect that the reason kids bring guns and other weapons to school is the fact that they feel unsafe traveling to and from the school campus. According to him, they are afraid for their physical safety outside of the school premises and not inside.
According to SF Gate, other results of the survey include:
– 455 middle school students (6 percent) and 923 high school students (7 percent) said they were gang members.
– More than half of the 21,000 respondents said they don’t feel teachers and staff keep them safe from bullying, verbal harassment or physical violence in the classroom.
– 630 middle school students (8 percent) and 1,132 high school students (9 percent) said they didn’t go to school at least once in the previous 30 days because they didn’t feel safe.
– 60 percent of students felt safe or very safe at school.
So now that we have this data, what are we supposed to do? I suppose that one thing that should be done is to address the safety of the school children while they are in transit to school. Obviously, this would need some action from city officials, not only the school authorities. Parents should also take part in coming up with the solution, perhaps taking their kids to school or arranging some sort of safe transportation to and from school. This is no simple matter. Again, the survey only serves to highlight the importance of community involvement in finding the solution to the ever pressing problem of school safety. Any ideas?
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Posted on February 16th, 2009 by Deborah J Thomas
Filed under: Administrators, High School, K-6, News, Parents, People Involved, School Grade Level, School Safety Issues, Security, Shootings, Students, Violence
hiya fools
this is mr T