School safety, security, and violence prevention resource

As soon as I typed out that title, I realized that it could be misinterpreted in a big way. As such, let me clarify it from the outset; when I say stoned, I mean literally thrown rocks at. I am not referring to the figurative meaning of getting high on special herbs. 😉

Anyhow, I thought that stoning was passé. I thought that it was what the people in the ancient times did to women whom they considered adulterers. But no, some students at the Portola Middle School actually experienced something like the ancient punishment only recently.

The Mercury News ran this story yesterday:

…band teacher Tiffany Carrico told some kids they couldn’t go into a classroom during lunch, which is school policy.

“They did not like that. It appears that some of the kids began throwing rocks at her. Then a couple of them approached and pushed her to the ground, while a large group of students continued throwing rocks,” Maples said. “At some point, a site administrator eyewitnesses what’s going on, fights his way through the crowd and helps her up.”

Carrico ran for the safety of her classroom, police said, only to find the doorway blocked by a pair of students, who tried to prevent her escape.

I don’t know about you, but as I read those words, I could just picture the scene in my head and it seemed like something that you see in the movies! Imagine a female teacher being hounded by a large group of kids, being thrown stones at, falling down, trying to run, but facing more students along the way. That just gave me the chills!

The worse thing is that the school didn’t report this to the police. It was a parent who called the attention of the authorities. Now how weird (and lame!) is that?

Isn’t it part of school policy that the school itself should report all incidents of crime and violence that occur within school premises? If what happened to Carrico is not a crime, then I don’t know what else to call it!

This time it was a teacher who was the victim. Next time, who knows, it could be your child. We really should stop looking the other way. We should stop thinking of statistics. We should change our outlook and actually do something about this. It simply is not acceptable.

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