Parents hear safety plans |
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By FULLER ROYAL “When I look at the condition of safety of the Whiteville City Schools, I have great concern,” said Whiteville City Schools Superintendent Dr. Randall Shaver as he began his introductory remarks to the more than 100 parents and school employees during Tuesday night’s PTA school safety forum. “There is a preponderance of weapons and we must take action.” The forum came about after Shaver met with the system’s four PTA presidents. Confusion and concern over any new rules, especially those pertaining to book bags and pocketbooks, became the driving force. Shaver and the presidents thought a public forum would answer concerns and calm fears. Central Middle School PTA President -elect Becky High moderated the meeting. Shaver told the group that school safety was an administrative issue, not a school board issue. Each school’s school improvement team (SIT) and principal came up with the proposals presented. “The schools need to be flexible to do what is necessary without constraints from the board,” Shaver said, adding that he will look at the recommendations from each school. “Ultimately, that decision will be certified by my office,” he said. He said the new rules won’t be the most convenient but the students will be safer. Shaver said the primary safety issues are weapons on campus, visitors on campus, violence, fighting, drug use, crisis response and crisis communications. Images of knives,
Included was the book bag taken from a Whiteville High School student that contained a handgun and burglary tools. The student was arrested and later charged in connection with a murder that would take place by others that very night. The book bag was discovered by a teacher because it was “out of place.” Because the high school’s administration had padlocked all of the unused lockers, there was nowhere for the boy to “stash” it. “Had our teachers not been vigilant they would not have discovered the bag,” Shaver said. That bag had gang colors on it as well as the name of the gang. Shaver called that gang a “dangerous group of individuals” with members recruited in elementary school to join older members well into adulthood. The book bag of an Edgewood Elementary School student who went on a knife-wielding tirade to the terror of two young girls was also displayed with its cache of knives and bullets. Shaver called the Edgewood incident “one of the scariest encounters I have ever had. It was one of the most serious threats by a student I have ever seen.” Like an
Shaver repeated the point several times that he favors getting rid of book bags from Edgewood on up. He cited statistics that show about 6 percent of the high schools in the United States have banned book bags and for those that did, there was an 80 percent reduction of weapons. According to the AASA, the majority of weapons found on school campuses are concealed in students’ book bags or inside their loose fitting clothes. Shaver detailed what he requires from each school in their decision-making process. Plans must include metal detectors and must allow for adequate storage of athletic equipment and band instruments. The book bag
He said that any approved plan would not begin until the second semester. Shaver went on to talk about having “zero tolerance” for gangs, adding that when they can prove that a child is engaged in gang activity, which is illegal in North Carolina on any campus, he or she will be given a long-term suspension. Whiteville Primary Whiteville Primary Principal Lynn Spaulding presented his school’s safety plan, much of it centered in curriculum and training students at an early age about correct behavior in school. “We are safe at Whiteville Primary School,” he told the audience. Spaulding said that child movement is heavily monitored on his campus, especially during the morning drop-off and afternoon pickup of students. The school has 16 cameras and could use more. Whiteville Primary is an open campus with six street accesses and nine buildings with more than two dozen entrances. Spaulding said complete identification is required by anyone picking up a child. Visitors must sign in at the office and wear a visitor’s pass. “We make sure you are who you say you are before you get one of my babies,” he said. Early checkout ends at 1:30 each day. Adults must be on an approved list and verified before they can take a child home. Adults must wait in the office while the child is brought to them. Edgewood Elementary At Edgewood Elementary School, Principal Deanna Shuman said that effective Nov. 26, parents and visitors will be asked to sign in at the office and receive a visitor’s pass before walking to classrooms during morning arrival. Shuman said this will help eliminate incidences of parents speaking inappropriately to other students. Shuman said there is a great deal of visitor traffic in the morning with many parents walking their children to class and seeing teachers. That was one recommendation by Edgewood’s SIT. Another recommendation is the total elimination of book bags. Teachers will send home no more than one textbook each night. Students will use a three-ring binder or heavy-duty folder with pockets to house student planners, pencil pouches, library books and notebook paper. Teachers will make use of overhead transparencies, workbook pages, study guides from textbooks or teacher-made materials as well as student notes in lieu of sending home more than one textbook. Students will no longer walk outside the school on their way to the library or to the cafeteria. Edgewood is essentially eight buildings, five of which are connected. There are more than one dozen entrances and little fencing. Parents will be required to provide a list of adults permitted to pick their children up. Picture ID’s will be required of any adult picking up a child. Students will be summoned to the office while the adults wait there. All teacher conferences must be scheduled ahead of time. Shuman noted that Edgewood is the only city school without security cameras and that not every classroom has two-way communication with the office. Shuman is hoping for a check-in station. The system, which costs about $2,000, allows for visitors to check in, have their photo made and printed on a photo ID decal. Visitors sign out and the software logs the time of their visit. The process takes 30 seconds. Shuman said the bus parking area also has no lights. This makes nighttime activities difficult. Central Middle Central Middle School Principal Frederick Hill said new safety measures at CMS include photo ID cards for all staff and students. Students may eventually be able to use their ID cards as lunch cards. Metal detectors will be added and random searches with metal detecting wands will be ordered each week. The SIT approved the absolute elimination of book bags and purses. Instrument cases will be kept in the band room while athletic equipment will be kept in the field house. The next recommendation by Central’s SIT raised the buzz level of the audience. The team proposed that all personal hygiene items (feminine napkins and tampons) be distributed by teachers with additional vending machines in the bathrooms. Students will be escorted to the bathrooms. Locker visits will be allowed only during class changes. Homework requirements will be changed in order to accommodate the lack of book bags. Visitors will have to check in and wear visible ID badges. Hill said there are at least two entrances at each of the school’s eight buildings. He said that the school will have to return to the use of daily bells. Whiteville High “When I first came here, one of my major concerns was the lack of security and safety,” said Whiteville High School Principal John Westberg. He said that a thin staff and low funding will make security attempts at WHS difficult. The morning bag searches and metal detecting have stretched his staff to the limit. He said the students have been wonderful in the way they have conducted themselves. WHS has 13 buildings sprawled along a three-block-long campus. There are dozens of cameras but blind spots exist with effective fencing on one side of the campus only. With so many entrances, Westberg said he would like to see an expanded security force of “Wolfpack Assistants,” retirees in uniforms with badges and radios patrolling the grounds all day. He said the force would work for less pay than regular officers and be an effective deterrent to errant visitors. He said his staff was worried about handguns on campus. Funds needed “We need to spend the money to make our children secure,” he said. “The money best spent is for that security staff. We must have a presence all over that campus.” After Westberg finished, Shaver told the group that there would be no ban on small purses because female students need them for personal items. He said the idea of teachers distributing feminine hygiene products would not pass muster. There was a round of applause from the audience. High then opened the floor for questions and comments. Susan Deans said she didn’t agree with the ban on book bags but would support it. “I think it’s a band aid,” she said. She asked why hadn’t the uniform option been tried first. Shaver said that if parents want school uniforms, he had three of the five school board members ready to vote for them. “I would support it,” he said. Shaver said that in New Hanover County recently, law enforcement sent non-students onto all of the county’s middle and high school campuses to see how quickly they would be discovered. The fastest discovery time was two minutes on a campus that requires a standard mode of dress. The longest time was 26 minutes – on a school with no standard mode of dress. Shaver said that book bag bans and a standard mode of dress are not mutually exclusive. “If a child wants to bring a weapon to campus, they are going to do it,” he said. Shaver said the world has changed. He said that with a book bag ban, there would be one less place to hide weapons. Homework Charlene Bush said that she wouldn’t mind her child not having to haul a 30-pound book bag, but she is concerned about how homework will be handled at Central. She was also concerned with the girls having to go to the front of the class to ask a teacher for a feminine hygiene product. “You might as a well as hold a neon sign over their heads,” she said. Shaver said when he told his wife about that part of the plan, she asked him if he had lost his mind. “It’s good to get that female perspective,” he said, adding that parents shouldn’t beat the principals up over that idea since the SITs came up with it. “But we must regulate the size of the pocketbooks,” he said. Sarah Garner asked Shaver if he indeed was for a standard mode of dress. He responded yes. Cut back Shaver added that teachers would have to adjust instructionally and realize that each student doesn’t belong to just them without concern for what other teachers would be assigning for homework. One unidentified parent was concerned that students couldn’t wear coats during class. Shaver said to check with her school’s principal to clarify that rule. Allen Edwards wanted to know why all of these problems were suddenly surfacing and asked if they had been kept hidden by previous administrations. “Did it take a new administration to let us know?” he asked. Shaver said he could not answer for the previous administration. “We will not cover up problems,” he said. “There have been a series of problems that we have to address,” he said. “We are bringing it to the community.” “I appreciate that,” Edwards said. “Evidently, the previous administration didn’t let us know.” No changes One unidentified woman said she wanted to know why security couldn’t be stepped up. “You are altering these children’s lifestyles,” she said. “Fashion is a big deal with them. I like big bags. You’re stealing their joy. And not every shirt looks good tucked in. I don’t agree with the change in patterns.” Another unidentified woman whose child is at Edgewood said she was concerned that if so few books are to be sent home, would the schoolwork suffer and decrease what the students learn. Shuman said that will not happen. She also addressed the “band aid” comment made earlier. She said that she knows none of the new rules will “fix” the situation, but they are a start. Frustration She said her staff had met a roadblock when it came to the boy who wielded a knife earlier this year. The school has exhausted all of its resources and now state and county agencies are doing nothing. She said the boy can’t come back to school and is receiving no help from any agency. “We have to protect whoever is sitting next to that child,” she said. “These problems should not be on the backs of the schools,” Deans said. “There are so many,” Shuman responded. Another unidentified parent said it was important that the schools continue to make parents feel welcome. “Parents need to be involved in decision-making,” she said. Parents should not be talked at but talked with.” She asked if the schools are dealing with these students swiftly enough. Zero-tolerance Shaver repeated his zero-tolerance policy on weapons. He said that his administration and the school board approve of swift action. “We have 2,700 students and 500 employees,” he said. “If one gets hurt, I’m responsible.” “That doesn’t mean we always get the cooperation of the judiciary,” he said. “This is not a school problem but a problem that comes to school. “Everyone who sits on a bench and judges a child who has committed a crime should have to first work in a school setting,” Shaver said.
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