What troubles me is that I think it's necessary. It may be necessary because the only alternative is to offer body armor to teachers.
But that along won't solve the problem laid out in the article.
Due to escalating violence in and near the schools -- including fights between students and student assaults against teachers -- the school district asked for help this fall from the Champaign Police Department. Of particular concern was a Nov. 4 melee that slightly injured several faculty and staff members and ended in five arrests.The second half of the solution is more obvious, at least to me.
In another incident, a 15-year-old Champaign Centennial male student was arrested Thursday afternoon on a juvenile charge of aggravated battery after police reports said he pushed and shoved a school dean while trying to get at another student.
It's darned well time that Champaign middle and high schools became totally closed campuses. Much of the problem stems from students meeting with their out-of-school frends just outside the school buildings.
Despite the protestations from students, it is NOT a right to leave campus during the school day. And it's NOT a good idea.
Despite what fast-food and convenience store owners might say.
Limiting the school-day interaction between in-school students and out-of-school troublemakers might just alleviate a bit of the pressure. It has worked elsewhere. It has worked in the past. It can work.
But what's troubling is that the city council, the school board and our questionably-competent school administration never seems to even consider the option.
Close the doors. Lock then from the time the first bell rings and the last bell sounds. Big chains. Big locks. Since it's illegal for students to smoke, what reason do they have to leave school? Students can perform all the 'hanging out' they need off school property after school is over.
And so it goes.
3 comments:
One problem is space. Most schools don't have enough space for closed lunch. I know mine didn't.
But I agree that when students are allowed to leave the campus for lunch, that's when problem behavior is going to get worse. I knew lots of kids who drank or did drugs over the lunch hour. If you are forced to stay at school for lunch, older kids, kids expelled for problems, etc., won't have the influence they have when students can leave for lunch.
Perhaps we could divert a few million from the school air conditioning project and a few million from an unnecessary Savoy school and a few million from the new high school land purchace boondoggle and use that to come up with the closed lunch space?
The biggest problem with this whole thing is that the businesses that profit from the open campus will scream to our business-centric City Council and noting will happen.
I used to teach over at Danville High School and the move to a closed campus was a help. The tight space did become an issue at lunch, but having teachers and support staff members patrolling the lunch hours headed off a lot of trouble.
As someone with a toddler, high school is a long way off, but looking down the road, I wouldn't want my child going to a school with melees OR cops in the hall. Aren't there other schools somewhere that were dealing with this situation that took some other route to diffuse the problems?
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