Why on Earth are Congress and the federal bureaucrats cutting school emergency planning and safety money, while spending millions on ad campaigns and Web sites?
Schools don't create gangs or promote them, but it is their problem. It's important that they don't try to negate their responsibility to manage the safety issues of their campus and to try to educate kids about the dangers of gangs.
School crisis teams and staff often have unrealistic expectations of police and other public safety personnel response capabilities, which creates a false perception of outside support and less internal capacity building for handling a real school emergency.
This incident is certainly one more reminder in a list of many that school violence is alive and active in far too many communities.
The only thing that is more dangerous than a gang member with a weapon is a parent or an educator in denial. There's no excuse for parental ignorance. Turning their head and looking the other way can lead the kids into gangs in the first place.
A lot of times we'll see fences around playground areas but for some reason they tend to be about half that size and if somebody wanted to snatch a kid, they could easily drive up here and reach over and drop in and out real quickly.
The reality is that the behavior is inappropriate, especially for a school climate. Just as if we go in an airport, it's inappropriate to joke about bombs and weapons.
The real test of any governmental agency's priorities is reflected in what it budgets to address a particular issue, not rhetoric.
We have to teach kids to report, and teach adults to do something, when they hear about it. A matter of hours or days, depending on the facts of the case, can make a difference between life and death.
We've had 18 school associated violent deaths this year (and) over 50 non-fatal shootings across the country.