This is in response to Shara Watkins’ May 23 opinion piece on “Undoing Systemic Racism at Schools.” In August 2020, the board voted to remove resource officers from campus. We are among the parents who Watkins claimed “painted the board as anti-police” and stayed up till 1 a.m. to voice our concerns. As a K-8 district, there is no data in regards to a specific school to prison pipeline problem in our district. What we do have is a habit of removing programs like resource offers and gifted math in the name of equity and not replacing them with resources that address the needs of the community. This isn’t progress, this is virtue signaling. It happened in the height of the defund the police movement which has since been walked back in every metropolitan area because it wasn’t safe.
Social workers are important, but they do not replace the need for the district to have a solid relationship with the police department. The police can assist with things like physical security plans for each campus or ensuring each school has secured perimeters. For many events, our schools are now mandated to call the district for approval before calling the police.
This is bureaucracy, not equity. More importantly, it is unsafe.
I noticed there were no comments to your letter probably because it argued your points so well and you contributed your time to effect changes in policy that harms our children.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'd like to see our school board focus more on student achievement, putting extra money where help is needed and preparing for successful high school completion. I too notice an increase in virtue-signaling activities through the task forces. Collectively, thousands of hours have been spent on these task forces - what if this time was invested in students who needed help?
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(3) comments
I noticed there were no comments to your letter probably because it argued your points so well and you contributed your time to effect changes in policy that harms our children.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'd like to see our school board focus more on student achievement, putting extra money where help is needed and preparing for successful high school completion. I too notice an increase in virtue-signaling activities through the task forces. Collectively, thousands of hours have been spent on these task forces - what if this time was invested in students who needed help?
How about some competition in education? Let's be "pro choice" on more than one subject.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.