Dear LREI Parents,
I write in the aftermath of the school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas on Friday. In all honesty, I was leaning towards not writing this note to you, but chose to do so for a few reasons. One, I have some information to pass along. Two, what does it mean if 10 people die in a school shooting and we do not communicate about it as a community? Three, at this point in 2018, the year is shaping up to set records for the number of students killed in school in one year.
LREI continues to develop our lockdown and security procedures. In addition to hardware and personnel additions we have made in the past few years, this school year we had three lockdown drills and nine fire drills, which will be our new pattern going forward. We upgraded the manner in which we initiate lockdowns and have increased the number of people who are authorized to do so. Over the summer, in preparation of the next school year, we will continue to examine our security and lockdown procedures and to implement changes for September. The same is true for other aspects of security and safety plan. A security point to remember, the two shooters, at Parkland and at Santa Fe, were students who had access to the schools. I will come back to this.
Points two and three I wrote about in February. I wrote
A few years ago I wrote to you that I would no longer send notes home each time there was some terror-related event in the world as we were clearly responding to a subset thereof, namely those occurring in the “West,” or those that injured a large number of people, etc. I feel similarly about school shootings. So hard to know when to write. Close to home? Number affected? Should I have written 18 notes home this year? Maybe. Likely. At this point, I will write when I think it productive and necessary to the effort to create change.
I write now, as some are expecting, as the numbers are staggering and as I have to do what I can to keep this issue on our community’s front burner.
So what to do. I would suggest that from a big picture, policy point-of-view, I need to work with the students as they continue to grapple with the politics and policies that will create lasting change and safety. As I said, we will continue to review our local procedures and to make sure that we are ready to respond in the event that this nightmare visits LREI. Recognizing that those who cause this, and other types of, injury to schools are likely to be members of that school’s community, the question becomes what can we do to support members of our community as they struggle with the challenges that their lives bring. How can all members of our community be of support to each other and how can we as the educators and other adults who are in the buildings each day support the students and recognize the beginnings of their challenges? Big questions, but I think we are up to the task.
Don’t hesitate to be in touch.