News-Record.com

Gifford county aint got no time for self defence classes. The kidz are all buzy learnin' to flip burgers. Heck they don't eeven need to know how to count chanj with them new fangled puters!

Besides, they can jest send their homey if someone's buggin em. Homey's can do the stuff.

How about teaching students to fight back if they are attacked by classmates? It seems that would be more relevant in Guilford County, particularly with the oh-so wise school board considering dumping SROs.

Heck, the message to kids from GCS seems to be, "You're on your own; we're not going to protect you."

We have "in house" armed intruders and not enough is being done to prevent it. SRO officers carrying tasers is not even a concern of mine. They carry guns, what does Deena want for them to do - shoot them first!!

These 6' 180 lb people are not messing around, they are not innocent little kids. When they fight they mean to "hurt" somebody. When they put pointed sharp metal objects on their fingers and wrap a cloth around it, they don't care if they might put someone's eye out.

Ask the eigth grader from the middle school last year if the officer had a way to get the kid off of him that almost put his eye out if he cared if the SRO had a laser. It might have prevented his permanent facial injury.

I want to know if they also are carrying hand held metal detectors and if so are they using them. I hear all the time that students are carrying knifes , razors, and box cutters - for their protection!
If they are not, why aren't they?

What else needs to be done to keep weapons out of the hands of our students and are students that carry weapons on school grounds removed from the school permanently?

Parents these two incidents happened in local Guilford County Schools within the last couple of weeks.

Middle School - Rhino times reported this
Student shot by "bb" gun in class by another
Guilford County student. This may or may have not been a toy gun.

High School - Student taken out of classroom and
arrested for carrying a "real" hand gun in class.

Jennifer,

Why didn't the News-Record report on this incident at Eastern? It certainly was news worthy.

Stormy,

If schools does not even bother to tell the parents of the involved students about the incidents, do you really think they are going to confirm the details with someone from the News-Record!

What amazed me in reading the article on the child shot with the BB gun was the school DID NOT notify his parents.

In keeping with the School Administration's policy of not discussing any issues of violence unless someone loses consciousness, this incident was not deemed newsworthy by the N&R.

It's Saturday morning and I just spoke with my son, an eighth grade student at Eastern Middle School, about violent incidences occuring on Tuesday. His version of the events do not in whole conform with the Rhino Times story although he corroborated the least offensive (if you can call one child being shot in the neck with any type of small arms inoffensive) portions of that article. I am still not seeing any reporting in the News and Record.

Jennifer, this is news. The school has not issued any written statement for families. There has been no recorded message transmittal from the adminstration. What my son tells me involves more students and two areas of the school at different times of the day. He also heard that this child was carrying not one but three weapons, one of which was not a pea shooter. Your general readers may want to know more about these events; certainly those of us that are more closely involved need to know. When can we expect to find out more?

Under the NCLB law a school that is considered "persistently dangerous" must offer opt outs for the students.

Each state defines what is to fall into this category.

To avoid creating a politically dangerous relationship with local districts, state education officials may feel pressured to create definitions of "persistently dangerous" in a manner that local schools will likely never meet or, on the other extreme, create definitions that are rigid and impractical.

Since being labeled as "persistently dangerous" has serious political and administrative implications for local school administrators, principals could be pressured to underreport and/or non-report school crime and violence.

Jennifer, what type of offenses are considered persistently dangerous in GC?

Hey Jennifer,

While you are at it, go check out Kiser Middle! You guys dropped in last year to report on the rise in violence. I am curious to see how things are going with the new principal who is on a mission to lower suspensions.

I hear it is a war zone over there. But, don't worry, suspensions are down!

Ladies and Gents, Jennifer only chimes in when somebody critics the SB or Grier without any real proof. In other words, you will not egta response from her.
She is protective of the SB and Grier. When she has no grounds to defend then she applies the same policies as her mentors.

Its School board policy number 1. Ignore it and it will go away.

Sometimes, for the board at least, this does not work.

Jennifer will get away with it here because this strand will disappear into cyberspace.

Jennifer and Morgan--

We all know how septic the N&R blogs can get. Please do not lump me with reactionary whiners .

There has only been one article printed regarding the incident of Tuesday October 17 at Eastern Middle School, where an eighth grade student purportedly shot another student in the back of the neck twice with a bb gun. This article was in the Rhino Times which specializes in commentary and does not always give all the information that I would hope to read. As well, there still has been no word from the school although the recorded messages about fundraisers and yearbooks come fairly regularly. A member of the PTA sidestepped the issue when queried on Saturday telling me that people should concentrate on the good news about Eastern--how about that volleyball team? Dr. Grier's Friday Notes missed this occurrence although events as late as October 18 warranted a mention in the October 20 edition.

Besides the incident during class time which completely escaped the teacher's notice who was supposedly typing on the computer at the time, my son told me that this student was in the hall shooting girls in (his words) "the, um, tops of their legs in the back." If this is true I would like to know why violence against the boy is reported but violence against at least two girls, particularly given purposeful aiming, is not. As well, he told me that there was not one but three weapons involved. I believe this to be an unfounded rumor; at least I hope it is because one of these weapons was reported to be a real pistol.

Finally, my son has a passing acquaintanceship with the alleged shooter and has difficulty imagining him to have such malevolent intent. Beyond namecalling and typical teenage banter, which my son deals with with thick skin and good humor, he saw nothing to indicate that the boy would do something truly horrific or dangerous.

I think that there may be something for a responsible community newspaper to investigate and report here.

ZhaK,

I spoke with the SRO and principal at Eastern Middle today. We wrote up a brief for tomorrow's paper saying that four toy guns were confiscated at the school last week. They told us that the weapons were all toys (three plastic, one metal) that shot plastic pellets. No one was injured.

I asked about the girls in the hall and was told they hadn't heard about that. Perhaps the students didn't report it? The student who was hit by two of the plastic pellets didn't report it. Another student told a teacher and that's when they started looking for the guns.

Three were found on one student and a fourth was discovered with a second student. They didn't know if there was a connection.

Both students were charged with possession of a weapon on school property and the one who shot his fellow classmate was also charged with assault.

The principal said he followed district policy regarding discipline. For weapons possession, that's a long-term suspension for up to a year. The principal can only make recomendations for long-term suspensions; I believe it goes to a hearing officer after that for a final determination.

If anyone hears anymore, or can put me in touch with someone who'd be willing to speak on the record about this, let me know. - 373-7064 or jfernandez@news-record.com

Thanks Jennifer.

Jennifer--

Thank you very much for looking into this and letting the community know the details of this unfortuneate incident. It is a relief to know that all the weapons that were found were non-lethal. The story that my son brought home was much more alarming.

With kindness,

ZhaK

Thanks, Jennifer. We know it's been a busy week or so for you guys, judging by all the school stories in the paper. But we appreciate you getting this information.

Now let's see if "Truth" will apologize for that nasty, unwarranted attack on you a couple of posts up. Somehow, I doubt it.

Jennifer:

Thanks. One more question.
Was there a real "glock" gun at the high school
last week?

parent,

Sorry, I only called the middle school. I hadn't checked at the high school. I'll make a few calls. Have you heard anything else, such as the time or day the weapon was seen/found?

Thanks.

Jennifer,

This has not been confirmed, but this was the rumor.
On Monday the 16th or Tuesday the 17th, the student was taken out of the classroom and the SRO was seen walking the student to the car. The student had the hand gun, a "glock", on him in a classroom.

My student was not surprised and made the comment that he was probably not the only one with a weapon on him.

I think that the Texas school district should indeed be commended for the steps that it has taken in order to help prevent and prepare for violence in it's local schools. Although some may disagree, I think that students and faculty across the nation should indeed be empowered with the ability to fight back in the event of such circumstances. The events of September 11 prove that we no longer are helpless in situations such as these...that we have the power to control what happens to us as well as those around us.