My newspaper column
The headlines last week were stark: "'Hit list' at school threatens 20.'" "Assault at Andrews High School sends student to local hospital." "Deputies patrol tense Northwest Middle."
The images were worse: Students led away from school in handcuffs. Police cars parked at the school door.
The emotional response was chilling: Is my child in danger?
I asked one of my daughters whether she felt safe at her high school. She said, "sure," with that frightening mix of invulnerability and naivete that so many teenagers have.
She may feel safe, but is she safe?
Yesterday and today we published a major package that documents in detail the discipline problems in the public school system, how they obstruct learning and the ways they change students' and teachers' lives. (Read Saturday's stories here.
We didn't plan the project to coincide so closely with three straight days of fights on one school's campus and the discovery of a so-called hit list at a school attended by 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds. It just happened that way.
As initially conceived by managing editor Ann Morris, Greensboro city editor Mark Sutter, and reporters Taft Wireback and Jennifer Fernandez, the project would look at school discipline and how problems of controlling students disrupted the classroom.
But as Sutter, who edited the project, Wireback and Fernandez pursued their stories through the early fall, actual violence in the school yards kept grabbing the headlines.
As their reporting continued, so did our thinking about the newspaper's role in the story. Traditionally, we just report the news. This story, though, strikes at everything we consider important: the safety of children, the value of public education, and the community's overall sense of well-being.
Morris proposed the idea of sponsoring a community forum featuring a panel of "experts" -- students, teachers, administrators and elected officials -- and to open the floor to the public.
That forum occurs from 7-8:30 p.m. Thursday at Finch Chapel at Greensboro College. Find more details in a box on the front page.
Why a forum on this topic? One of this newspaper's core values is to serve the public. In addition to shining light on problems, that role includes bringing diverse voices into the discussion and engaging everyone in the search for solutions. Our goal is to make the community a better place. Providing you a way to act will help.
The forum may not reach consensus Thursday night, but it should further civic understanding, discussion and involvement.
One sentiment we heard last week was that the incidents were being blown out of proportion. And, like so much else, that depends on your point of view.
The series did not put the emphasis on violence in the schools, because, except for a few instances, the evidence doesn't support it. Discipline disruptions are much more prevalent, and much more likely to compromise your child's education.
When I asked my daughter if discipline problems in the classroom caused her any problems, she said, "No, I have good classes."
In fact, the numbers and the anecdotes seem to confirm that she and her sister attend a "safe" school. At least it was on Friday. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?
Jasmine Younger, a student at Allen Middle School, summed up one view of the problem when she told our reporters, "Basically, it's just the way it is."
I hope a lot of people show up Thursday night and say it shouldn't be that way.
Comments (1)
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The News and Record is to be commended for its comprehensive treatment of an issue which has been a source of considerable concern in this community for a number of years.
There are a number of dynamics which contribute to the present state of affairs. My concern is that we, as a culture, are not attitudinally ready to make the deep-seated changes that would be necessary to reverse this situation. The school system has a limited set of tools at its disposal to control these problems. Reducing the prevalence of these behaviors would require a number of legal and cultural changes which some powerful forces in our community, and in our nation, would strenuously resist.
I tried to read or scan all of the articles; and unless I missed it, there was one dimension which was not discussed. If we are truly interested in an open intellectual inquiry, we probably should raise the issue for further exploration-- i.e., that the current cohort of kids we are discussing is at the tail end of the first generation of children who were, to a significant extent, raised in child care during their early childhood years. While this is a controversial matter, it merits study and concern.
Posted on December 6, 2004 3:41 PM