Inside the school lock-down
Breaking news rarely happens at convenient times. Today was the exception. When the Grimsley/Kiser/Brooks lock-down occurred, Grimsley was holding a luncheon for parent volunteers. Betsi Robinson, our community editor, was there...and sequestered with the other parents inside the media center. Meanwhile, some folks here have kids at the schools and were feeding us information and rumors.
My daughter, also a Grimsley student, was away from campus working on a school project, but played reporter for me, calling her friends in school and relaying information and rumors.
Because it ended peacefully, I can relay my favorite detail gathered by my daughter: many of the Grimsley students were packed into the cafeteria. It was lunch time and, teenagers being teenager, a massive food fight broke out. No one was permanently injured.
Comments (4)
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My Jackson was in the cafeteria during first lunch. He said when the food fight started, he ducked under one of the tables to stay out of the lines of fire.
After a bit, he said he raised his head and got "nacho'ed" on the noggin.
His hair was still matted when he came home around 5:00.
Posted on May 20, 2006 7:13 AM
A good argument against banning cell phones in school.
Posted on May 20, 2006 7:25 AM
Banning cell phones in school is a misguided attempt to use old economy thinking in a new economy world. Schools, which are by structure and philosophy, unequipped to deal with most of what schools need to be doing (but aren't chartered to do), always try to ban what is new and different -- just like government wants to regulate everything that is new, like TV was and the Internet is. Remember calculators? They didn't want kids to use them but then time proved that calculators enable higher math to happen.
Whether it's cell phones, pagers, some new style or whatever, schools ban first and then join the modern age second. It's almost silly.
[Case in point: why doesn't EVERY school have defibrillators and trained staff to use them? Can you think of one good reason?]
I don't blame them, really. They don't have the charge by society to do what society really wants them to do because society says what it wants to hear rather than what it knows is prudent.
Posted on May 20, 2006 9:15 PM
I first heard about it through a phone message from a colleague at the N&R office asking me if I knew anything (because my husband works at Grimsley). I quickly called my husband's cell phone and asked "What's going on? Where are you?" I could tell by his serious tone that he was all business: "I'm in the cafeteria and can't talk now. I'll call later." That was the extent of our conversation. I got my updates from the recorded messages sent to Grimsley families by the school's principal (an amazing example of keeping families of students & faculty informed). You mentioned Betsi being on campus at the time - well, she also heard about the food fight & was trying to gather details for the story. I put her in contact with my husband after the school day ended, figuring he would know about any food fight. After the last bell and students headed home, we were all glad the day ended with nothing worse than a flying exchange of cafeteria food.
Posted on May 21, 2006 9:31 AM