Recent News
KEEPING KIDS SAFE
The Plain Dealer—Editorials
November 12, 2003—The Cleveland schools
experienced nearly 600 assaults - more than half on students - during
the 2002-03 school year. That figure works out to about three assaults
each and every school day.
With 73,000 students and 122 schools, three
assaults at first may seem within the bounds of what might realistically
be expected. Yet assaults are only one school crime category. As Plain
Dealer reporters Ebony Reed and Janet Okoben detailed Sunday after an
exhaustive review of district records, Cleveland schools also saw 60
narcotics incidents and 157 cases in which weapons such as knives were
brought to schools in 2002-03. More to the point, for the child targeted
in an attack, the damage of even one punch can wreak untold emotional
havoc.
No wonder, then, that CEO Barbara
Byrd-Bennett so strongly targeted school safety when she first arrived
in Cleveland five years ago. Safety forces increased substantially, as
did budgets for equipment, vehicles and training. Officers are notably
more professional in their behavior today, and their presence has led to
declines in several reporting categories since 1999. Even so, the
figures from 2002-03 demonstrate the need to do more. For example,
Okoben and Reed found that middle schools reported the most incidents -
a fact that conforms to reams of anecdotal data as well as common sense.
The district has been moving steadily to shift from middle schools to
kindergarten-through-eighth-grade buildings, an initiative that has
yielded significant academic gains. This process should accelerate, not
only for the sake of learning, but also safety. For those buildings that
remain middle schools, district officials and community leaders should
explore more aggressive ways to ensure building-wide calm.
Perhaps the most worrisome piece of Sunday's
report is that not one Cleveland school - in fact, not one Ohio school -
meets the state's definition of a persistently dangerous building. The
federal law requiring this designation allows states to set their own
standards; as a result, only six states reported any dangerous schools.
Of roughly 91,000 schools nationwide, only 52 were deemed dangerous. The
number is so infinitesimal as to be meaningless. It certainly can't be
considered accurate.
If the federal government truly cares about
school safety, Congress and the Department of Education will change this
terribly flawed system. Until then, districts like Cleveland must
continue to pour precious resources into first keeping children safe,
and then trying to help them learn.
Original story.
© 2003
The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
back to recent news
|
