There have been 1,925 incidents at Boston Public Schools since September, together with bullets discovered at 4 faculties during the last two weeks, a metropolis councilor stated Thursday.
The ammunition was discovered this week at Boston Latin Academy, a grade 7-12 faculty in Dorchester; and final week at three k-8 faculties: the Young Achievers Science and Math Pilot School in Mattapan, the Maurice J. Tobin School in Roxbury and the James F. Condon School in South Boston, Councilor-at-Large Michael Flaherty stated.
Last week, college students on the 9-12 Boston Arts Academy in Dorchester held a walkout to protest what they described as unsafe circumstances.
“We need to increase our public safety efforts and lean on our partnership with the Boston Police Department,” Flaherty stated. “Victims who’ve been bullied or assaulted should not be the ones who have to leave.”
A police-reform legislation that Gov. Charlie Baker signed in December 2020 lifted the requirement that districts have no less than one faculty police officer. But Councilor-at-Large Erin Murphy stated she wish to see police security officers in each faculty.
“Parents are worried,” stated Murphy, a former BPS instructor. “If we’re not able to keep kids safe, we can’t even begin to start teaching them.”
The councilors’ feedback got here a day after the varsity committee voted to shut the Mission Hill Ok-8 Inclusion School in June after Superintendent Brenda Cassellius launched a 189-page report, written by the Boston legislation agency Hinkley Allen, citing years of student-on-student bullying and bodily and sexual abuse of kids as younger as kindergartners.
But one guardian at Thursday’s faculty committee assembly stated these issues aren’t distinctive to the Mission Hill School.
Deirdre Manning, the mom of two college students on the Dr. William W. Henderson Ok–12 Inclusion School, informed the committee that kids as younger as fourth and fifth graders had been being assaulted.
“I would like the school committee to be on notice that I feel the implosion of the Henderson Upper School will be the next embarrassment that happens,” she stated of the varsity, whose college students embody kids who can’t converse, kids with cerebral palsy and youngsters with Down syndrome.
“These are children who are medically fragile and are at risk,” she stated. “My fourth grade daughter reports that there are fights almost every day … We feel that the district is not providing the support to the administrators and teachers at Henderson Upper. Those educators are being threatened by families.”
Flaherty stated no less than three dozen college students have left the Henderson since Principal Trish Lampron was attacked by a scholar final November and knocked unconscious.
The district launched a press release Friday saying: “Boston Public Schools is deeply committed to protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of our students, families and staff. Any incidents that occur on school grounds are handled appropriately by school staff.”
Councilor-at-Large Michael Flaherty’s quote has been up to date.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”