Let me just forewarn you before you begin reading this, I am all over the place in the post. I feel so strongly about this, I am having a difficult time un-jumbling my thoughts so that they flow cohesively. I hope you can make sense out of it by the end, if not, send me an email or leave a reply. Just remember, I do not like "anonymous" commenters!
Since the dust has settled and more details have been released....I figure this is as good a time as any to voice my dislike of the "all call" phone system used by our county school system.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't loathe everything about it. For example, I find it extremely helpful to receive an "all call" when school is cancelled because of something unexpected, like inclement weather. But, the reminders that school will not be in session for a regularly scheduled holiday, like Christmas and Election Day, are truly irksome to me.
Don't forget, this is my blog, and it's 100% my opinion. Stop reading now if you don't like the tone of this post.
I just find it 100% annoying to get those types of reminder calls. I am fully capable of reading the nice, glossy calendar the school provided to us. And, I know I'm just taking this too personally, but it feels like the school system is saying, "hey, parents, we don't think you're responsible and/or capable of raising your kids, so we just want to be sure you don't send your kids to school on Thanksgiving." Yada yada yada.
And, yes, I do imagine there are some parents that are not responsible. Want to know what I have to say about that? Teach sex-ed to the high schoolers and hand out free condoms. Sorry, that makes it sound like only young parents are not responsible, and that's simply not true, parents of all ages are irresponsible. But, you know what? I don't think the school system should interject itself into the matters at home (unless there is an abusive situation involved). But that's a topic for another day and I'm getting away from the subject at hand.
So, the reason I wanted to address this topic is the "all call" made yesterday to alert parents that a threat had been made against Central High School. I first learned of this threat as I walked Patty into her elementary school yesterday. Her school wasn't threatened and I still considered walking her back to the car and driving her home. You just can not gamble with the safety of even one child when a threat of violence has been made. Now, because I feel that Patty is safe at her school, I did walk her to class and go on about my day. But, had I thought for a second that her school wasn't capable of keeping her safe, I would have brought her home. And that is MY choice to make, not the school system's. By failing to notify each and every parent, the school system took a life and death risk with our children's safety.
I received the "all call" a little over an hour after I dropped Patty at school, and I now know that the call was made about 14 hours after the threat was reported. That is simply not acceptable. I can not believe there is no contingency plan in place to notify parents in a more timely manner for a situation like this. For God's sake, the Paducah school shooting took place an hour car ride away from here! In my opinion, an "all call" should have gone out before bedtime Wednesday night altering families of the situation and that there was no need to keep kids home from school. If it wasn't safe enough for kids to be at school, the "all call" should have notified us that school was cancelled.
But, either way, there should have been some policy in place to ensure families would be notified - in advance - and not after the fact.
I read the surfKY news coverage of the press conference and am glad to see that the school system acknowledged they dropped the ball, in a manner of speaking. And that's the only thing I was happy about. The article actually raised another concern: the school system didn't realize word was spreading like wild fire via social media. Really? I'm just envisioning school personnel riding their dinos into work yesterday. Let me take a moment while you get your rock and chisel out. Seriously, the folks in charge didn't realize that everyone on social media would be all over this? Really? OK, I will apologize for those Flinstones references, because I know they are particularly harsh. But, I think it may be time to hire some folks who are a little better at keeping up with the latest trends. I mean, social media has been around for a while, if you're not living under a rock, you've probably heard of it.
I will also say: THANK HEAVENS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA, AND THE ABILITY TO GET THE WORD OUT IN A TIMELY MANNER. Because our school system wasn't on top of it.
I want to leave you with a little food for thought: this is an election year. There are three Board of Ed members on the ballot in the upcoming election. If you're lucky enough to reside in one of the voting districts, think very carefully before you mark your ballot. If I'm not mistaken, it is these very board of ed members who bear the responsibility of renewing employment contracts for the folks running our school system.
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