Reply to How Long until Alexandria Council Members Fold on SROs?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Canek Aguirre & Elizabeth Bennett-Parker have no business serving in a elected position anywhere.  I'm sure they will win handily.  Neither or them with kids at ACPS and  tried to punk the Principal.

They make Justin Wilson and Dr. Huthchings sympathetic characters.

Please don't vote for them, even if you don't vote for opponent in EBP case, don't give her your vote.  [/quote]

I have only listened to the first 2 and a half hours of the discussion so far but I think Aguirre, after stumbling to start his comments and questions, was able to draw out a number of pertinent points such as (1) raising questions whether the security steps taken by Hutchings / Contraeas have been adequate, (2) noting the gun on school grounds was discovered without SROs present, and (3) getting Hutchings to admit that he does not know if the security issues would have differed with SROs present.  On this last point, Hutchings’ argument was that he needed the SROs since you have to do everything you can for safety which is completely contrary to Hutchings’ approach on Covid mitigation where he dismisses reasonable mitigation steps as too hard.[/quote]

“My issue here is that you are trying to draw a direct correlation between the removal of SROs and everything else that’s been going on,” Aguirre said.

No Canek, no one is drawing a direct correlation.  He is a terrible councilperson.[/quote]

But that was Aguirre’s point - if Hutchings et al. acknowledge that there is a lack of direct correlation between recent events and the removal of the SROs why is there an urgent need to reinstitute the SRO program.[/quote]

ACPS position (and 99% of parents) is that SROs are a PART of any security strategy and their absence is PARTLY the reason for problems.  [b]Why can't we have SROs and increased mental health counseling. [/b] Only people against SROs are trying to brandish their woke credentials.  They don't care about student or ACPS staff fear.  What other building in this country has over 4,000 people in it with no security.[/quote]

I agree that more mental health counseling can be part of a strategy to augment SROs, however, way too many people believe that "mental health counseling" can fix it all.

Yoga, meditation, limited talk therapy might all help someone to reduce stress and that is all that mental health counselors in a school setting are going to realistically be able to do. They are not going to be available to students outside of school hours and days. They are not going to be able to provide CBT therapy or DBT therapy or any other kind of long , term intensive therapy.

For those students who are truly struggling with actual mental health issues, they will need a medical doctor and a consistent counselor who can provide targeted therapy.  Add in fact for many kids, before they can access any kind of therapy even just basic talk therapy and be successful, they will need medication.  These students will still need to be referred out for services and it is then incumbent upon the parent to get those services for the child.

Then there is the very real challenge of finding qualified candidates to even fill the positions who can do a decent job and not do more harm than good (and yes that can happen).  Hiring such people takes time.

The removal of the SROs was short sighted, knee jerk and didn't make sense to begin with.  If you go back and look at what the SROs were doing in the school, it did seem like they had spent a lot of time trying to be seen as someone who was a part of the school community much like other staff in the building.  That didn't happen over night.

People have to stop reducing SROs to only having the role of possibly going to stop a mass shooting.  I can tell you right now, the chance they will do that is slim and none of us should count on it.  If someone shows up with an arsenal of automatic weapons, one cop with a handgun is out matched. The best he/she can do is sound an alarm to the school and call for immediate help. [/quote]

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