Reply to B-CC lockdown

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Look people I'm a BCC parent and I'm horrified by what happened today. But I don't see why people are blaming the school personnel or school district for this - preventing swatting is not something remotely within their control. Hopefully the MCPD and even federal authorities can find a way to trace the call and prosecute the person who made it.

The principal's letter was excellent - it also explained why they took this as seriously as they did (perhaps in response to criticism here that bomb threats elsewhere haven't resulted in lockdowns.) It sounds like they did everything right, although I think there may be lessons to be learned. My kid was outside the building and ran inside when they were told that there was some "outside activity," then shoved in a small room with a bunch of others. Ideally if school personnel were aware of the specifics around the threat, they might have encouraged students to run away rather than come inside.

There are real issues at BCC; I have an older kid who graduated a few years ago and I never heard about the stuff that has happened even in this year alone. I hope we can find ways to deal with the routine violence - fighting etc - as well as prevent weapons from getting into schools. But I also realize there's no simple or obvious answer. We have parents feuding on the listserv about SROs and others blaming social media or the lack of respect for authority among young people or restorative justice and so on and so forth. Does anyone really think that an SRO would have prevented today's swatting call? Or that a cell phone ban would have ensured that no student brought a weapon to school?[/quote]

I hope your student is doing ok, it sounds like a traumatic day.

Since you’ve noticed a difference between this year and when your older child was at BCC, why do you think there are differences? (Honest question - as a parent about to send my child to BCC next year, I’m wondering what has changed - or maybe just a confluence of things).  [/quote]

PP here: I genuinely don't know. Both my kids are UMC, serious students, quirky (albeit in very different ways), and have very diverse friend groups, which to my mind has been the major plus of BCC. The older one went to a very selective college and has friends who did the same, as well as  others who headed to community college, the military or trade school. Both have been happy and successful at BCC, neither would have been anywhere near the popular crowd or the dangerous crowd, to whatever extent such things exist. (Based on social media, they do.)

The older kid's experience may have been skewed by the pandemic; of course it's also possible the pandemic/lockdown exacerbated the current troubles. I'm also careful to avoid drawing conclusions from anecdata - for example, my current student has friends who had to move schools due to gang threats. It's possible that's a bigger problem today, but it's also possible that the sample sets are quite different, since my older kid had a slightly whiter and dorkier circle of friends.

As a parent I want to find easy explanations and obvious solutions. Instead I find myself in the unfortunate predicament of seeing a problem but not knowing how to resolve it.[/quote]

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