Learning at ARPS--October 6, 2006

Dear Everyone Learning @ Amherst, Regional, and Pelham Schools:

Among the many highlights of the past few weeks have been Open Houses! It is so refreshing to walk through the schools seeing proud teachers and proud parents sharing stories about children! It is as refreshing to walk into a second grade classroom to see "Who Am I?" books written by the children and the next night a high school classroom where the teacher is holding up a copy of The Odyssey!

Thank you, to the parents reading this, for your attendance at Open Houses - -and thank you for understanding our efforts to keep parking lanes open even if it meant having to walk a little farther.

As you can imagine, student and school safety has been on everyone's minds. While schools remain among the safest settings anywhere, one incident is one incident too many. And, the often heard comment, "If it can happen in... it can happen anywhere" rings true.

Over the past two years, we have been working aggressively to enhance our security plans. We seek a balance of keeping our schools safe and secure with a climate that is inviting and open. With wonderful assistance from the Amherst Police Department and resources from several federal, state, and school sources, we have developed a comprehensive security manual. Our approach is to focus on PLANNING AND PREVENTION as well as response.

The best approach any school can use is one that is human! Metal detectors, cameras, wands, locked doors, and other hardware can certainly screen out some potential dangers and, at a minimum, create a deterrent for those seeking to do harm. At the same time, they can create a false sense of security. Within our balance is (and always will be) the use of an adult presence.

With the exception of the most recent adult intrusions, the majority of school violence episodes have involved students - -so the best thing we can ALL do is to insure that we know our students well.

Being a good listener is essential. That sounds easy, but it is a challenge to listen and, as the public service ad says, to "Talk to your kids" without creating a self-fulfilling prophecy or added worry.

There are similarities among many of these incidents and it is worthwhile to consider them periodically. In all of the school incidents involving students, someone knew! That is why it is so important to help our students understand that, "IT'S 'OK' TO TELL" when someone means to do harm to self or others. Too often, signals were missed from the most subtle comments of students to the extreme of parents stating they never reviewed their child's computer or thought it was ok for them to have a locked room where weapons were hidden. And, in all of these incidents, there were guns - -in many cases guns that were unknown or guns that adults thought were locked up.

We will continue implementing components of our security plans for the year. You will read more about these in school newsletters as the year proceeds and as we enhance our communications systems.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Jere Hochman
Superintendent

There are numerous articles available about school incidents online and in the media. Here are two.

MSNBC: How to talk to your kids about the shootings
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15109195/

MSNBC: 10 myths about school shootings
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15111438/

Learning at ARPSOctober 6, 2006

Learning at ARPS
October 6, 2006