February 9, 2005
For information on the February 12th, Tsunami Fundraiser Dance-a-Thon, CLICK HERE.
For information about recent events at school, read on....
As you’re aware, on Friday, February 4th, we began the school day very differently.
Everyone who entered campus that day was asked to show the contents of their bags and jacket pockets. Though I’m well aware of the traffic created by our precautions, we were able to complete the searches and have the entire community in our gym by 8:30 am.
We closed the campus for the day and monitored all cars that came and went. Seniors were not permitted to leave campus both Friday and Monday and teachers were assigned to hallways both Friday and Monday, all with the intention of assuring our safety on campus.
In the gym on Friday morning, I spoke again about the seriousness of the situation in which we find ourselves, and I spoke more broadly to the issue of respect on our campus. Though the disruptions being caused to school this year are being caused, I’m convinced, by relatively few, we all share in the responsibility of maintaining the kind of climate on campus of which we have been so proud for so many years and that we hope will continue into the future.
This year, aside from the specific graffiti with references to a bomb, we have seen an increase in disrespectful behavior more generally. In the ways we treat one another and in the ways we treat our campus, we are not living up to the highest possible standards. I said to the community on Friday that so long as we tolerate disrespectful behavior of any kind, we risk having individuals who will push the envelope to see just how disrespectful they can be, and certainly the acts of graffiti this year have pushed beyond the disrespectful and into the criminal. We will continue working towards creating the kind of respectful environment I’m sure we all would want.
I also noted that we will not allow these disruptions to cut short the instructional time we need with our students. If it means eliminating an activity period down the road, or finding the instructional time in some other way, we will do what is necessary to be sure that a few disrespectful members of our community do not negatively impact what is at the core of our mission.