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Roxbury principal fired security guards to hire arts teachers
By adamg on Thu, 05/02/2013 - 6:22pm
NBC News reports on the turnaround of the Orchard Gardens K-8 pilot schools 10 years after it opened.
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Comments
I wonder what Wayne LaPierre would say to the notion
that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a teacher who cares about their students.
The only thing that stops
A bad guy with a gun is a teacher with pastels and paper.
If some nutcase ever decides
If some nutcase ever decides to storm that school, I hope they still have some sort of security staff or at least one brave teacher willing to step up. Like it or not, when you are facing someone ready to use naked force without a care in the world, all the feel good do unto others stuff isn't going to stop them from doing harm.
Tell you what...
If that ever happens at that school, leave us your name and number so we can call you to head down there with your gun.
911, but as you said why
911, but as you said why bother calling people with guns to stop other people with guns. Happy good vibe bullshit will make the evil bad crazy violent people just go away like monsters under the bed.
Won't work if he's a Boston resident.
They restrict most of us to a sport and target license. Lawyers, officers, doctors who carry certain meds, people who move large amounts of cash, and those types get unrestricted licenses. I highly doubt anon fits into those categories.
Maybe anon has some nice water pistols? :D
You know what?
If some nutcase storms in, there will be a whole bunch of creative thinkers working together to shut him down.
Rather than cowering like sheep expecting the sheepdog to do something bahhhhh!
In Mass, large capacity magazines and assault weapons are banned
a person intent on killing many people would have to pause to reload or draw another weapon after 8 or 10 shots. this is how the Tuscon shooter was subdued. this is how 11 kids in Sandy Hook escaped death.
Nope
You aren't very well informed considering this is your hobby horse.
Magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds are perfectly legal to own in MA provided they were manufactured prior to 1994. They are regularly and legally sold by reputable firearms dealers in MA. Thousands are legally owned by individuals. Regardless, I'm sure someone planning a mass shooting could take the time to drive to NH and buy all the 30 round magazines they require.
"Assault Weapons" are not banned in MA. You can own a rifle or pistol in any configuration that is legally considered "pre-ban" and grandfathered under the law. They are transferable to someone with the proper license. In addition, the current ban with regard to rifles is based on physical properties that do not affect it's ability to accept magazines or semi-automatic fire.
For example: A post-ban AR-15 platform rifle with an adjustable stock and flash hider would be illegal under current law. Remove the flash hider and substitute a fixed stock, you now have a perfectly legal to own AR-15. No change whatsoever to the function of the gun. Anyone with the proper license can purchase an AR-15 in MA.
That's cool man some of my
That's cool man some of my favorite movies are action movies
That's funny - on their web
That's funny - on their web site, they don't mention replacing security guards with art teachers. They do say this:
As one of 12 recently designated “Turnaround” schools in Boston, Orchard Gardens gained significant new flexibility to re-staff the school with the highest quality teachers and leaders, implement significant instructional changes, and expand the school day.
In other words, they were able to throw out union work rules. There, fixed.
Somewhat true
With the turnaround status they got a lot more money, which gave them flexiblity to expand programs and the school day. Problem is, that funding is time limited and in a few years, it may be taken away. That is a long term problem with BPS. It isn't sustainable to pour a lot of $$ into a school, only to cut the budget a few years later and remove those offerings. just an observation.
I do do think art teachers are way more important than security guards and am impressed by the principal and results.
Never had security guards in my elementary schools
Never was an issue.
Besides, these are educational institutions, not fortresses or jails. The money should be spent on ... education!
What an amazing thought.
And for those who think "things are MORE dangerous now", there isn't any evidence of that. The worst school massacre ever was early in the last century, and involved some anti-tax lunatic in Michigan in the 1920s or 1930s with legitimate access to the school building and a car bomb. Also, the worst and deadliest school fires have killed more kids in this country than rare, random malevolence.
This is a classic example of proper sorting of priorities for use of educational monies.
Thought you lived in a dangerous white trash trailer park
where shootings were not uncommon?
But seriously, I grew up mostly in JP/Mission Hill area after moving to Boston. Roxbury is a HIGH VIOLENT CRIME area. ALWAYS has been,in my lifetime. Old,old timers have told me it once was a nice neighborhood where you could walk home at 2AM no problem. Now it's one of the neighborhoods where most of the city's shootings and homicides occur. People,including school administrators, live in denial at their own risk. And in their case, the children's risk. It's been my experience that there's never an armed cop around when you need them, usually only after the fact, when someone must be transported to the hospital after being robbed, pistol whipped, stabbed. Or to the morgue.
Like Columbine?
Which had not one, but two gun carying officers at the school.
You idiots vastly over estimate you ability to put down a threat. A gun isn’t a magic weapon, and this isn’t a soundstadge in Hollywood.
This.
The number of creepy Wayne Lapierre types who obviously harbor deep-rooted, childish fantasies about being ale to combat machine-gun wielding bad guys with their own Rambo-like strength and massive armory of weapons are terrifying. Does it occur to anyone that with more attention paid to education and more opportunities there may be fewer young men around wielding weapons?
Internet cowboys
My favorites were the would-be-heroes (and the Arkansas senator... yeesh) on Facebook the day Boston was locked down, crowing about how much better off residents would have been if they were armed when the big gunfight went down at the Watertown Corral. Nothing calms a chaotic situation down more than poorly-trained vigilantes firing blindly into the melee!
Also, to your second point: by my back-of-the-napkin calculations, hiring two security guards for every public school in Boston would cost just over $10 million a year. Guess how much supplemental nutrition (SNAP) benefits for the entire city costs? And which would you rather have?
Oh really?
Having armed guards at every school is beyond idiotic, though some places in Dot and Rox would certainly benefit, but so is your comment suggesting SNAP benefits for the entire city of Boston are $10M per year. Let's do some quick back-of-the-napkin math, shall we? According to Wikipedia, as of 2010 Boston had 618,000 residents with 21.4% percent of them below the poverty line, which leaves us with 132,252 SNAP recipients. Divide $10M by 132,252 and you get $75.61 - are you telling us SNAP benefit in Boston is $6.30 per person per month? Per USDA, average monthly benefit per person in MA is $132.51 - do the math and you'll come up with a number quite a bit larger than $10M - something to the tune of $210M. Try to get your math right before you post your bleeding-heart comments, mmmkay?
Good old prog libs, never
Good old prog libs, never letting silly things like logic, common sense and math get in the way. Just like their bible-thumping colleagues from across the aisle.
Sally
You don't know me at all and are DEAD WRONG. You couldn't be more wrong it's laughable. Extrapolate much?
Internet cowboys? Would like the police be disarmed,too? Do you just get off on being a victim? And what's this obvious loathing of and demonization of masculinity in males among some on here? Any male who isn't passive and shows any kind of aggression or assertiveness is 'scary" to you? You like your males meek, do you?
It's funny, the liberals [progressives] who are around today are NOTHING like the liberals I knew growing up. Most of you have more in common with fascist or Marxist than you do with real traditional liberalism. You are OBSESSED with control and controlling people.
Marxist? Liberal? Fascist? You seem obsessed
with putting labels on people who don't agree with you. And what constitutes a "real" man to you, I'm dying to know?
Conservatives
always the victim
And Edmond Burke wept
Wow. I don't "know" Anon at all. Shocker.
You don't even have the time or inclination to invent a simple screen name and you're asking me seriously to give a hoot about what you think?
But hey--don't let me stop you from making more nutty generalizations about us lib'ruls or what kind of men I like or about how you and your AR-15 stash could defend every school in Roxbury from the vicious hordes of zombies and wolverines.
Thisy this this this. To
Thisy this this this.
To make it clear:
THIS IS NOT A MOVIE, AND YOU ARE NOT CLINT FUCKING EASTWOOD.
stop projecting
Stop projected. Suggesting schools in particularly dangerous neighborhoods should have dedicated armed guards IS NOT acting like a 'cowboy' or Dirty Harry.
Doing so with out citing data on attacks IN schools
Is a pretty serious folly, however. One that reeks of paranoid fantasy and imagination, rather than realistic and reality-grounded thinking.
Note that the deadliest school attack in US History involved someone who had been on a school committee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
You are making my point for me
Yes, I lived in an area where people had guns and occasionally used them on other people.
Never had any gun issues at school.
Even elementary schools in fairly violent areas don't have shooting problems. Furthermore, urban areas like Roxbury have cops much more close at hand than places in suburbs where response times can drag into the tens of minutes.
Great
So that means you won't be advocating gun bans and confiscation since:
"Even elementary schools in fairly violent areas don't have shooting problems."
This is what
You call a strawman. No one is going to ban or confiscate 300 million firearms.
Can we just get background checks, tougher education for licensing, and close the traficing loopholes?
CUrrently it's harder to get a license and drive than it is to buy a weapon in the many states that contribute to this problem (MA ain't one, and it's laws a fine and probably a bit too restrictive)
Not a strawman
Swirly has advocated in the past for Australian style gun control which includes confiscation.
1. This is a K-8 school. 2.
1. This is a K-8 school.
2. When my child was at the Trotter (K-5), there was a security guard there. I don't recall him being armed. But "violence" encompasses many things besides shootings and stabbings.
3. Many schools, even in the 'burbs, have "resource officers."
4. I otherwise agree with the rest.
No security guards fired
Orchard Gardens is a Boston Public School so its is staffed with a school police officer. The pricipal may request that that officer be removed but has no control over hiring or firing him/her. The principal may hire security paraprofessionals but they are unionized. If he does not want one, they will simply be re-assigned to another school based on seniority.