Note: Updated with comments from a city spokesman.
Boston Police conducted active-shooter drills this week, including outside school, giving officers a chance to practice how they'd respond to a person with a high-capacity weapon running amok.
The only problem, at least at the Irving Middle School in Roslindale today, is that the school was locked down today and at least some teachers were told this was no drill. Read more.
UPDATE: After surrounding the school and sending in a search dog, police did not find the intruder, Stanley Staco reports. The guy apparently smashed a ground-floor window to gain entry.
Police are investigating a break-in at the Irving Middle School on Cummins Highway tonight. As officers surrounded the school and waited to unleash a police dog in the halls, they received word that a house on Sheldon Street, which runs into Cummins across from the school, had been broken into as well.
Two 17-year-olds, one from Roslindale and one from Jamaica Plain, are expected to be arraigned Friday on charges of breaking and entering at night with intent to commit a felony, larceny from a building, and malicious destruction of property following a vandalism spree at the Irving that police say left ten classrooms heavily damaged, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.
UPDATE, Sunday morning: A BPS spokesman says school will open on a regular schedule tomorrow. BPS teams are currently assessing the cost of fixing the damage, he says, adding he does not yet know if the alleged vandals were Irving students.
Boston Police report arresting two of the three teenagers they say smashed up ten classrooms at the Irving Middle School on Cummins Highway early this morning.
Police say an alarm brought officers to the school around 1:45 a.m.:
The Globe reports the Boston School Committee last night put off any action on a proposal that would turn the Irving Middle School into a sort of Roslindale-only destination for the neighborhood's K-5 schools, after civil-rights activists complained it would mean a return to neighborhood schools. Parents argued Roslindale is one of the city's most diverse neighborhoods and that it is the only neighborhood in the city without K-8 schools.
Geeky Mama reports on a meeting last week of parents of kids at the Irving Middle School, parents of Roslindale elementary students (Roslindale has no K-8 programs) and School Superintendent Carol Johnson. Parents are loving new principal Arthur Unobskey and parents pushed for more extended-day programs.
Wicked Local Roslindale interviews Arthur Unobskey, the new principal at the Washington Irving Middle School, who previously served six years as principal at Concord Middle School.
Wicked Local Roslindale reports police had to be called to break up 250 or so of the pride of Washington Irving Middle School, who'd gathered at Healy Field one recent day to watch a couple of students fight. The kids scattered when the cops showed up - stopping traffic as they streamed away - although the two pint-size pugilists kept at it even as the cops moved in.
Boston Public Schools announce new principals for the coming school year, including a new principal for Roslindale's Washington Irving Middle School:
Arthur Unobskey, Principal
Arthur Unobskey is currently the principal of the Concord Middle School, but has a long career with the Boston public schools. Before arriving in Concord, Unobskey worked at the Dearborn Middle School as the director of instruction and at English High School as the Humanities Program director, school-wide writing coordinator and teacher. Unobskey holds a bachelor's degree from Yale University and a master's degree from Brown University.
Click on the Irving Middle School link below to see why this made both my wife and I go "Huh!"
In other principal news, Sandra Mitchell-Woods, principal of the Nathan Hale Elementary School in Roxbury, was named Massachusetts Elementary School Principal of the Year.
Wicked Local Roslindale reports that after school on Jan. 29, police responded to Sheldon Street in Roslindale to find 50 students crowded together. They eventually found one kid in a blood-soaked shirt:
Officers noticed several abrasions to the boy's face, arms, torso and shoulders, and several imprints on his body looked like imprints of sneaker heels.
Two alleged pint-size punks were arrested on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. An ambulance was summoned to bring the victim to Children's Hospital for observation.
On Feb. 2, the paper continues, a student who refused to stop listening to his iPod during class went "out of control" when an officer stationed at the school (yes, police officers are stationed at a middle school) tried to take the iPod away until the end of the school day.
Ah, the good old Irving. Wicked Local Roslindale reports that when police officers heard screaming from the school computer room, they found one girl standing over another, punching and kicking her. And when officers separated the two, the police blotter continues, the brother of the aggressor rushed the cops, managing to push one over a chair as he yelled: "Get the [expletive] off my sister! You can't touch her like that! I will [expletive] you up!"
Wicked Local Roslindale reports a student at the Roslindale middle school was arrested on Dec. 10 after he allegedly began walking around the lunchroom showing off "a 4 1/2-inch double bladed knife" and threatening to "get" another student after school.
The Irving Middle School in Roslindale is back in the Transcript police blotter with two incidents:
An Irving School student reported that a group of female students threatened her by saying, "You gonna pay us a thousand dollars or we're going to cut your nipples off." The victim was also told that she was going to be gang-raped.
Also, a 15-year-old earned a trip to Area E-5 because he was:
Entering different rooms, slamming doors, pushing staff members and yelling expletives.
The Roslindale middle school is back in the police blotter this week:
... Officer Younger responded to the Irving Middle School in which two juvenile females had a fight in the cafeteria. The victim, whose hands, nails and head were injured, was taken to the hospital by her mother. ...
Jesus. This week's police blotter in the Roslindale Transcript has three separate reports from the school:
Four girls calling themselves Die to Kill were found beating up another girl.
The relatives of a student showed up at 7 a.m. to confront her harassers - who then promptly tried to beat up the relatives (unclear if the two incidents are related).
A girl, 13, was arrested after allegedly leading 30 other students into the cafeteria to beat up another student. Fortunately, police were already in the school because of "a recent increase of student fights at the school."
All this and a possible MCAS cheating scandal.
NOTE: The column also mentions a girl getting beaten up at Catholic Memorial and the West Roxbury Educational Complex fight at the Spring Street Dunkin' Donuts, but neither of those schools get into the blotter week after week.
Sorta old news, but I was reminded of it this morning because the kidlet's taking Yet Another MCAS Test: The principal of the Washington Irving Middle School is under investigation for allegedly giving teachers parts of the test the day before so they could help their students get better scores.
Silver lining: It might take people's minds off the school's weekly appearances in the Roslindale Transcript's police blotter.
Roslindale's Washington Irving Middle School is a familiar name to habitues of the Roslindale Transcript's police-blotter column. This week's report, however, gives us something different from the usual student attempts to beat up teachers:
The mother of a 14-year-old Irving Middle School student reported to police that the girl's ex-boyfriend, a 33-year-old man from Revere, allegedly entered the school to get the juvenile to "sign paperwork."
The paper follows that item with one about a Newburg Street resident complaining a couple of people were throwing potatoes at her:
... Police noticed pieces of potatoes in the staircase and a crate of spuds in the hallway. ...
The Transcript reports the Bustoff variety store on Florence Street was held up last Thursday afternoon, by two guys who punched the clerk and put a knife to his throat before they tied him up and pushed him to the floor. On Saturday, a Roxbury man was arrested outside Delfino's on South Street for pulling a switchblade on a man who refused to give him a cigarette.
Meanwhile, news out of the Irving Middle School includes a 12-year-old charged with throwing an open pair of scissors at a teacher and some graffiti threatening death to a specific teacher.
The Roslindale Transcript reports that a worker at the Village Market was assaulted when he tried to stop a man stealing a bottle of pomegranate juice.
Also click on the link to see why I am so glad the kidlet's school is now K-8. It's the last item, about the 11-year-old threatening to shoot an administrator at the Washington Irving Middle School.
Kids from the Washington Irving Middle School wait for the bus home in front of Wapo Taco in Roslindale Square today.
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