Life or Death

I remember working at a college in the Midwest, and my supervisor and I were having an argument on decision making. Most importantly, we were really going at it about whether our decisions have lasting impacts on students. He uttered these words that still piss me off today:

In the course of our work, we rarely make life or death decisions for our students. 


I disagreed (and told him in such an unprofessional way), and said that for many of our students, the decision we make might be the one to help them see themselves in a positive light or put a bottle of pills and a 12 pack of beer in their hands and decide to end it all. We must never underestimate the impact our decisions and our work have on students.


I am often reminded of this every day working in East Oakland. For you see, my school is in what some people would call a "dangerous neighborhood". Just last week, there was a running gun battle right outside our school. We had a street brawl two weeks ago between family members that grew into a 30 person battle royale, and earlier that week someone got shot down the street from the school. Funny thing is, I found out about the shooting from a kid who stands on the corner. I thought he was lying, until the cops show up looking for shell casings and witnesses (of course, they found neither). The cops didn't even bother to tell us someone got shot.

Our school can't afford a security officer, the security cameras are inoperative, our gates are left unlocked, and the street is full of folks that have nothing better to do. If someone is getting shot at, our front door is wide open for them to come in and find sanctuary. Never mind that there are 160 kids in the school, all in grave danger if the assailant decides to stroll in or the dude getting shot at tries to hide in a classroom. All are viable situations the principal and I have gone through, and it scares the shit out of us.

So, we have a meeting with a City Council member next week to beg for money to improve security. It's an incredibly stupid situation: we have viable security needs that need to be met to ensure student safety, and we have to schedule a meeting with a Council member to sell her to give us money. We have to give a presentation  on our security issues and why we need money for security upgrades. I'll be there asking for a competent security officer and if we could get a beat cop to sit outside the school during dismissal. I don't think I'm asking for much; I just want my kids to be safe while they're learning.

If this Council member decides to sit on her hands and not provide these vital resources, or "wait and study the issue", then she'll have to live the impacts it will have on our students. All I know is this...I don't have a badge, gun, or Kevlar. Until I get those, I can only do so much to keep these kids safe.