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“De La Torre said school officials are trying to determine why the students left campus.”
Umm. Because he was a 6th grader & a whole group of kids were leaving? Because it’s much easier to contain 11 year olds when you maintain the structure of a schedule inside the containment of a school building?
“He said staff was posted at the front and back of the school, but the six-grader and the students with him left by a side.”
That was considered adequate? Was it predictable? Well, yes, actually, it was. It’s entirely predictable, that when you deviate from structure & continuity; that there will be opportunistic 11 year olds that can predict that you have a weak link & that they will exploit it. Heck; even I predicted it. From February, right here on CD:
“That probably sounds paranoid but as a parent; I take a small comfort in knowing that my kids are on closed campuses with locked entrances & video surveillance with doors that you have to be “buzzed” into.
Would school security or SRO’s feel comfortable with hundreds of students milling around on a ball field or parading around a campus perimeter? Our district doesn’t even publish elementary or middle school bell schedules for safety reasons.
What would they do with my son’s Severe Needs/SPED class, many of whom (including my son) are unaware of recent national news tragedies? My son frequently requires 2 paras just to go to PE; I can’t imagine a school safely accommodating their special needs students during an event like this.”
There was a period, oh say the 1980s, where many schools had open campuses. That went away when the litigation started. I don't feel like looking but I'd wager that the vast majority of schools systems are as you describe.
One thing that has changed is that students can now take, usually during the senior year, an abbreviated schedule and go to work or, in some cases, take community college classes.
1960s and 70s too. I sometimes went home for lunch when I was in elementary school. The jr. high school I went to was a closed campus, but students leaving the campus anyway was a big enough problem that teachers took turns eating their lunch at nearby fast food restaurants, so they could watch for student's coming in. My high school was a completely open campus, where students could come and go as they pleased.
1960s and 70s too. I sometimes went home for lunch when I was in elementary school. The jr. high school I went to was a closed campus, but students leaving the campus anyway was a big enough problem that teachers took turns eating their lunch at nearby fast food restaurants, so they could watch for student's coming in. My high school was a completely open campus, where students could come and go as they pleased.
As did I, same time frame. We had small neighborhood elementary schools and a lot of kids went home for lunch.
That's changed for a lot of reasons, schools have gotten bigger for one. Where I am now in Maryland builds its schools in locations where almost everyone has to ride a bus.
We had no fast food places nearby where I grew up, nor did where I taught for most of my career. That school did have an issue with kids leaving to get drunk.
As did I, same time frame. We had small neighborhood elementary schools and a lot of kids went home for lunch.
That's changed for a lot of reasons, schools have gotten bigger for one. Where I am now in Maryland builds its schools in locations where almost everyone has to ride a bus.
We had no fast food places nearby where I grew up, nor did where I taught for most of my career. That school did have an issue with kids leaving to get drunk.
Kids would leave my jr. high school to get high. Some drug dealers had set up shop in a vacant warehouse across the street from the school. We lived on a hill behind the school. One morning when I was walking down the hill on my way to school, I saw a lot of flashing police car lights on the side of the school next to the warehouse. When I got to school, I found out that 30 students had gotten busted in a drug raid at the warehouse. It was the #1 story on the local TV station news that night. Probably the only time the school ever got on the news. LOL.
In my school days (admittedly "back in the day") once students had arrived at school nobody was allowed to leave the school grounds (even for lunch) until the end of the school day unless removed by a parent or guardian. This applied to all grades. I'm sure that this isn't the case any more for most (if not all) schools, but it did maintain somewhat of a safety factor.
Im not sure how far back you are talking about, there were plenty of days when i was in middle school and high school, in the 80s and 90s, we would walk out a back or side door and just leave school, without telling anyone. No one ever got in trouble for this, and it only counted as a half day missing (if anyone even realized you left), since you would be counted as present at the beginning of the day, and not all teachers in all classes took role each class either, some did, but some didnt, and others would just do it here and there.
There were NUMEROUS days where I was listed as present for the whole day, but I had left after my second class!
Open and closed campuses very between school districts! I went to H.S. in the 90's in the Chicagoland area and we had a closed campus; however, I knew of another school district nearby and they were an open campus for lunch. Currently we're still in the Chicagoland area, but in NW Indiana and all the nearby school districts are closed campus.
Either way, I don't see the school being liable for this accident.
If the parents did decide to sue, would they have much of a case?
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