GA. Beating in Atlanta High School raises safety concerns

This fight was more savage than anything Brooklyn Harper had ever seen at Westlake High School.

Two years ago Georgia Department of Education reduced the ability of teachers to maintain a safe environment. According to this article the total number of serious offenses rose in metro school district in direct correlation to DOE’s policy change.

Teachers should be the first line of defense for maintaining a safe learning environment, not school resource officers or video cameras.

The class was in chaos. As the substitute teacher tried to restore order, students pried the victim away from his attackers. Five accused assailants — all freshmen and sophomores, including one girl — later were arrested and charged.

“The only thing I could think of,” said Harper, 16, “is what could he have done so wrong that would make them beat him like that.”

Fulton, a 93,000-student district, has its own police department, with 68 officers stationed throughout approximately 100 schools. Three were on campus at Westlake the day of the beating. And Fulton has added money for school security in recent years, including a $600,000 grant for training school personnel.

The Atlanta system’s increase in serious offenses also is largely due to to non-felony drug cases and threats. Unlike Fulton, however, it is also dealing with budget cuts that have trimmed the ranks of school resource officers.

Fourteen officers now keep watch over the APS’s almost 100 school sites. Seven years ago, the 50,000-student district employed almost 20 detectives and the budget was twice what it is now, said Marquenta Sands, director of school security. The district fills gaps by employing about 65 off-duty Atlanta police officers.

APS Superintendent Erroll Davis said he plans to almost double the district’s security force using an additional $1.5 million. First he plans community meetings to see what parents want schools to look like.

“I want to avoid turning schools into police states,” Davis said. “There are other areas such as violence prevention, anti-bullying where monies can be spent to make the school safer.”

Gwinnett, the state’s largest district with 162,000 students, has 23 officers, one assigned to each of the 18 clusters, and another that rotates depending on where the support is needed, said spokesman Jorge Quintana. The district added an officer in 2010 when a new high school opened in the northern part of the county.

Cobb and DeKalb have all trimmed school security budgets, though sources from both districts say they’ve tried not to reduce police presence at schools. Cobb has 42 officers, including at least one at all of its 16 high schools and two each at seven larger schools. DeKalb has 75 officers roaming each middle and high school, and every school has two campus supervisors that check people in and prevent trespassers, district spokesman Walter Woods said.

http://www.ajc.com/news/fulton-high-school-beating-1224463.html

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