PHOTO: The audience at the April 10 public hearing hosted by the Archuleta School District.
The first half of the two-hour public meeting at the Pagosa Springs High School Auditorium, on April 10, consisted of speeches by Archuleta School District staff and local law enforcement, related to recent threats of violence in Pagosa Springs schools.
Not actual violence, but verbal threats by students, and threats posted to social media.
How to deal with such threats?
The second half of the meeting consisted of an opportunity for parents and community members to step up to a podium and ask questions and make suggestions.
Disclosure: I currently serve on the board of directors for Pagosa Peak Open School, a charter school authorized by the Archuleta School District, and as such, is funded mainly by local and state taxes. As an independently-governed K-8 school, PPOS maintains safety protocols, but does not retain ‘school resource officers’ in the building.
In Part One on Friday, I shared a few comments made by Pagosa Springs Middle School principal Chris Hinger, and I’d like to share a few more of his comments.
“In my 20th year [at Pagosa Springs Middle School] — this year — I was thinking about, what have we done in this community to ensure the safety of our kids? And there is a litany. I have no idea how many hundreds, if not thousands of hours I’ve had, working with law enforcement doing trainings to make sure our kids are safe. We’ve chased after grants — the Safe Schools grants — to provide our whole school district with radios, so we can be in good communication, and for law enforcement to be able to patch in to hear the communication.
“We’ve learned that, sometimes it’s not coming from within the student body, right? In Baily, we learned that the threat can be coming from outside. And so we worked and worked and studied this and said, Okay — the School Board championed this effort — we chased a BEST grant and we installed a single point of entry. Access control. ID badges. So that we could have… we could control the ebb and flow of who comes into our schools.
“And being a two-building school, that’s not easy. Our secretaries are buzzing in a lot of kids and parents. We vet that, we look and we make sure whoever is there, has a purpose. We championed the mill levy override, to recruit and retain teachers, but also to make sure we had the school resource officers in the schools. And you voted for that, and the School Board supported that… and so, since, we have the resource officers and a great collaboration with our local police department and Sheriff’s Office…
“…I could go on and on and on, and tell you about all the different things we’ve done to prepare, to keep your kids are safe, but rest assured, in my years at Pagosa Springs Middle School, I feel like there has been a purposeful, concerted, thoughtful effort to create safe schools. And I want you to rest assure, that it is actually our Number One, that your kids are safe…
“But I want to tell you that, bottom line, I think the most important thing we do at the Middle School is that we build close relationships with your kids. We are purposeful, to get to know each and every one of them. We have advisory programs that team-build. We care about their development holistically; we want them to be sound academically; we want them to be good people, so we teach them character skills; we go on trips.
“And we dedicate a considerable amount of resources and effort and time, to make sure your kiddos have individual teachers who connect with them, that know them, and who can start to intervene early if there are concerns. Because being a teenager is hard, and they need to have trusted adults they can reach out to, and talk to…”
It was obvious to me, listening to Mr. Hinger, that he truly wants the best for the students at the Middle School.
And I would agree, that being a teenager is hard.
In spite of all this investment of resources, however, and this time and effort aimed at building trust with students, our schools seem to have received two threats of violence within the past two weeks. Were these ‘credible threats’? We don’t yet know, because our schools are prohibited — under federal and state law — from discussing, publicly, any individual student’s behavioral issues.
We also heard from Archuleta Sheriff Mike LeRoux about how local agencies have been preparing, collaboratively, for a potential incident. He noted that his office previously provided two deputies as school resource officers, but due to “staffing issues” currently provides only one officer, Deputy Dylaina Gauvey.
Police Chief William Rockensock said that he takes the safety of students “very personally”.
He also mentioned that his department has tried to provide resource officers to the schools, “but unfortunately, we’ve gone through three of them. It’s not been easy to keep someone in that position. But we did just hire someone new to fill that position, and they will be starting on Monday.” (The new hire is Brandon Bishop, who resigned last week as the elected Archuleta County coroner.)
“This is not just a law enforcement issue. This is not just a school issue. This is a community issue. School safety for our children — for your children — belongs to all of us. And that means, you have to speak to your students; you have to speak to your children. Help them understand, that we need information. But we need good information.
“If you aren’t speaking to your children about posting on social media, and how that can be a detriment to what we do, then I implore you to do so…”
Chief Rockensock was sending out this plea to about 50 parents and community members in the audience. We can assume that these audience members are highly concerned about school safety, and were taking the Chief’s comments seriously.
But of course, the Archuleta School District has an enrollment of 1,670 students… so clearly, most of the District’s parents were not in attendance… and presumably did not get to hear Chief Rockensock’s plea.
Read Part Three…