Several toy guns have been confiscated from kids at schools in
Hollister this week
Last week two students at Sunnyslope Elementary School, a
third-grader and a fifth-grader, were caught with two toy guns on
campus after school. The toys were confiscated and the students
will likely be expelled; this week another toy gun was confiscated
at Rancho San Justo Junior High.
Several toy guns have been confiscated from kids at schools in Hollister this week
Last week two students at Sunnyslope Elementary School, a third-grader and a fifth-grader, were caught with two toy guns on campus after school. The toys were confiscated and the students will likely be expelled; this week another toy gun was confiscated at Rancho San Justo Junior High.
In the wake of school-related shootings in Pennsylvania and Montana, school officials have a heighten level of awareness of what is happening in local schools and be prepared to thwart gun-related violence.
Some parental concern is understandable; these are scary times. But some perspective is necessary. Less than 1 percent of all homicides among school-age children occur in or around school grounds, or on the way to or from school, according to data compiled in 1997 by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
But a healthy fear – both by parents and school and police officials – can foster safe campuses for students.
“Toy guns are not allowed on campus at all,” said Ron Crates, superintendent of Hollister School District. “These guns are marketed as toys, but they look completely real, kids paint the safety rings black with polish so they look real. Someone will pull one of these out and be shot because it looks so real.”
Even before the students brought the toy onto campus at Sunnyslope, the Hollister School District has been focused on education and precaution, Crates said. On the day of the shootings in Pennsylvania, Crates called all the principals in his district and discussed school safety again and issues that could arise as a result of these shootings.
“Every school in the Hollister School District has a safety plan. If a weapon is anywhere near a school, there is a lockdown and then the authorities are called. The idea is if a weapon is even in the area, it’s probably dangerous to the kids, so we shut it down. Nobody is allowed on or off campus until the situation is cleared up,” Crates said.
The police were not called into the situation at Sunnyslope last week and the campus was not locked down, but notices went out to all the parents explaining the severity of the incident and the fact that toy guns are never permitted on school grounds.
“The greatest danger these guns pose is to the students carrying them because they look like real firearms. These guns are also a danger to other students and school staff,” Crates said in an open letter to parents in the district.
Deputy Rich Brown, the youth diversion officer for schools in San Benito County is familiar with threats, but said that the schools in San Benito County rarely have problems. He regularly talks with the principals of the schools he monitors and that emergency plans are in place and updated often.
“The free flow of information between administrators and students helps the students feel pretty safe, they’re conscientious of their safety,” Brown said.
However, if a student does bring a weapon onto campus it isn’t immediately known. Brown said that weapons are usually only discovered as the result of other activity. So, if a student had a knife in his pocket and got into a fight with another student when the two students were apprehended they would be searched and if a knife was discovered the student in possession of weapon would be punished.
Incidents like Columbine and the shootings in Pennsylvania barely register with students, said San Benito High School counselor Jim Caffiero.
“We’ve had a lot of deaths at the high school over the past 20 years and the only time concerns about safety come up is if they have a personal conflict with another student,” Caffiero said. “The students here are sort of insolated and isolated. We don’t see that sort of violence in Hollister much, so the kids don’t stress over it. We do everything we can security wise.”
Ashley Bartlett, a freshman at San Benito High School doesn’t really think about school safety. She’s lived in Hollister her whole life and never really had to worry about anything like that happening.
“It’s sad what happened there, but I’m not scared that would happen here, why would I be,” Bartlett said.
Joe Perez, a sophomore at the high school has younger siblings and didn’t know that younger students had brought toy guns to Sunnyslope last week.
“I think I heard my parents talking about something like that, but I wasn’t really listening,” Perez said.
The high school is prepared for the worst, should a situation ever occur. Last spring they ran through a drill scenario where a person brought a gun onto the campus. During a situation like this when a person is spotted with a gun, a code blue is called and an air-raid siren sounds and teachers lock down their classrooms and protect their students. The teachers have cards informing them what to do at that point. There are three sirens around the campus.
The noise from the siren would then alert police to the campus so that they could intervene at that point, said Duane Morgan, assistant principal who helped put the plan together.
“Honestly, for as big a campus as we have, we’re pretty tight. We have 12 campus supervisors on campus and they are the eyes and ears. We have trained with Deputy Brown on how to handle situations with monitoring,” Morgan said.
Unfortunately, due to financial constraints the Hollister Police Department has no crime prevention program. They cannot go into the schools and talk to students about the dangers of guns and the seriousness of bringing guns to school.
Between music lyrics, video games, television and film, Hollister Police Chief Jeff Miller believes the community as a whole must talk with children about the real dangers of guns – doses of reality.
“I think the real issue is that we’ve gone down a course where we’ve desensitized the population to this [violence],” Miller said. “The promotion of violence is commonplace … They see Southpark and every week Kenny dies and the next week he’s back. We need kids to understand the consequences of violence. Getting the word out there is the top priority the rules have been on the books for years. My advice to parents treat paintball and BB guns just like you would real guns.”
