School Board and Administration Plead Ignorance of Growing Gang Violence in Our Schools

In the public comment portion of last night’s RUSD board meeting, I listened to 2 different families share their children’s’ tragic experience with the growing violence in our high schools. In both incidents, the young men were brutally attacked in the bathrooms at their respective high schools, J.I. Case and Washington Park. These young men were innocent, good children that were victimized simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I do not doubt that there was not one person in the room that was not deeply touched by their words.

In one of these incidents the attackers were identified as known gang members, according to the police and school reports filed. The attackers even videotaped themselves brutally beating these young men. Apparently these attacks were either a gang initiation or a new and very disturbing trend. Not one of them (RUSD board members) or the new Director of Safety and Security were aware of these attacks before the parents brought the information forward at last night’s meeting. While the parents were assured by board members and administration that these were isolated incidents, I can guarantee that they are not

I have a sibling who works as a patrol officer for Mt. Pleasant (J.I. Case HS is in their jurisdiction) that shares general knowledge of events like this (never names) and I am convinced that gang violence is an ever growing problem in our schools. Some of these ‘children’ are eventually suspended, but only after numerous Control Theory and Responsibility Training sessions, and will most likely end up at one of the other schools because we simply do not have the room at the Mack Achievement Center to hold them all.

And if the leadership of our districts truly believed this acts of violence are random, why on earth have all of the football games been moved to Hammes Field (instead of Horlick Field) and why have they created and filled a new Central Office position – Director of Safety and Security? It sounds to me like they know about the problem and are now scrambling to find solutions...

Responsibility Training (RT) and Control Theory (CT), both disciplinary components of Hicks’ Quality District Model are obviously not working here in Racine. The inmates are now running the asylum.