A Tragedy At Red Apple

As most of the regular readers know by now, there was a horrific incident at one of my children’s school yesterday. An unknown intruder found his way into the building and sexually molested a 6 year old child. As a parent, my heart is breaking for this young victim and his family. However, my heart is also breaking for the hurtful comments I read on the JT weblogs regarding the staff of Red Apple.

There are many to point fingers at the staff of Red Apple, but few are placing the blame where I feel it belongs. The blame should lie with the sick bastard that forever changed a young life yesterday.

Red Apple is one of the best schools in this district; they have a wonderful and caring staff. To blame them for the heinous actions of another is unfair and pointless. I feel that Red Apple has always provided my children with a safe learning environment. The many doors of the decrepit 130 year old building are locked, and visitors are required to “buzz” the main entrance to gain access to the building. I have been buzzed in many times, and I have never been offended when asked who I was. Because the only other school my children attended also had a camera/intercom system, I was not aware this was not a standard operating procedure for all of our schools. It needs to be….

Were there security breaches? Yes. Could parents (or intruders) still get in without being buzzed? Yes. Did parents hold doors open for others behind them, of course we did. Notice I said “did”, because I am sure no one in the near future will engage in this practice. The principal has sent another note home today asking the parents to assist the staff in keeping our children safe by practicing a few common sense strategies when picking up or dropping off our children.

Although some are demanding a meeting for the parents of Red Apple, I would suggest demanding a meeting for the other schools in the district. Like New York on 9/12/01, Red Apple Elementary today is an extremely safe and secure place. I would venture a guess that nothing like this will ever happen at Red Apple again – but it can happen at another school.

The parents of Red Apple have been informed of the steps being taken, but the parents of children attending other schools have not. They need to make sure that this kind of tragedy does not occur at their school. If it happened at Red Apple, I can assure you it can happen anywhere. Many of our buildings in the district are not designed with today’s needs in mind. This will happen again if the district does not start addressing the real problems this district faces.