CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via our website. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication. The following letter is in response to a story titled '‘F-minus': Trustee gives school violence report failing grade,' published Dec. 27.
First, they could start by looking into the numbers they do have.
You may want a ‘better’ report, but this is the report you have and the only one you have to work with.
So, what is the board going to do? Ask for a new report while no preventative action is taken and violence increases. Wrong answer.
There is a lot they could be doing:
1. They have a list of those involved in these incidents.
2. What follow-up programs are now in place where these individuals are getting mental health support? Learning how best to interact and co-exist with others.
3. If there are programs, each should be audited for content, staffing and effectiveness.
4. If there are no programs, then programs need to be developed by ‘experts’ in the mental health fields now, not next year.
5. How is the school staff coping with this violence? Are there effective staff mental health programs in place? If now in place, they, too, need to be audited. If not, then they need to be developed now.
These individuals should have left this meeting with a list of tasks, timeline for each task and a responsible name attached to each task. A new report might be nice, but in the meantime, do something.
Violence is unacceptably high in schools. The time to act is now.
BarrieToday should also let everyone at this meeting know that you will be following up on this issue. Having back-to-back reports clearly indicating an alarming increase in school violence and then doing nothing is not the right answer.
John Fisher
Barrie
