Safety concerns prompts school walkout at Gresham High, students and parents address school board

Students, parents, and teachers at Gresham High School are taking their safety concerns to the school board, after a slew of incidents involving weapons at the school.

The most recent incident happened on September 20 when a student was arrested for bringing a loaded gun to school.

“Every day I’m wondering, is someone going to do something again? And I’m kind of nervous. It’s nerve-wracking. I don’t feel safe,” said Benny Enriquez, a student at Gresham High School.

“We feel like we’re not being protected well enough or the staff isn’t trying enough, and it has to change because otherwise one of us, someone is going to end up dead one day.”

Enriquez is planning to participate in a student walk-out Thursday, demanding the district improve its response to security threats, especially after the September 20th incident.

“None of us knew anything and I didn’t even know until I got back home and my mom told me. That kind of scared me because apparently the school knew since the morning, and they didn’t do anything until after the lunch basically.”

Parent Jake Fray, and his son Landon, tell a similar story.

“I finally texted Landon and Landon said, wait, what’s going on? So Landon wasn’t even knowing that there was a weapon at school and you said the teachers didn’t know, is that right?” “Yeah,” said Landon.

The Gresham Teachers Union claims this incident follows a string of incidents involving weapons at the school. It also claims the district has been ignoring student and staff safety concerns for years.

In May, 97% of teachers and staff voted no confidence in the principal and district administration.

When he asked if he feels like the administration cares about the safety of students and staff, Fray said, “I do not.”

Fray is a Barlow High School alum. He’s also a leader in the Gresham-Barlow youth sports program. He says Barlow doesn’t appear to have the same safety issues as Gresham, and he thinks it points to the leadership.

“We’re supposed to be equal and things don’t really feel equal between both schools, and I think we need to have some accountability at the leadership level at Gresham to make sure that we are having that equal level,” he said.

District administrators declined an interview, but a spokesperson for the district provided this statement:

The Gresham-Barlow School District expresses its thanks to the building administration and campus monitors who worked to swiftly identify the armed student and take the student to a secure location. Thanks to their courage and commitment, we were able to avert a tragedy.

We want the community to know that after any safety incident at a school, we meet with school administrators and other key building staff who are a part of our emergency response team to review what took place and how the team responded. We also review input from students, staff, and families. We are always looking for ways to improve our processes and procedures.

School safety is everyone’s responsibility. We must continue to work together so that our students can learn, grow, and thrive in our schools.

https://katu.com/news/local/students-parents-at-gresham-high-school-voice-safety-concerns-after-gun-incident

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Author: KATU News
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News post in at: October 4, 2024, 3:02 am.

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