Chez Chesler

Saugus High School went into lockdown on Friday because "the superintendent's office received an anonymous call from someone claiming there was a gun inside the school". The superintendent Keith Manville said "In this day and age you don't make the assumption it isn't, you have to react to it". Is there any correlation between threats like this, or the graffiti in a Billerica bathroom last week, and actual guns and shootings? Why does Superintendent Manville assume that the school is safe any other day? Of course by calling in the police, he assured that there would be guns in the school. Meanwhile, last week in Billerica students were subject to increased scrutiny. I'd heard one report that they weren't permitted backpacks, but this report only said they were X-rayed. Peter Gelzinis had a column in Sunday's Herald on school lockdowns, and I asked what kind of parent cares so little for his or her children as to send them to school on such a day? If there is no increased risk they're just making a show; if there is an increased risk, is exposing one's children to it worth more than letting them miss a day of mostly going over what was taught the day before?

Labels: guns, lockdowns, schools