The Richmond County Board of Education honored several students and staff during its meeting, Tuesday evening, and also discussed increasing violence near district schools.
School System Police Chief Mantrell Wilson addressed the board, at the behest of board member Venus Cain, regarding the incident at Diamond Lakes earlier this month. In that incident, a gathering of students at the park erupted in a shooting, in which one student was hospitalized.
According to Wilson, the meet at Diamond Lakes was a “countywide senior skip day” event coordinated by groups of students.
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School district resource officers were not unfamiliar with this kind of organized truancy, Wilson said, and were regularly partnering with the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office and other local agencies to share intelligence.
By exchanging information and maintaining communication with parents, such as via digital apps like Let’s Talk and Sprigeo, specifically designed facilitate rapport between parents and school administrators, the school police have before been able to undermine potential disruptions.
“However, the more that we work together to combat these things, children are getting smart and they’re trying to find… more innovative ways to get around what we’re doing,” said Wilson to the school board.
Some members of the board expressed concern regarding the limits of the school district’s ability, and of its responsibility, to address violent incidents among students that occur outside of schools.
“I’ve received emails basically saying it was our fault,” said board member Shawnda Griffin, citing social media posts inquiring what administrators, teachers and the school district are doing to counter the possibility of incidents like the one that occurred on April 1.
Board member Helen Minchew worried that the violence might be largely gang-related, and underscored the district’s inability to police what happens off district campuses.
“This is happening outside of the schools, in the community, on the streets, and it does interfere with the functions of our schools and involves the safety of our students and faculty,” said Minchew. “I don’t know if we can’t maybe reach out more, as far as trying to see what is being done.”
Board member Cain urged local parents to “step up” and take more responsibility for their children’s behavior, and the wider community to help aid schools in preventing violence.
“A parent’s going to cry in maybe one of three ways,” said Cain. “When that child walks across the stage and gets their high school diploma, before they go to college, into the military into the workforce… when you get that knock on the door at three o’clock in the morning, asking you to come down somewhere to identify someone… or when that judge hits that gavel sentencing your child to 10, 20 or 30 years. You will cry one way or the other. It’s up to parents to choose which way they want to cry.”
Board member Patsy Scott recommended revisiting school policy, to enact stronger disciplinary action for truancy. School Superintendent Kenneth Bradshaw stated that district administration would be taking another look at the policy.
School Board President Charlie Walker Jr. spoke briefly regarding the package of education legislation Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law, Tuesday.
Among the new legislation is SB 233, which offers a scholarship of $6,500 to aid parents of students at underperforming schools to pull their children out of public school and enroll them in private schools or otherwise homeschool.
Walker avoided making comments to media regarding the new law, he said, as it’s too soon to tell how it may play out in Richmond County.
“Anytime you are effecting something that’s that financially… impactful, it’s obviously going to do something,” said Walker. “We just don’t know right now what that is… Just time will tell.”
The meeting began with the RCBOE presenting some 16 recognitions for students, faculty, administration and even Superintendent Bradshaw.
Among the honors acknowledged was A. R. Johnson Health, Science and Engineering Magnet School’s Technology Student Association Organization attending the upcoming Technology Student’s Association (TSA) National Competition in Orlando, Fl.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
