Feature Photo By: Alexis Drummond – Mr. Fay stands at the front of the auditorium listening to a parent’s question. Fay addresses the events that took place on Friday, November 2.
It has been over two weeks since Rangeview was put on a red lockdown. There has been much talk about the event by all in the RHS community, and administration has been talking about changes that could happen at Rangeview.
On Thursday, November 8th, the school administration held a parent forum in the auditorium; over 50 parents showed up looking for answers to tough questions about school security.
The first question to be asked was: “Why are we [parents] not alerted?”
Many parents weren’t alerted by the school at first; originally, many heard about the lockdown from their kids.
“I heard it first from her; I didn’t hear it first from the school,” said an anonymous parent at the meeting.
There were different emotions being thrown around at the forum. Parents were showing anger, melancholy, and even hate.
“I think in terms of structuring the forum, we could’ve done a better job,” said Mr. Bryan Gasior, assistant principal. “After speaking with Mr. Fay and the admins around if we were to do this differently, what would we do?”
There were two meetings that involved parents: The first was the parent forum that took place on the 8th, and the other was a parent advisory meeting that took place on Nov. 13th.
“He [Fay] said that [parent advisory meeting] was a lot more proactive,” said Gasior. “I think that the parent forum may have been a little more reactive.”
Many parents made suggestions at both in hopes of making staff and students feel safer.
“A lot of things were unclear,” said Linda Savage, parent and member of the parent advisory. “We cannot deter our children from the things they hear. I don’t believe we need to wait for an event to occur, after a situation like this or a death, to receive the funding we need to keep our kids safe.”
There were 21 suggestions made by parents, and ten of them were picked to be pushed further, said Mrs. Hartford, assistant principal.
Some of these ideas included: training for substitutes, teachers, and students in the lockdown process and procedures, appointing a campus monitor to watch the cameras throughout the day to watch for suspicious activity, and including a district representative during any parent debrief meeting.
“I think our stakeholder should have been at the table,” said Gasior. “You have a communications person from APS and having a communications person from APD to answer some of the questions that we [administration] were unable to answer.”
Neither a representative from APD or APS district came to the forum. There was no representation from an outside source to answer some of the questions that the administration didn’t know the answer to or couldn’t answer.
“I didn’t ask them [APD or District] to [go to the parent forum],” said Mr. Ronald Fay, principal. “I didn’t think it was necessary. I didn’t even think to ask because in my mind, when we go back and look at the end result, we hid 2,500 people pretty well; everyone went home safe. I was naive walking into that meeting thinking it was going to be productive.”
Many say the administration staff have been working hard to make sure all staff and students are safe walking into the school, during school, and while exiting the building.
“We are going to reach out to schools who have gone through this, like an actual live lock-down,” said Hartford. “The schools we have (made a) connection with are Columbine and Arapahoe. We are going to see what they changed after something happened like that in their community, just so we can take that advice as well.”
There are a lot of things staff, students, and parents want to see change. The district and the administration are coming up with ways to support the school and make it safer for everyone who enters.
“Some of my personal takeaways are we can do a better job communicating, not necessarily like how might we create a structure within the moment,” said Gasior. “I think we can tighten up some things especially from a communication standpoint…”
Even parents and grandparents were giving suggestions over the anonymous reports made to the link from the Inside the Darkness of a Threat opinion story that ran in The Raider Review after the lockdown.
“Teach all the kids how to barricade classroom doors with desks/bookcases,” said an anonymous parent at the forum. “Thank you Rangeview Raider staff and APD for what you do to keep all our kids safe!”
Several students agree that administration is attempting to assure that no one on campus has to go through a similar situation.
