| Ventura County, CA | November 6, 2012 Election |
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Bullying and School SafetyBy Dan WhiteCandidate for Board Member; Simi Valley Unified School District |
This information is provided by the candidate | |
You cant have a great school if students are afraid to be there.Bullying in our schools is a very important issue. We cant seriously address the real educational issues in Simis schools until we remove students fear of being hurt, abused, or ridiculed on campus. I think we can make a great deal of progress in this area if we focus on eliminating the opportunity to bully someone at school. All bullies must be caught. All bullies must face recourse. Repeat bullies should be expelled. We need more cameras on campus, however, we also need more adults intermingled with the students between class and at lunchtime. There should not be a place on campus where students feel vulnerable. That means more teachers outside, more parents on campus, and better relationships between school staff and kids. Through dialog with students and parents, we need to understand what safety issues still exist (whether perceived or real), and we need to address them. In 2010, the California Healthy Kids survey showed that Simi Valley students do not feel as safe on our high school campuses as other students do in nearby districts by a significant margin. This data should have been cause for alarm by our school board, however they have not taken serious steps to address this problem. Many of the issues we face in Simi (including lower test scores, declining enrollment, and an overall negative perception by many parents) can be improved if we first address school safety. Like water, sleep, and basic nutrition, safety is a basic prerequisite that must be satisfied before we ask students to work harder to prepare for opportunities of the future. You cant have a great school if students are afraid to be there. |
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ca/vn Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 2, 2012 20:22
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