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Shootings Don't Shock
Peninsula Students
Many are already dealing
with violence in their own communities
by T.S. Mills-Faraudo and Kelly Pakula
San Mateo County Times
Menlo-Atherton High School senior Sandy Islas hasn’t
thought much about the recent violence at schools across
the county.
That’s because 16-year-old East Palo Alto resident
is thinking more about a shooting that happened a couple
of weeks ago just blocks way from her house.
Students across San Mateo County showed little reaction
to the recent shootings at schools in Colorado, Pennsylvania,
and Wisconsin. Instead, they are worried more about violence
in their own communities or don’t think these types
of incidents will happen at their schools.
“I don’t have to watch the news to think
about shootings,” Sandy said. “I think about
it all the time.”
But she’s not that worried about violence happening
at her school. Sandy is more scared something will happen
when she has to walk to the store to pick up groceries
for her mom.
“I feel safe inside my house,” she said. “But
I don’t like walking outside in my neighborhood.”
Roughly 25 percent of Menlo-Atherton’s students
receive counseling each year from one of the school’s
five on-site therapists, Vice Principal Matthew Zito
said. That’s because many of the students come
from backgrounds or neighborhoods, in which they deal
with traumatic incidents on a regular basis.
Reasons students see counselors range from witnessing
shootings in their neighborhood to a parent going to
prison to a relative being involved with a gang, Zito
said.
"Some of the kids live in communities where shootings
occur all the time, so it takes a lot to rattle them,
which is sad," said Liz Schoeben, one of the five
therapists at the school from Adolescent Counseling Services.
None of the students she has talked to recently have
even mentioned the shootings at schools.
School leaders and law enforcement officials have many
guidelines in place to make sure students are safe at
campuses in the county.
It was the 2001 shooting rampage at a high school near
San Diego, that made San Mateo Police Chief Susan Manheimer
take notice of the potential for an active shooter to
enter a school campus. It made her realize that police
agencies need to "prepare for the worst."
Since then, San Mateo County law enforcement agencies
have adopted protocol for dealing with a shooter at a
school. Every officer in the county now goes through
the same training for dealing with these type of incidents.
This protocol allows the first officers on the scene
to respond quickly to the threat, Daly City police Cmdr.
Cory Roay said.
How it works is the officers on the scene are separated
into teams. The first team moves toward the suspect,
the second team follows and locates and rescues injured
people and the third party does a more thorough search
for hurt individuals, Roay said.
This allows officers from different agencies to support
each other and operate using the same tactics, he said.
"I would have no hesitation to have our officers
work in another area," Roay said.
In light of Monday's schoolhouse shooting in Pennsy1vania,
Manheimer said her department has already contacted local
school districts to go over this protocol.
Some police departments such as Daly City and South
San Francisco place officers on high school, middle school
and elementary school campuses year-round.
"It's very valuable to have them on campuses so
they can develop a rapport with the kids," Roay
said. "In my mind, they're the first line of defense
because we can nip problems in the bud."
In addition to having regular lockdown drills, Principal
Dick Morosi at Westmoor High in Daly City said he takes
a number of other steps to make his students feel safe.
Students, for example, are not permitted to wear anything
that depicts gang activity or drug use, he said. This
means no baggy pants, long T-shirts or baseball caps
worn backwards. This policy helps school officials identify
trespassers on the campus, Morosi said.
"If there's anything positive that has come out
of these tragedies in the last three weeks, it's that
kids don't argue with the dress code because they know
it's for their safety," he said.
Westmoor students say they don't think a shooting could
happen at their school.
"I feel safe at this school. But people at the
other schools (where the shootings occurred) probably
thought the same thing," senior Stephanie Galang,
17, said. "So you never how what could happen."
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