GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – Green Bay Area Public School district officials turned to the community to help them brainstorm ideas on how to make their district safer.
The district’s ‘safety roundtable’ community meeting on Monday night comes after police officers say they found a gun and ammunition in a backpack inside a locked classroom at Preble High School last week.
Community members, parents, and students had a chance to discuss what safety and security measures they’d like to see the district implement.
“(We have to) send a clear message to the kids who have guns and to the rest of the community and the adults in the community that are allowing this to happen that we are going to take action right now,” said GBAPS superintendent Vicki Bayer.
Beginning next Monday, the district will require all of its sixth through 12th grade students to have clear backpacks. Bayer said this is just a first step and she knows that this won’t solve all problems related to safety.
If students bring a regular backpack to school after Sept. 22 when the policy goes into effect, they will need to take all the items out of the backpack at the entrances and carry the items to their lockers or to their classes. Up until the clear-bag policy goes into effect, students who bring regular backpacks to school will have their backpacks checked at the door.
For more information on the district’s new clear-bag policy, please click here. Several local businesses have bought and given away clear backpacks to students so that cost doesn’t impede anybody from abiding by the new safety protocol.
Green Bay Police chief Chris Davis and mayor Eric Genrich joined district leaders for the ‘safety roundtable’ at Preble High School on Monday night. State representative Amaad Rivera-Wagner was able to get the entire black caucus in the state legislature to come to the meeting as well.
Black, Hispanic Caucuses host Green Bay town hall, join school safety talks
Metal detectors, adding police officers to the schools, and additional mental health resources were some of the reoccurring ideas introduced by community members at the meeting. District officials said at this point they will explore every option to make their schools safer.
“The incident that happened last week is unacceptable and we need to send a clear message as a community that we won’t tolerate this,” Bayer said. “We will do everything in our power to prevent this from happening again.”
Community members also stress the importance of addressing the root issues that cause kids to make bad decisions like bringing a gun to school.
“Kids spell love, T-I-M-E, I want to dedicate my time for these youngsters,” said Damien Doran.
Doran is a well-known community activist in the Green Bay area. He said he had a difficult childhood and faced many of the challenges that some of the current students face. After the gun incident, he said the district asked him to come to the schools to talk with the kids.
“At the end of the day, looking the kids in the eye, actually hearing them out,” said Doran saying bullying was likely the reason the student brought the gun to school. “Asking them why are you mad, why are you upset, what’s going on. I think they really enjoyed the fact that somebody was actually there.”
Some Preble students also attended the ‘safety roundtable’ meeting to share a petition asking the school district to reverse course on its clear-bag policy.
“I think it really violates students’ privacy,” said Preble student Keegan Clark. “With the clear backpacks, what if somebody has money and somebody steals it? Or a cell phone.”
Clark also said he doesn’t think a clear backpack will stop a student intent on bringing a gun or other type of weapon to school. At the time this article was published, Clark’s petition had 636 signatures.
District officials said they will consolidate all of the community suggestions from the meeting into a presentation. They school board will view this presentation at their Oct. 13 meeting and then decide what action to take from there.
