February 11, 2016
Superintendent of Schools, Roy Belson
Medford School Committee
Medford City Council
Attention all ~
This past Tuesday evening I appeared and spoke at the
Medford city Council meeting to support council resolution 16-063 offered by
Council Vice President Breanna Lungo-Koehn. It was a resolution that addressed parental
notification if and when a school bomb threat has been activated.
My comments at that meeting were directed to the safety
concerns of the children and the lack of open transparency by the school
administration. This was the third time in most recent months that our public
schools have had public safety issues that were not timely addressed by the
school administration. On all of those three occasions it was many days after
the fact that any acknowledgement was ever made.
The two new council members, George Scarpelli and John Falco,
acknowledged that a protocol procedure that both had worked on as school
committee members had to be investigated to see if protocol had been operative
during this most recent school bomb incident. My response to their comments was,
that if whatever protocol was not met then whoever was the decision maker of
not following such protocol should be held accountable even to the point of
being fired. I said that our children’s safety is the highest responsibility of
elected officials and nothing should never compromise that responsibility.
The Tuesday council meeting was an insulting attempt by
certain council members to shut off public, citizen participation on this
matter. The council had to be embarrassed to allow citizens to speak. The
council needs to be reminded that the podium at the city council meeting is the
open forum for any elected official and/or citizen to speak on any subject at
any time.
After the council meeting, School Superintendent Roy
Belson sent out a libelous e-mail accusing Councillor Lungo-Koehn, Councillor
Marks, myself and citizens who spoke out on this matter of “trying to provoke
fear among parents“ because we expressed our first amendment right of freedom
of speech. A review of the council meeting on this subject matter clearly shows
the concern regarding the delay of notification and the lack of transparency.
We live in a world today that can be turned upside down
in a matter of minutes. Any action that challenges the threat of one’s safety
is the highest of priority. Our school system should have an amber type
telephone system that calls all parents and /or guardians of children in a
school within a timely period after a bomb threat. Since time is of the essence to any threat
launched at any school, the lives of those children and school personnel affected
is at risk and the responsibility for their safety presents serious consequences
for timely failing to do so.
In this matter, we should not be talking about this after
the fact but rather parental/guardian protective actions should have been in place
to have avoided this serious problem. Calling student’s parents’ homes some
eight hours after the incident is unacceptable, unprofessional and a true cause
for discussing student’s and school personnel’s public safety.
Mr Belson’s suggestion that several councilors and
citizens, including myself, were provoking fear among the parents during a city
council meeting was uncalled for. Expressing concern for the safety of the
children, timely notification to parents and guardians and the protocol for
insuring the building’s safety and security is a parental and citizen right.
That is what the discussion was about.
As a matter of fact, these are the same concerns
expressed by parents and guardians of students from Everett High School as to
that schools recent bomb threat.
Transparency and communication … it’s that simple!
5:47 pm 2-11-16
5:47 pm 2-11-16
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