Thu Dec 13, 2007 at 12:26 PMBy: motherx Northside school threats This is the second threat in less than 6 weeks. The last one was said to be at Taft and something to do with MySpace. Lane went into a security alert that day too.
I know that this new threat seems like it could be a copy cat of the NIU one, but I repeat, this is the second threat in 6 weeks on the north side so I am not inclined to breath easy as a parent.
Lane is handling this one pretty well and I have some confidence in the administration and security staff, however, I feel that CPS is behaving irresponsibly towards our children by not closing down the schools until an investigation yields something that assures all of us that children, teachers and staff will be safe at these schools. Have they learned nothing from other school shootings? Second guessing this as a prank is like playing Russian Roulette.

Thu Dec 13, 2007 at 5:18 PMBy: Rod Estvan Thursday Morning News The story from the Austin Weekly News about Kipp force transfering a student with a disability out of the school is similar to ones we here at Access Living have heard from other parents at other charters. From the details in the article the school appeared to be having problems dealing with oppositional/avoidance behaviors that many disabled students have. Not just Kipp but some other charters and regular schools also have problems with parents of disabled students who are aggressive advocates for their children. Frankly, I admit to having been one of those aggressive parents when my own disabled child was in the CPS. But my situation was different in that I had money to pay for the best special education lawyers if need be and that ability created what one could call a forced tolerance by schools of my aggressive advocacy of behalf of my own child.

The parent of this child may have had a strong legal basis under IDEA to block Kipp's apparent forced transfer of the child if they had acted within ten school days of when the school handed the parent the so called transfer packet.

Rod Estvan
Access Living

Fri Dec 14, 2007 at 7:50 AMBy: motherx Thursday Morning News Lane Parent
I am glad that I am not the only one who is angered at how this is being handled by CPS. Yes, the kids were herded outside to get re-entered into the lunchroom, which is a security risk on any given day.
My favorite? Having to discuss with my kids how to survive such an attack should it occur because nobody else bothered to do that. Good thing I watch 24. Excuse the sarcasm there.
My kids are home today to be safe but also, today, the school will be crawling with cops. Martial law. This is not school, it is prison. Why put the kids through this? Yes, it is necessary but wouldn't be if school was closed. and don't hold your breath, we will most likely never know what is really going on. We wouldn't want parents to unite and go out and protest against CPS and it's lack of concern for the children that they seem to see as so dispensable and yet without whom they would have precious little money to mess around with.

Fri Dec 14, 2007 at 9:28 AMBy: a concerned parent/teacher Thursday Morning News I am sitting home with my son. He woke up ready to go but tired as being
from a single parent family, we had a lot of uproar at home last night due to this situation. with the threats.I believe in public education and I DO BELIEVE LANE IS DOING THEIR BEST TO HANDLE WHAT IS A VERY DIFFICULT SITUATION
I am hopeful that the powers that be do have families that could also be impacted by this situation. Test scores,donations from corporate entities and
real estate as far as how many charters can renew the city block take a back
seat to the issues of children,elementary and high school and school climate
I know in my heart of hearts with my own personal situation and how we all
must live day to day that these are the issues that are of concern.specifically,my child.As well I am hopeful as parents we can be dealt with compassionately with care and by the way,regardless,my
son still wants to continue at Lane. I worked to facilitate what he wanted and
he deserves to be educated in this scenario .Hopefully these experiences will
open doors for open and honest communication where our children are concerned.

Fri Dec 14, 2007 at 10:40 AMBy: Charlie Thursday Morning News I think it is absolutely the right call not to hold a press conference about the threats for the same reason that the news doesn't tell us when someone throws themselves onto the L tracks. The last thing the city needs is 100,000 kids with the notion that they have enough power to shut down an entire school system with one threat. Keeping it quiet while enhancing security, working with teachers to make sure they understand how to handle these possible situations and finding ways to communicate effectively with parents (which in this case might be the one glaring oversight), I think is honestly the best way to handle a situation, with the addition of proactively identifying the students most likely to participate in this type of behavior and keeping a very, very close eye on them.

Sat Dec 15, 2007 at 4:43 AMBy: motherx Thursday Morning News I didn't get that call. I was wondering about retaliation, but I doubt it. I don't think that any school can afford to aggravate an already stressful and emotional situation. the news said that attendance was down 40% at Lane. that would be a lot of parents to retaliate against. And I said before, I have faith in Lane administration. I find that they are both compassionate and professional. They made some mistakes regarding how they handled the situation. I really doubt that if this was the case, it would occur to the school to punish children for decisions made by parents. We will see on Monday. Also on the news it was stated that "reportedly, these absences are excused". but, Lane parents, we can always join up and go to a school board meeting and fight it if it ends up being true. We can bring the media along if they care to follow threw on this one as well. It isn't as if we are totally helpless.

Sat Dec 15, 2007 at 7:51 AMBy: Lane Parent... Thursday Morning News I received the automated call around 5:45 yesterday evening, but there was some confusion for me as to whether or not the policy is being implemented moving forward, or if this will apply to Friday as well, or if only "certain" students were targeted (although my child has not been absent before this).

The recording stated "Please be aware of Lane's new attendance policy. The parent of a student who has been absent is to contact the division teacher by 8:00 a.m. on the day of the absence," otherwise, it will be considered an unexcused absence.

Now, again, while I will admit I am not certain if this is something that will take hold moving forward or will be applicable to Friday, I must say that the timing of this message, as well as the way it was worded, unnerves me.

Because my child is a Freshman (and thus, being unsure of how absences are handled at Lane), I initially checked the handbook on Wednesday to see how absences were handled, at that time there was one sentence under the heading "Reinstatement after absence" that read "The parent of a student who has been absent will be contacted by the division teacher." It goes on to say that the parent needs to send a note for the teachers to sign and to go to the division teacher. Although I ended up calling the school anyway to check in and see what was going on (and was told my child's counselor that Friday would be excused), at that time, I felt everything was taken care of, and that I would send a note with my child on Monday.

However, after yesterday's automated phone call, I checked the handbook on Lane's website again, and they had removed the abovementioned sentence, and had replaced it with "The parent of a student who has been absent is to contact the division teacher by 8:00 a.m."

Now, it just might be mere coincidence, maybe a bad reactionary handling of the situation on their part (because, indeed, it has been reported that 40% did not show up yesterday, and I'm sure this has been upsetting for them), but the timing and tone of the call left me feeling a little unsettled and unnerved to think that instead of the school trying to figure out who did this, they are sitting around thinking of things like this.

Overall, I have been pleased with Lane, but when something like this happens, it leaves me wondering, what next.

Sat Dec 15, 2007 at 9:50 AMBy: motherx Thursday Morning News Lane Parent

I understand your point of view and how you are feeling. Like yourself, I hope that nobody is sitting around thinking of things like this at a time like this. I would suggest that on Monday, you go to the school and talk to them in person about this situation in order to get a clear understanding on why and when these changes were actually decided. I certainly am sorry I missed that call and will be clarifying this on Monday.

It could be that this past week, children didn't show up starting on Thursday and parents didn't call, so it became an issue, rather than it being an issue of retaliation. Parents could assume that the school knew why their children were not present so didn't call. The kids were safe and that is all we thought about. But the school needed to know that these kids were actually safe and not skipping school or whatever.
I would be pretty upset if I were the school in a time like this, enough to change policy. We can't forget that this week was also trying and stressful for the entire school, not just the parents. They are people too and they were subjected to the same threat as our children.
If it is in fact retaliatory,then like I said before, we are not helpless against it.

Sat Dec 15, 2007 at 1:15 PMBy: Lane Parent Thursday Morning News Hi motherx,

Good point, and I will be right there with you on Monday.

Sat Dec 15, 2007 at 5:17 PMBy: Lane Parent Thursday Morning News Nothing is surprising about what they did. I honestly thought about that angle as well. But this "expression of frustration" could potentially have repercussions for the students whose parents kept them out of school because of legitimate feelings about the situation, so they need to just deal with it and move on. And, true enough, it might have been an expression of frustration by administration or whatever(because I understand 40% of students didn't show up). But what does that say about how they feel about the students and parents at Lane? Let's be clear about something: if my child, or the 4,099 other children, weren't enrolled in this school, Mr. or Ms. Type 75 would not have a job right now. Perhaps they should remember that before going off the deep end, and taking our their frustrations on people who didn't cause the problem in the first place. Yes, it's been a very stressful week, and I know they weren't exactly in good spirits while hosting selective enrollment tests today, undoubtedly thinking about how this will affect Lane's enrollment numbers next year. It's been stressful for the Type 75s, but let's remember it's also been stressful for the parents and students currently enrolled at the school. It seems we have lost sight of that fact in the mad scramble to keep attendance up. My only question now is: what are they going to do about it? Make this policy official? If so, don't cower behind a sentence secretly changed in the PDF of your handbook under the cover of darkness, bring out into the open. More importantly, though, have we found out who wrote the message in the bathroom, and why did he or she write it? What other steps will be taken in the school besides not allowing students to walk down the halls when classes are in session? Parents just want answers, and unfortunately, the school is not giving any. Typical CPS. Perhaps. For me, however, that's a very depressing way to look at a school system that is supposedly educating your child.

The fact of the matter is, Lane's policy, until sometime yesterday, was that the division teacher would call students who are absent. All parents were asked to do was send a letter explaining the absence once the child returned to school. Bad policy. Perhaps. There are all kinds of problematic things about this. Fact is, however, this is the policy they had in place until yesterday, when it was changed on the PDF version of their handbook on the website, but not changed on the "rules and regulations" page of their website (another indication that this was done while someone was really pissed off). They need to honor the policy in place for now, roll out their new policy in the right way, and FIND OUT WHO WROTE THAT MESSAGE ON THE BATHROOM WALL. That's more important than punishing people who didn't come to school yesterday because they were nervous or anxious about the situation.

Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 5:58 AMBy: motherx Thursday Morning News I was wondering how much autonomy Lane had in this situation once CPS got involved. That is why I am not quick to blame the administration on this one. I would say that once police and CPS security got in on it, Lane administration took a back seat since the police and security most likely took command of the situation. And we got what we got as a result. We now know how CPS handles threats against schools and how they feel about kids. Attendance=Money. Nothing else matters other than an avoidance of wrongful death lawsuits. If something happened, they had made a visible effort to protect our kids while avoiding the need to let us parents know what that effort was exactly. They didn't remove the threat either. the child who did this is still lurking among our kids so what happens when all the cops go back to the station? What is any, safety plan do they have in affect and when do they plan on letting us and our children know what that is?
Lane also got a new website in the middle of all of this (launched on Thursday evening, I believe). So change may have already been pre-determined. We can only ask questions and hope for honest answers.
And we can only get the news from the horses mouth, but who is the horse in this situation?
Northside handled this slightly differently. Sent emails home to parents immediately, whereas we heard it from out kids at the end of the school day on Wednesday. Northside took phone calls immediately. We got an automated call late in the day and a message on the website. (my experience, if anybody went through something else, let us know). Northside told the kids Friday attendance was up to the parents and how the children felt.We were given more automated calls assuring us that Lane was doing all they can and thanks for sending the kids on Thursday.We were told the police were sweeping the school Thursday night. I can't recall being assured that if we parents didn't send our kids on Friday that it was okay. Could be wrong.
Northside- No change in attendance policy as of yet either. I didn't hear this from a child, but from a parent. Police were present on Thursday and stood around doing nothing but talking to each other, according to this parent who mentioned this to the principle. So she didn't send her kid on Friday, based on this lack of confidence in the police presence, despite personally thinking it was a hoax.

Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 10:14 AMBy: text messeages and reverse 911 Thursday Morning News does anyone in CPS have this thing i keep reading about where messages can go out to parents and kids via text messaging or email -- i think it's called reverse 911? sounds like it might have been useful here.