November 11, 2021
Good Morning, HCPS Staff, Families and Friends:
The purpose of this correspondence is to respond to the recent increase in serious behaviors in our secondary schools and to share with the broader school community our plans to address them moving forward. We have appreciated your grace and understanding to this point, but feel we are at a pivotal point where additional reflection, oversight and prevention efforts are necessary.
As many of you may know, we have had two incidents recently of a gun found in each of our secondary schools and as recently as Tuesday, addressed a social media threat to our middle school. Many of our children are struggling as a result of the isolation and unique consequences of the pandemic. We are routinely having individual conversations with students and they are telling us of their challenges personally. And while we are working hard to respond specifically to their social and emotional needs and well-being, we continue to see a higher level of intensity in much of the misconduct some of our students are exhibiting.
I also want to acknowledge that in at least one case, we have made mistakes with consistently and properly communicating these incidents in a timely fashion. We have re-evaluated our crisis management and response practices as well as our communication protocols in these instances. From this point forward, ALL serious incidents in any school will be messaged via School Messenger and/or Remind to that specific school’s parents/families not later than close of business (or earlier if safely possible) on the day the incident occurs. We recognize your interest and your need to know and promise to do better moving forward.
On Monday night, I will present our plan to the School Board to better enhance the security of our buildings and increase prevention efforts to deter students from making choices that could impact the safety of our school community. We will publish this plan upon the School Board’s approval on Tuesday for implementation when we return from the Thanksgiving holiday beginning November 29, 2021. At any point, we welcome your suggestions and recommendations. Please feel free to email them to [email protected], who serves both as my Administrative Assistant as well as the Clerk of the School Board. We will engage our students in the discussion of our planning efforts next week to ensure they understand the new expectations of them before implementation. And while it is our hope that these strategies and prevention efforts will not be necessary long term, for the time being, we will be diligent in our efforts to keep our primary agenda focused on the health and safety of all of our HCPS family.
I also want to keep perspective that for most of our students, the return to in-person learning this year has been a welcome change from the previous school year. And while there have been unique challenges, our precious students are bringing excitement and JOY to our school buildings again. It is our goal to ensure we safeguard this sacred learning environment for all of them.
As always, we appreciate your partnership and trust.
Melody Hackney, Superintendent of Schools