By Dana Williams
parents voiced their concern to the Board of Education last week, saying that they are troubled by the string of disturbances and what they said was a lack of communication by school officials.
Last week, a bomb threat was found inside Baldwin Middle School, the fourth threat to occur in the district this school year. The threat at the Middle School was found written in the building, though the school was not evacuated.
Last month, Meadow Elementary School was evacuated and students were taken to Baldwin Middle School, where they waited for their buses or parents to pick them up. There have been previous threats found at Plaza and Steele schools, though police determined that in those cases, an evacuation of the buildings was not necessary.
At a Community Input Meeting at Baldwin Middle School on Jan. 24, a number of parents took issue with certain evacuation procedures, and said that the district must improve communication with parents.
"It was the goal of the Board of Education last year to improve communication with the community," resident Paulette Palmer said in the school cafeteria filled with over 40 people. "It's fine that I got the procedure after the bomb threat happened the first time, but I would have been more comfortable in knowing the procedure plans ahead of time."
The issue of whether parents from other schools in Baldwin should be notified if a bomb threat happens in one school was also raised. "I'm not saying that the district has to give all of the information," said resident Jamel Smith. "I just think that all parents have a right to know about a bomb threat. I just heard about this bomb threat yesterday and it happened earlier this month."
Superintendent Robert Britto responded by saying that notifying other schools might encourage other students to make bomb threats as well.
"If we were to send a letter to everyone in the community, I think it would increase the possibility of a copycat," he said.
However, Britto assured those in attendance that all appropriate measures are being taken to deal with the bomb threat and other schools will be notified of any incidents if police instruct school officials to do so.
There was also disagreements in the methods that school officials use to contact parents. After the meeting, Christina Schmohl, a spokeswoman for the district said that all information related to bomb threats and other issues are available to all parents who sign-up for the school district's e-mail list.
"Sending e-mails are nice but you have to check an e-mail," Smith told the board. "There are people paying thousands of dollars in taxes here in Baldwin. I think there should be someone knocking at my door telling me 'Hey, we had a bomb threat today.'"
School officials maintain that all procedures were followed and that students at Meadow were safely evacuated. The schools also use a phone chain to notify parents in emergencies, and Schmohl said that following the threat at Meadow, which happened close to dismissal time, the school did its best to notify parents in such a short time frame.
But a number of parents took issue with how the phone chain is utilized, with some saying that it is not reliable. Resident Tracey Moore said that she believes the phone chain method is outdated, especially in notifying parents about school closings.
"People are constantly changing their numbers and they are not updating them on the phone list," she said. "I just don't think it serves the same purpose anymore."
At the middle school in particular, the latest threat follows numerous scares that plagued the school district last year. At the middle school, one student was arrested and suspended for making a bomb threat during the 2005-2006 school year.
Parents also said that the frequency of threats is disrupting their children's daily activities.
"The thing that I felt most upset about with the threats is that there was no extra help and no after school activities," resident Barbara Cohen said. "I know the school district has to respond to these threats but what can we do so that our children aren't constantly being disrupted like this?"
School officials are currently looking into a number of measures to implement at the elementary school level to prevent further incidents. Though the district has implemented a number of preventive measures in the hopes of staving off future threats, School Board President Mary Jo O'Hagan said that ultimately, finding out who made the threat is the best solution to preventing more incidents in the future.
"We don't want to minimize the threats but I think we all agree that children sometimes make bad choices," she said. "We have to find the culprit."
Comments about this story? Baldwineditor@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 207.
