UNITE FOR SAFETY

As a parent and former educator, I found the raid at Stratford High School
both appalling and shameful. The idea that this is to "deter" drugs is
ludicrous; the dog search and the school's ability to do random locker
searches would do that sufficiently. However, drawn guns pointed at our
students and handcuffing students crosses the line and possibly violates
civil liberties.

Having been an active teacher who has witnessed these dog/drug searches in
a school, I can't begin to imagine how this latest incident occurred. When
a drug search of this nature takes place, the school goes into a "lockdown"
mode where no one goes anywhere. These searches can take two hours or more
and are, by the very nature of how they take place, fearful. Fearful (not
because you are guilty of anything) because you surmise that a drug search
is ongoing, yet, you have no actual knowledge of this until the dogs and
police arrive at your classroom door and have everyone exit. Until your
room is searched, students/teachers have absolutely no way of knowing what
is actually transpiring.

After incidents such as Columbine High School and Sept. 11, we live with
the realization that terrible things can happen. So, at best students are
only somewhat traumatized by these events. Never, in any of the random
searches that I witnessed, did I have occasion to see a weapon drawn much
less pointed directly at a child by a police officer. I can only imagine
how traumatized the students who were in the firing range of these weapons
must be.

Knowing the nature of children and how they sometimes panic in fearful
situations, we can only be thankful that nothing worse took place in this
raid. This begs the question; do we want to traumatize good students in an
effort to get the few bad? If the school was under surveillance for four
days (as reported), shouldn't the suspected wrongdoers' lockers/ school
bags simply have been searched?

It is time for the citizens of Goose Creek to stand up and hold the school
district accountable. Please unite for the safety of our children and
contact your school board and the district office and insist that
safeguards be put in place to prevent this type of action from ever again
occurring in our schools.

Good students should not have to fear looking down the barrel of a weapon
from police officers in school.

DONNA C. WILLIAMS

142 Londonderry Road

Goose Creek