On Monday, December 6th, a student from Miami Senior High School was arrested for posting threats on social media towards the school. A group of students took this threat and altered it, sending it out to other schools in the Miami Dade area. On the same day, G. Holmes Braddock Senior High School in Southwest Miami-Dade was put on code red lockdown while investigating a threat. Alberto Carvalho, Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent has mentioned that his team had dealt with at least a dozen threats like these in his district. These nearby threats seem to be piling on, causing myself and others to question the safety of schools in the Miami district, and how this may be affecting the student's attitudes towards their workplace.
“If all school environments are this way, people are not going to want to come to school because they think that their school could be next,” said Joseph Levi (9th). “They are going to feel a physical school environment isn’t a good place to be during the day because they fear for their lives.”
Our next-door neighbor, Miami Beach Public High School, stepped up with extra police presence due to the threat on Monday. Many students from that school also did not show up that day out of fear of the aggressive statements made on social media. With threats coming in so close to our school, some students think that we should step up and practice more safety drills in general. As demonstrated in a previous drill, many students don’t feel sure about what to do in emergency situations, and given the circumstances, they would like to practice how to respond in cases concerning safety.
“I think that we should practice having lockdowns more often, and I think that a lot of the students don’t take it seriously, which should be addressed,” said Emily Roller. (11th)
Overall, with so many nearby threats, many of our students feel concerned in the area of safety. While we do have security guards, cameras, and procedures set up for emergencies, the student body themselves feels that practices should be happening more often, and more seriously. Personally, I feel we could use some more practice in terms of fire drills and lockdowns. I know the basics of what is required of me and my classmates during these drills, but I think we could use some practice in the execution of the procedures. Specifically with Covid our school has focused on dealing with our safety in terms of the virus, but we must not forget that there are other dangers that we need to be prepared for as well.
By: Sara Reinberg (11th)
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