Open Book: What Do Students Want?
Consistent Leadership, Not Band-Aids For Bullet Holes
By Anya Nitczynski
For the GPHN
My mom, Nancy Watzman, wrote for the paper last month about the upcoming Denver Public Schools board election. She cited issues at the forefront of parents’ minds during this election season — referencing both of my brothers and their experiences at East High School and McAuliffe.
In her coverage of the topic, though, a gross oversight occurred: she didn’t mention me. This made it abundantly clear to me that I am the least favorite child, and I vehemently refuse to be silenced on the topic of our school board elections.
We are no strangers to discussing school safety in our household, and dinner often turns into a time for exchange of information about it. My mom will tell me what the parents are saying in various Facebook groups, and I weigh in with the opinions shared by my peers.
Since returning to school after online learning, new security policies have been continuously implemented and eventually ignored. It’s a cycle that leaves students questioning how much these policies actually address safety. The new rules have ranged from what entrances students are allowed to use to policing who is in hallways and when.
Most recently, students are required to wear our school IDs on mandated lanyards at all times (color coded by grade). If you don’t have your ID visible as you walk into school or you lose or forget it, you’re required to pay a $5 fee to replace it. While no student is genuinely distraught over the basic inconvenience of wearing a lanyard, both the fee and inconsistent enforcement of the policy represents a larger, more controversial, issue for students. I know some people who have had to pay the fee multiple times, and others who have almost never worn their IDs — and never even been verbally reprimanded.
This uneven enforcement carries over to every facet of security policy in American public schools. Efforts are made, but are rarely followed up.
The unfortunate truth is that a lack of identification will not stop an armed person from getting into the school. When a friend of mine posed the question to an administrator of why this policy exists, he was told it isn’t to prevent the armed threat, but to identify students after the fact. I don’t know if this is true — or just what one official said on one day — but it wouldn’t shock me.
This is what I’ve learned from comparing parental reactions to the concerns of students at the dinner table: When parents are shocked, students are not. When my mom told me parents recently pulled their kids out of McAuliffe because of a bomb threat made on SnapChat, I almost laughed. Bomb threats aren’t funny, I explained, but they are normal. There have been threats on social media to my school probably once every two weeks since sixth grade.
The reaction to this bomb threat was completely justified — parents have every right to be scared. But for us students, it’s the reality we live in. My mom had to do nuclear bomb drills; we have to do lockdowns. We become desensitized to news of the latest shooting. We make jokes, because we have to.
Which brings us to the Nov. 7 school board election. What do students want out of their elected officials?
One, leaders who take the pressure and blame off of students. Two, leaders who prioritize security policies that are evenly enforced and meaningful — and not a literal band-aid for a bullet hole. And three, leaders who understand we didn’t ask to be students in this America.
Anya Nitczynski is a junior at Denver School of the Arts. Her column appears monthly in these pages.