By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Increasing the age to buy guns, school resource officers, veterans or retired law enforcement officers to protect schools and more active shooter drills are all ideas Hays High School students offered Wednesday to make schools safer.

Approximately 75 to 100 Hays High School students walked out of school at 10 a.m. Wednesday to stage a silent protest against school violence.

The 10 a.m. protest corresponded with the time of a shooting Feb. 14 at a Florida high school in which 17 people were killed.

The students sat quietly as HHS Principal Martin Straub and other staff looked on for 17 minutes, one minute for each person who was killed in the Florida attack. Some students held signs with slogans such as “#Enough is enough,” “18th century laws cannot regulate 21st century weapons,” “Protect kids not guns,” and “Our school, our town, our state, our laws, and soon enough our vote.”

Noelia Villa, a senior at HHS who participated in the protest, said there have been enough school shootings, and something needs to be done.

“There has been so many shootings around the nation,” she said. “I think something needs to be done. Seventeen Florida victims, Sandyhook … I think it is about time that all of us stand up for them. They were so young, and they didn’t have a chance to live out their lives. I just think we should pay our respects to them.”

Villa said schools need more money to provide safety for students and faculty. She also said she would like to see Hays schools have school resource officers. Hays schools had resource officers provided by the Hays Police Department, but they were cut due to lack of funding.

Mulu Bannister, a HHS sophomore who participated in the protest, wore orange today to show her solidarity with students across the nation who also were set to walk out of schools today.

“I think our school needs more drills. We do drills for fire and tornadoes, but we don’t really do drills for what to do if someone comes into our schools. Little kids don’t know what to do in that kind of situation. I feel we could do more drills,” she said.

Both students thought the age to buy guns should be raised to 21 as it recently was in Florida.

After the shooting in February, Kaiden VanSchuyver, HHS student, started a petition to have retired police officers and veterans placed in schools for protection.

“I started the petition to try and stop gun violence in schools,” he said via an email. “Politicians never get things done on this topic. They have always used tragedies to push their agenda. Instead of waiting, I decided to act upon this issue by myself.

“I believe it would be a good idea to have veterans and retired law enforcement officers in schools because having the security would prevent these tragedies from happening. If we armed good citizens with the proper training, they could stop the bad citizens from performing these horrible acts.”

VanSchuyver has collected 256 signatures so far and is aiming to collect more by sharing online links to the petition via social media.

You can sign the petition by clicking here.

VanSchuyver said he did not plan to participate in the school walk out today.

“I feel, and know, that everyone has a right to protest, but I feel that they shouldn’t do it during school hours,” he said. “Another reason why I didn’t do the school walk out is I don’t really believe in gun control. I feel gun control doesn’t work because if the government takes away certain guns, then the law-abiding citizens wouldn’t have a way to protect themselves. Whereas the criminals would/will find a way to get guns. It’s like drugs. The government banned drugs, yet drug dealers and other people find a way to get them.”

Straub said the students will not be disciplined for the walk out. He said the students communicated with the HHS administration and staff and caused no problems during the protest. All students stayed on campus. The only disruption was students missing passing period and being late to their next class.

Straub, a former social studies teacher, said the students were making a powerful statement while being respectful. He said the protest was in the vain of two of his heroes Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

“Without being political, who is not for school safety?” he said.

Although Hays Middle School had a number of students stage their own walk out on Feb. 26, the school reported no walk outs today.

See related story: Hays Middle School students walk out to bring attention to school security

Thomas More Prep-Marian Principal Chad Meitner also reported no walk outs at that school. He said TMP has tried to address school safety through the school’s regular drills. The school has had crisis drills for the last several years, and he said the school has tried to be more in-depth with how it works with students and parents on the drills since the shooting in Florida.

The Hays school district continues discuss its crisis plan and notification of the public of threats following an alleged school threat by a HHS student on Feb. 12. The public was not notified of the threat until five days later. The school board discussed a desire to have a written notification policy at its meeting Monday night.

See related story: Hays school board seeks written policy on threat notification

 

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The Hays USD 489 school board heard a report on the Jobs for America’s Graduates-Kansas — a program to help at-risk students — at its meeting Monday.

The program, known as JAG-K, puts career specialists in schools to work with students.

The program helps students with remediation to help them graduate high school, works on career planning, and enhances leadership and job skills. Students visit workplaces and colleges, participate in a career association club and perform 10 hours of community service.

They have individual development plans. In these plans, they set goals and pair them with their academic work. These plans are going to be required for all students under the state’s new accreditation program.

Through the national and state associations, students participate in conferences and competitions associated with leadership, public speaking and math.

The program has a 97 percent graduation rate for 2017. Hays High School has about an 87 percent graduation rate. New state accreditation standards have set a goal of a graduation rate of 95 percent.

JAG-K students are enrolled in classes of 10 to 15 students during the school year, but the JAG-K specialists maintain contact with the students during the summer and for 12 months after graduation. About 35 to 50 students would be enrolled in the program initially at Hays High.

The goal of the program is not only to help students graduate, but also to obtain full-time employment, enter the military or go on to post-secondary education after high school. The program has an 89 percent success rate in students entering full-time employment, military or post-secondary education after high school. Post-secondary education or certification is another goal of the state’s new accreditation program.

Beverly Mortimer, JAG-K vice president of program development, used to be a superintendent in Concordia. She said she shook many students’ hands at graduation and sent them on their way, but she did not know where the students ended up after high school. Did they show up at college? Vocational school? The JAG-K program tracks the students and supports them in their career paths after high school.

If JAG-K students don’t graduate, the program works with them during the next year to earn their diplomas.

The program is funded by a TANF grant from the Department of Children and Families. The cost of the program is $65,000. One year of participation in JAG-K for the Hays school district would cost $6,500. The school district only has to provide a classroom and transportation. The JAG-K specialist is employed by the JAG-K program. Mortimer said the program tries to keep the cost and work associated with the program at a minimum for school districts.

Whereas most programs define students as at-risk because they receive free or reduced-cost lunches, JAG-K has a greater list of barriers it looks at to select students. The program selects students who have at least five barriers on a list of challenges. Some of these include children in foster care, students who have at least one parent who did not finish high school, students who have a parent who is incarcerated, students who have a parent who is unemployed, English language learners or students who live in single-parent home.

“When we talk about barriers, it is not just academics,” Mortimer said. “I wish I had with me a whole bunch of JAG-K kids from other schools to tell you their stories because all of these statistics are statistics. But if kids stand in front of you and tell you their stories of success and how they have overcome adversity and the resilience they have applied and been successful, it means a lot more than those statistics.

“We have a young man who is headed right now to Emporia State University. He got a 35 on his ACT. You are probably going, ‘What is his barrier? Why is he in your class?’ If you could see his family, you would know what his barriers are. They are low economics. I picked him up to take him to the airport for our national student leadership academy. He was a math participant. He said, ‘I think we are safe Miss Bev, but sometimes there are shootings in my neighborhood. My uncle was killed.’ It is just a matter of fact. That is his life.”

This student’s grades are very low, but he is an extremely intelligent young man, Mortimer said. He takes care of his four siblings, one of whom has cerebral palsy, and he has a full-time job while going to school. Mortimer said she has hundreds of stories like this student’s.

JAG-K is a national program with 68 programs in 33 school districts in the state of Kansas. Some other cities with JAG-K in Kansas include Salina, Great Bend, Junction City, Concordia, Atchison, Lawrence, Kansas City, Pittsburg, Arkansas City, El Dorado, Augusta and Coffeyville.

If the school district approves an agreement with the JAG-K, it would begin at Hays High School this fall. The agreement is for one year, so if district officials feel it is not effective, the program can be terminated at the end of the 2018-19 school year. The board has until April 1 to decide if it wishes to participate in the program for the upcoming school year.

Mortimer said JAG-K reached out to Hays because it recently received an increase in funding and is trying to reach more students. The program has no schools in northwest Kansas.

More information on the program can be found at www.jagkansas.org.

By CRISTINA JANNEY

Hays Post

The Hays school board Monday tabled revisions to its administrative handbook so that revisions could be made to district’s policy on notification of the public in the event of a crisis.

Minor changes to correct outdated language were up for approval at Monday’s meeting, but board member Greg Schwartz said he would prefer to table the handbook until a written policy could be added to address notification of the public in the case of a school threat.

A student at Hays High School was taken into custody in February after allegedly making a threat against the high school. The student was removed from school on a Monday, but the public was not informed until five days later.

See related story: 50 students stay home Tuesday after Hays High threat; USD 489 to discuss notification

See related story: Hays superintendent, board president apologize for handling of HHS threat

“We talked a couple of meetings ago about changes after what happened at Hays High,” Schwartz said. “One of the things that was brought to my attention is how do people know that we have actually learned anything based on that.”

He said this is not the first incident at the high school. Years ago the HHS had a similar incident with “bad information,” Schwartz said.

“If you’re here, we’re probably all right, but what happens if you leave?” Schwartz said to Thissen. “Where’s the policy? The only way you are going to be able to ensure things are going to happen in the future is to have a policy on it that says here is how we are going to handle it in the future.”

Superintendent John Thissen said the district is continuing to address its crisis plan, and he did not think the handbook vote needed to be delayed. He said district officials will be meeting with fire and law enforcement officials today, and the district’s crisis team will be meeting later this month.

Thissen said, “I think what happened at the high school was more a judgment on my part of crisis or no crisis. Then because of the tragedy in the middle of the week in Florida, it was a perceived crisis. … I think what is in place is solid, Greg. We are working to put more planning [in place] and refining how we end up moving on any of these matters.”

Schwartz moved to table the handbook until the board’s March 26 meeting. The motion passed 6-1 with board member Paul Adams voting against the motion.

In other business, the board approved building level administrative contracts. Lincoln Principal Elaine Rohleder and Hays Middle School Principal Craig Pallister have announced their retirements.

The board also approved a bid of $96,900 from Brian’s Concrete Services for concrete for the Hays High School parking lot.