Two recent incidents of LBHS students threatening gun violence have led to questions about not only what happened but how this happened. Methow Valley, after all, prides itself on community.
These incidents could have happened, and have happened, in other places, but in a school district of only 775 students, it is a hard pill to swallow.
Before these incidents, I was familiar with several accounts from parents whose children had been bullied in MVSD, how administrators ignored the problem and how life went on. The administration has continued to ignore these issues by not addressing these concerns directly and by refusing, on multiple occasions, to have a forum for a two way conversation with parents and constituents.
Now, more people are coming out of the woodwork describing what they see as a culture of bullying in MVSD. The question is, are the students who threatened heinous acts outliers or are they tips of an iceberg?
The question is, are the students who threatened heinous acts outliers or are they tips of an iceberg?
For a school district that purports to value community, something has gone off the rails and fallen through the cracks.
The school board has a history of not engaging with constituents. What can we expect? They have chosen not to talk about the quality of education, citing individualized learning over academic standards. They don’t want to discuss their curriculum, which is so radical that it pushes Gen Xers closer to baby boomers culturally. They have ignored discussion about parental rights, which the school district, lock step with our state superintendent, supports limiting.
They don’t want to talk about any of these things to a comical degree. At one school board meeting recently, I asked MVE Principal Paul Gutzler a seemingly innocuous question- what counted as one day of school attendance? Was there a time element- a half day, an hour? I didn’t get that far. Paul, whom I had never met in person until then, looked straight in front of him and didn’t acknowledge me. Then, he scurried out of the meeting room like a cat with his tail between his legs, or a boy afraid he would get into trouble, not even bothering to give me a business card for follow up.
I, personally, could not imagine sending my child to a school with this type of leadership, but I know some parents see things differently, as is their right, and some simply have no choice. When several parents told me they didn’t get a satisfactory response from the elementary school principal on bullying, I believed them.
Let’s face it- unless they are raising money, schools are cautious, at best, about working with parents. Leaving parents out of school involvement may benefit both parties initially, but it has significant ramifications.
I often think about a comment I heard at another school board meeting at the beginning of this school year. A parent whose child was punched, with their back to the ground, on the first day of school told the school board, after emotionally recounting the incident, “I don’t want to hear about this.” Her choice of words struck me. They weren’t, “I never want this to happen again.” They were, “I don’t want to hear about this.”
Upon reflection, I understood that the relationship between this parent and the school district was intertwined. She built her life around her child being away for a certain time. She needed to trust that the school could handle situations that arise, including keeping her child safe. She needed that implied social contract- you take care of my child during this time and I’ll take care of the rest.
How much we’ve changed. In 1852, when Massachusetts became the first state in the union to require compulsory schooling, some parents rebelled on the grounds that the state does not have the authority to take a child away from their parents. It was a revolutionary concept at the time. Now, the contract is so much a part of our DNA, it has morphed into “You have my child during this time, and I don’t want to hear about this.”
It’s long past time we hear about it.
All of us.
The forces at play behind this pronounced statement have been underway since the industrial revolution. Prior to that, families worked together as a unit on a farm or in a store. Hours were flexible as long as the work was done. Families worked and ate together. There was plenty of time for engagement.
That changed with the industrial revolution when, mostly men, left their homes for regimented hours in a factory. Many men could no longer come home for lunch.
Around this time came compulsory education which legally, and sometimes forcibly, took children out of the home, albeit for good intentions. The advantages of progressive formal education aside, the understanding was the state knew what was best for your child, and it wasn’t in your home. (Compulsory education remains in effect in all 50 states today.)
Then, the cherry on top. Women joined the exodus, leaving the cat, a dog, and possibly a goldfish.
Today’s economic reality means many families need two incomes to survive. Families see each other for dinner if they’re lucky, just before kids go to their rooms to do homework and parents recover from their day.
Working remotely is a mild consolation. The focus required means a parent is there, but not really. Who are we fooling by giving children scraps of our attention?
Our economy is based on conveniently pushing kids to the side to be largely raised by schools and their own peers. Our schools work like a factory, with literal bells and shift changes. We want, expect, and desperately need this system to work, but the reality is children are not widgets. They are not lumps of clay passively waiting for you to mold them into your image. They are human beings with contradicting and complex feelings that schools and academia, if we can call it that, were never set up to handle.
By pushing out parents and erecting barriers for community volunteers in favor of state approved trained teachers who, by and large, never left the bubble of school culture means our children are missing out on a spectrum of different potential mentors and approaches.
To extrapolate from the police report, the child who made threats to “shoot up the school” appears, but has not been confirmed, to be a middle schooler raised by a single mother. People have expressed anger and compassion toward the child, but who is helping this mother? As if her job is easy.
Human nature doesn’t really change, and Methow Valley is no different from any large city in terms of community. People have their cliques as they do elsewhere. There is the progressive clique and the conservative clique. Put another way, the Christian community, the environmental community (not that they are mutually exclusive), the active lifestyle community, the literary and arts community, the conspiracy theorists, the trade and agriculture communities, and so on. There are cliques here as there are everywhere else. If you’re not sure where you belong, take some time to notice how people respond to you. That is an indicator of whether they consider you in their sphere.
The question is- do we have an interest in people outside of our clique?
Do we have the bandwidth for genuine curiosity about another human being?
The problem of school bullying isn’t going to be solved by a resource officer or school counselor. It can only be solved by cultivating a genuine interest in another human being, which is sorely lacking in the adult community. How, then, can we teach this to our children?
The problem of school bullying isn’t going to be solved by a resource officer or school counselor. It can only be solved by cultivating a genuine interest in another human being, which is sorely lacking in the adult community. How, then, can we teach this to our children?
I’m reminded of a children’s book about a grumpy stray cat who initially seemed fierce, but softened once he was understood. It was given to me by my sister-in-law who, even though she lived in a house 15 minutes away and I in a small apartment, hardly ever invited me over. She had the same bug I did- we were raised and framed by academia so much that it was easier to understand each other conceptually than in genuine reality.
We can talk about the horror of bullying and death threats conceptually, but the most effective remedy is to cultivate genuine interest and curiosity about another human being. It’s when we are understood that we can heal, and that has an enormous effect on our society.
Do we honestly expect a boy to grow into a man without any guidance from someone that has walked in those steps? Do we honestly believe a girl can avoid personal minefields simply by going to school, even excelling in it?
Who is helping these boys and girls grow? There are certainly fewer opportunities at home.
We have a culture where we expect children to conform and when they don’t, they, not us, are at fault.
I spoke to a farmer that knows one of the students. He talked about reaching out to him when he returns. Maybe helping butcher livestock is a better avenue for this child’s curiosity or fantasy than threatening people or kittens. It is better to know the effects now than behind bars.
Who are we kidding in our invisible belief that we can replace the important and complex dynamics of raising a child with academia? And yet, that is what our school district will have you believe. Trust us. We’ve got it.
We don’t need to tell you the whole story. (The police reports did that.)
We have your kids’ backs.
They’re safe.
I can’t say whether these children are a barometer for deeper issues. I know the formula we’ve put them in isn’t great. The students themselves have a better grasp of what is happening to them personally and in their cohort. The best prevention for violence is genuine interest and curiosity.
If only we’d ask.
Thank you Julia