Capitol Hill Blue Forums Life and Moral Issues Parenting & Children A genuine clusterf***

A 15 year old student painted two messages, apparently pretty much the same. One to his parents and one to his schoolroom. The one at home was ignored. The one at the school was found when another student saw the student search for ammunition for his known Christmas gift, from his parents, of a pistol with a 13 bullet clip. When the teacher went to his desk to talk to him she found the message. The student had previously told everybody about his new gun and how neat it was.

The message had pictures of a gun, somebody shooting a gun, and a message which said that he had been having dreams of blood and shooting people and was also thinking about that all the time. It also said that he needed help. The teacher immediately went to a supervisor and reported about this and the school called the parents to come in and have a little talk. They had the little talk. The school suggested they take the student home and get him some help. The parents refused and said to keep the kid in school. Nobody, at this point wondered where the gun was. It turned out that it was in his backpack.

The parents left the kid with the school and the school just walked away and left him in the classroom. The student then took out his gun, walked into the hall and started shooting other kids. He killed, I think, 5 and wounded others before he was stopped.

I should also say that my facts may not be absolutely right as its been a couple of days and my memory is not great. Anyway, the parents, obviously, simply ignored the kid and then got him a gun, designed to kill with a big clip. When they went home the father couldn't find the gun and called the police about that but it was too late and the deeds had been done. Oh, and the mother told the son the he had to learn how to not to get caught. Basically, and obviously, the parents had been ignoring the kid for a very long time and had probably decided they knew all they needed to about the kid. The school, in its extreme wisdom kept the kid in school and, rather than getting the kid the help he said he needed just kept him in class.

Anyway, after the incident the prosecutor announced that she was going to charge the parents. The parents then ran away to Detroit, got 4 grand out of a machine and hid out in a warehouse, part of which was used as a studio of a kindofa friend of the parents. By this time they each had a 10,000.00 price on their heads. Somebody spotted them, called the cops and got 20,000.00 (tend to believe the kindofa friend was a little upset over that but he was ignorant of all the rest). Anyway, the cops have them all in jail, now - in the same jail!

So, a recap. Two parents ignored a written request for help and the mother told her son not to get caught. They were told about their child and they told them to keep him in school. The school knew everything but decided not to find help for the child but ignore all that business about killing, and blood, and obsession. Afterwards, I suspect, they might have thought they had made a little error in judgement for which, I also believe, they are going to pay for - BIG TIME!

Its hard to believe that there could have been worse parents! Its also hard to believe the lack of intelligence insofar as the school was concerned. EVERYBODY screwed up!

My only question is that I wonder. Did the school have a school nurse or councilor? Nobody has said anything much about the school but I fully expect to hear a whole lot when the law suits start. When I was raising my kids every school they went to had a nurse and a councilor (sometimes more than one). These days, however, many have neither and also many no longer teach anything about government (Civics) as well. Kinda makes one wonder.

I think this might be one of the bad results of electing morons to the school board. The principal, lack of counseling, etc. are all because of school board decisions.

I have always found it interesting how our legislators, and now school boards, are willing to sacrifice certain social things to support others. (my definition of a "social thing" is an gov undertaking to help fix problems people have) I live in the state of Washington and our legislature, for instance, have sacrificed taking care of the mentally ill for other more important things. The result is something like 20% - 30% of our homeless happen to be insane. Our remaining Insane asylum was actually shut down by the feds due to the fact that our legislature pretty much stopped supporting. They did the same to the University of Washington which resulted in higher cost to those who would attend. Most of Europe, and China, offer higher education for free to those that qualify. Another example is our hunting and fishing permits. The state issues hunting and fishing licenses and the income, from those licenses pay for the state Fish and Wildlife agency. This worked for many years and we had lots of fish and wildlife folks to take care of the fish, etc. The state legislature, however, decided to steal the income for other, more important things. We no longer have all the wildlife folks to take care of our fish and wildlife and there are problems.

Many school boards have gotten rid of nurses and counselors so they would have more money for teachers. I think this was a bad mistake and, I think, its getting fixed, school board by school board. The high school also used to have classes in carpentry, car body repair, etc. Some were supported by unions and some were not but most are now gone as well.

This stuff happens because it can. I should add that most crime also happens because it can. The trick is pretty simple. If you don't like what has been done then start bitching about it. If you are right then there will be others willing to pickup the flag and have at it as well. This is, basically, how things are supposed to work. Most of the time it actually does. In our situation our local voters do their jobs and we are fine but the state, on the other hand...........

Oh, I should add that our high school does have a nurse, a councilor and classes in such stuff as machine shop, carpenter, welding, etc. as will as computer stuff. In addition it also has a head start program where juniors and seniors can take classes, for college credit at the local college. I have two granddaughters who finished their 2 years of college BEFORE they even graduated from high school!

(my definition of a "social thing" is an gov undertaking to help fix problems people have)

Since social things are generally thought of as very very bad, Shouldn't we stop them altogether? Government's primary and overarching concern is capital and its management.

Take care of that and all those social problems will just disappear. Like they always have.