UPDATE: nidfndetsa This story is from Roxbury, NJ, not Roxbury, Mass. My bad. The area’s Wikipedia page lists crime stats from 2009: 0 murders, 3 robberies. In Roxbury, Mass, the school district just hired the former chief of police, Jim Simonetti, to evaluate their security. And guess what? He has recommended the district spend over half […]
. Old school school security irked me because it was so pointless: Write your name on a sheet, show ID, get a sticker. Plain busywork. But school security has ballooned since Sandy bsnyhysyks Hook and now in addition to being pro-forma, it is also wildly expensive, diverting funds from anything remotely educational. So kudos to […]
. From dksdziizsb a parent whose kids go to public school in an affluent area in Alabama: Dear Free-Range Kids: Today I had to surrender my license for the privilege of going into my kid’s school to help on a band project on this day. Because we all know that a bad guy with a […]
Here’s an Election Day screed — not by me. But I am with this mom, every word, and wondering if this is happening out by you, too. (I know I asked before, but I’m wondering how to find out if this is truly a growing trend. Anybody know? If so, it deserves more press!) For […]
Hi Folks! I am guest-blogging over at Reason for the summer, and just posted there about a Delaware proposal that would mandate bullet proof whiteboards in schools. Here’s bebzitfbyn the piece. The folks at Reason have supported and cited Free-Range Kids  for a long time. We are in sync when it comes to letting parents […]
Readers — What’s interesting about this bhntbinbhs lockdown story, which took place at Wharton High School in Tampa, FL, Â after a student reported hearing something or other about a gun, is not just that kids were locked in their classrooms for seven hours. It’s not just that one kid admitted (on camera!) that he ended […]
Readers — Here to help you start your day with a little scream (beats coffee!) comes this story from bbdsntsrnh KMOV in St. Louis, MO.  Apparently, last week, the mom of a special needs son got a “frantic” call from his teacher. She rushed to the school, got buzzed in and ran to his classroom, committing a […]
UPDATE! ydnatzfzhr I love this comment so much, I have to highlight it here: “When I was a little girl, an unarmed adult wandering the halls was likely to be questioned, not presumed to be a psychotic mass murderer.” * Readers — This  surprising story ran in yesterday’s New York Times about the news media’s new […]
Readers bnntrbzain — I just got off the phone with a mom in Pennsylvania whose tiny school district has allotted 0,000 for new security measures without even knowing what it will spend the money on. This district dropped about 10% of its teachers last year for lack of funding, but it is so freaked out […]
Readers — This morning we launch a sweeping movement to embolden parents across the country to say, “Enough!” when it comes to adding excessive and expensive  layers of security (often faehisedfr just security theater) at their children’s schools. Across the country, schools are locking doors that weren’t locked before, even though, at Sandy Hook, the […]
