LAUSD study: Measly school security leads to violence

In EdSource, Carolyn Jones reports a recent walk-in at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles, during which students cried out for more robust security and mental health services after an aggressive campus stabbing. When local police aren’t partnering effectively with school districts, violent and criminal acts prevail.

Hundreds of students at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles staged a walk-out Thursday after two students were stabbed on campus earlier in the week, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Many of the students said they don’t feel safe on campus, and asked administrators to increase mental health services and security measures such as metal detectors and drugs and weapons searches, the newspaper reported.

The stabbings occurred Wednesday during a fight between students at 3:30 p.m. Two students were hospitalized and quickly released. The incident follows a spate of violence on other school campuses in Los Angeles, including a Sept. 22 stabbing at Grant High School.

Some students said they’d feel safer if there were police on campus. But not all thought police would solve the problem.

“I don’t think we would need a school police officer if the administration was taking more care of the students’ mental health and just figuring out what’s going on with the students,” student Marina Wells told the Times.

This article originally appeared in EdSource. Read the whole thing here.

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