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Title: Parkland: How did it happen?

Original CoS Document (slug): [[https://conventionofstates.com/how-did-it-happen|how-did-it-happen]]

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Created: 2018-03-16 13:34:31

Updated: 2019-01-04 05:44:20

Published: 2018-03-18 20:00:00

Converted: 2025-04-14T20:58:28.783336312


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Columbine: 13 killed.

Virginia Tech: 32 killed.

Sandy Hook: 26 killed.

Parkland: 17 killed.

Bath, Michigan: 44 killed, including 38 students.

We all know the first four on this list, but perhaps you've not heard about the worst massacre in U.S. history.

Why is that? Is it because the perpetrator was a school board member? Is it because it happened in 1927? Is it because there was no arsenal of guns?

This tragedy was caused by a bomb. Read about the deadliest school disaster [[https://www.ksat.com/features/michigans-bath-school-disaster-remains-deadliest-of-its-kind-in-us-history|here]]. 

It seems there are school-shootings on every hand. Are guns really the problem? People have been killing each other since Cain killed his brother Abel with a rock.

But what happened in Parkland? The folks at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School seemed to have done everything they knew to do to keep the children safe.

Their PROMISE Program, Preventing Recidivism through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support, and Education; was backed up a 33-page [[https://www.browardprevention.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Fully-Executed-Collaborative-Agreement.pdf|Collaborative Agreement]]. This agreement was signed on November 5, 2013, and again on October 5, 2016.

The agreement covered a list of those who were making a commitment as to how school discipline would be handled. Everyone from the local school board to the local chapter of the NAACP, and even a Juvenile Justice Advisory Board signed on, and still, the tragedy unfolded in a horrific fashion.

PROMISE [[https://www.browardprevention.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Victim-Flyer-Final-2015.pdf|literature]] states, "Rather than focusing on punishment, restorative justice seeks to repair the harm done."

Looking through the online material, it disturbed me to read, "PROMISE identifies clear and specific expectations and outcome measures, in order to help youth develop more effective coping skills and pro-social behaviors. This approach focuses on the situation being the problem rather than the individual being the problem." (Read pamphlet [[https://www.browardprevention.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/PROMISE-Flyer-Final-2015.pdf|here]])

As I delved into researching this article, one word that kept popping up was "stakeholder." It was used in the [[https://www.browardprevention.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Fully-Executed-Collaborative-Agreement.pdf|Collaborative Agreement,]] the PROMISE flyer, the [[https://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/secletter/170313.html|policy letter]] from Betsy Devos, and the U.S. Department of Education's [[https://nces.ed.gov/Programs/SLDS/pdf/Stakeholderengagement_Sustainability.pdf|website.]]

Webster defines "stakeholder" this way: 

> "Stakeholder - noun - 1) a person entrusted with the stakes of bettors. 2) one that has a stake in an enterprise. 3) one who is involved in or affected by a course of action."

It's interesting to note that when the Collaborative Agreement was signed on October 5, 2016, just days later, the Broward County Public School system [[https://www.fortlauderdaleconnex.com/local/30597-bcps-awarded-53-8-million-grant-from-the-u-s-department-of-education.html|received]] $53,808,909 on October 18, 2016. This was grant money from the Teacher Incentive Fund.

Our schools should be funded, but the kids must be safe. It's my perspective that the students should be the #1 stakeholders.

There are no easy answers, but using a [[https://www.browardprevention.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Pages-from-PROMISE-Infraction-Matrix.pdf|Transitional Plan - Action Matrix]] doesn't seem to be working. Students can be drunk, under the influence of drugs, have drugs on their person, fight, bully, vandalize and even assault someone. But, if nobody gets hurt and the vandalism is less than $1000, no police report is filed.

Broward County has used a Juvenile Justice System of [[https://www.browardprevention.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/JJSC-Flyer-Final-2015.pdf|Care]] where a student can go before a judge and still not have a criminal record. It's as though the Chief Judge of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit is handing down; not punishment, not consequences, but some kind of twisted dispensation. Webster defines //that// word as "2) an exemption from a law or from an impediment."

Across the country, we scratch our heads at what we see on the news. How can violence be so rampant? How have we reached this point? Let me make an observation.

When the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, we, as a nation, decided that the unborn were not valuable but disposable. When human life has no value, we shouldn't be surprised at how seemingly easy the killing has become.

And all the while, the federal government gets bigger and bigger, but we are not safer. 

This shows how a government getting involved in too much has unintended consequences. What if the local government could keep their own money and make decisions closer to the people. Decision makers thousands of miles away don't hear the struggles of the teachers and students until something of this magnitude. By then its too late. 

In the words of Thomas Jefferson, (and I paraphrase), "Any government big enough to give you everything you need is big enough to take everything you have."

Mayhap we have arrived at just such a place.

Please stand with me by signing the [[https://conventionofstates.com/|petition]] supporting a Convention of States to shift the decisions back to the people, the real stakeholders.