Our educators have enough to worry about without being saddled with refereeing gang wars.
But that’s exactly what they are being forced to do as the unhealthy attraction of gang life is reaching down to kids whose ages haven’t even reached double digits.
Since January, Mount Vernon school administrators have issued about 100 disciplinary notices to parents or guardians of children who violated district policy against displaying their gang affiliations. Many of those notices involved a number of repeat offenders.
Even so, the campuses had been relatively calm until the situation boiled over Oct. 10. That’s when about 20 young people clashed in fights on the Mount Vernon High School campus. At least 19 of those students were expelled. It was a wake-up call not only for school officials but for the entire community.
The Mount Vernon School Board recently got an unvarnished account of the seriousness of the gang problem, one that has even third-graders boasting of gang ties.
Mike Oster, a Mount Vernon police officer assigned to the schools, told board members how gang associations evolve for kids from an alarmingly early age. They start by drawing gang symbols and numbers and eventually move into wearing gang colors — red or the opposing blue — and flashing gang signs.
Sometimes, he said, the children’s parents are involved in gangs and indoctrinate them into the gang mentality. He showed board members a slide that depicted three toddlers who had been dressed in the blue colors of a gang.
The School Board faces the difficult choice of giving expelled students second, even third or fourth chances or permanently denying them access to the schools that are likely their best hope of improving their future prospects.
It is manifestly unfair to blame school administrators for a problem that does not originate on our campuses but is imported there every school day. As such, it is a problem of which the entire community must take ownership.
Law enforcement is doing its part by working directly with the kids and trying to remove the worst gang elements from the streets. Many of those are adult criminals who prey on their own communities and erode the quality of life for all.
School officials are doing their best to keep campuses safe and maintain a viable learning environment. But they can’t do it alone.
Parental involvement is the most important single key to getting kids redirected on more positive paths.
But where parents are either unable or unwilling to step up, the community, through its service organizations, must be ready to take these young people in hand before it is too late.
• Editorials reflect the consensus opinion of the editorial board and are written by its members: Publisher L. Stedem Wood, Editor Don Nelson and City Editor Dick Clever. Signed columns reflect the authors’ viewpoint.
