JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — More than a month after the shooting at Evergreen High School, school safety remains top of mind for families across Jefferson County.
Parents voiced their concerns during a Jeffco Public Schools Board of Education meeting Thursday. Many of those parents were directly impacted by the tragedy that rocked the community on Sept. 10.
“Our most important job is to protect our children, and what we’re doing right now is not working,” said Evergreen resident Kim Halligan.
Denver7 has been following the call for safety in the wake of the Evergreen High School shooting. Read our previous coverage below:
- Students look for more security and mental health help after Evergreen High School shooting
- Evergreen High School will have a full-time school resource officer in wake of shooting, deputies say
- Students, parents push for more safety additions before classes resume at Evergreen High School
- Jeffco Public Schools acknowledges frustrations with safety plan rollout at Evergreen High School
- K9 pilot program launches at Evergreen High School following school shooting
Emotions ran high Thursday as community members made their pleas for improved school safety measures across the district, including more school resource officers, mental health resources, and metal detectors.
“On Wednesday the 10th, a trust was broken between my daughter and I," said Evergreen High School parent Matt Thompson. "The fact that when she went to school, she would be safe. That shattered promise is not easily fixed."
In response to Thompson, Board Member Erin Kenworthy made several comments that have since caused a stir within the district.
“For one of the gentlemen, I wanted to say, safety is actually a privilege," Kenworthy said. "It is not a right and it cannot be guaranteed, which is incredibly hard for any parent to say to their child."
- Watch her full remarks below. A full transcript can be found at the bottom of this article.
Concerned parents reached out to Denver7 after hearing Kenworthy's remarks.
“The tone that we see is we need a layered approach to safety, and to have this governing member of the Board of Education shoot that down as impossible — of course, no risk can be fully mitigated, but we do expect the fullest effort to protect our students,” said parent Lindsay Datko.
Denver7 took those concerns to Kenworthy and Jeffco Public Schools. In a statement, Jeffco Public Schools said Kenworthy's statement was "not intended to suggest that students in Jeffco Public Schools." The school district went on to say that it "remains committed to discussing ways to enhance school safety."
- Read the Jeffco Public Schools' full statement below
Director Kenworthy’s statement was not intended to suggest that students in Jeffco Public Schools do not have a right to safety. All students deserve a safe learning environment. The comment was part of a discussion about the idea of safety in society, recognizing that complex systems have vulnerabilities.
Director Kenworthy emphasizes, unequivocally, that keeping students safe is the absolute highest priority for Jeffco Public Schools and remains committed to discussing ways to enhance school safety and ensure our schools are safe, supportive and responsive learning environments.
According to retired SRO and school safety expert Stacey Collis, as these conversations continue to happen, keeping a culture of unity between district leaders and families will be very important.
“We as a society and as a whole and as communities have to have a well-rounded plan and have everybody on board — everybody understand and sit down at the table and leave our agendas behind, sit down at the table and say, 'How do we address this? How do we work as a unit, as a group?'” said Collis. “And I think if we did that, we'd find there is much more common ground than there are disparities that take place, and it's just a matter of setting.”
Denver7 has included a full transcript of Kenworthy's comments below.
After the incident, some of us walked the school. It was difficult, but I think necessary, and I want to thank the district staff who walked it with us. They were incredibly professional in a very hard situation, incredibly thoughtful, and also provided additional mental health supports for us when we were there to walk that building. I was grateful for that. Even though it’s not anything that I ever wanted to have to do.
Um, I appreciate public comment tonight, especially those folks who came with solutions and ideas and suggestions. But I do I want to speak just on my personal opinion that more guns in school is not the answer and that schools cannot address violence alone. This is a community problem, and I agree with one of the speakers who said there needs to be community response. If schools could have fixed this particular problem over the last 30 years, they would have, or we would have.
I know that I have never felt additionally safe being around somebody who is carrying a firearm, unless I can tell that they have been specifically trained and are wearing a uniform. And even then, it's I still have a very heightened anxiety when I'm around it, and so my concern is for those students for whom additional security measures in a very visible way may not actually be supportive of their mental health and their feeling of safety.
In response to some of the comments I want to share my frustration about our public comment setup just because we don’t respond. And people come and they speak misinformation or misunderstanding into the room, and there’s no chance for us to counter it until now. And if you look out into the seats that were full earlier, none of those people are here. They are not here to hear our response. Perhaps they will watch the video, but mmm, I don’t know.
It's hard because there are other people who are in the room for whom the issue being spoken about is not the issue that they came here to talk about, but they will leave this room carrying misinformation and narratives that are incorrect back out into the community. That is very concerning to me, because I think we continue to feed and spin narratives of brokenness, of pointing fingers, and it's not helping us address the things that we actually need to address.
For one of the gentlemen, I wanted to say, safety is actually a privilege. It is not a right and it cannot be guaranteed, which is incredibly hard for any parent to say to their child. But it is true in the culture and the time that we live in. It's not just in schools, it is in movie theaters. It's happening at grocery stores and in public parks and also in schools. I wish that I felt that I could walk through this world entitled to safety, but I am not, and there are people in this world who have never experienced a feeling of safety and may not in their lifetime. And so to expect that we can guarantee safety for ourselves and for our children is an unfortunate untruth. It's we just cannot guarantee it. We can do everything we can to support it. But I wanted to say that, because safety absolutely is a privilege. Feeling safe is a privilege.
