Beware of little old ladies in tennis shoes, wearing iPods!
That’s the message I (a little old lady in tennis shoes and iPod) received today at my neighborhood school, where I was enjoying a morning constitutional, as I have many times over the years….
“Ma’am, ah, ma’am,” a school staffer called. “… You’re not allowed on campus when the children are here.”
“WHAT?” said I, a 40-year resident of the neighborhood, a tireless school volunteer during the 10 years my children attended that school, and the wife of a school board member. (I say this not because I expect any special consideration as a result, but just to underscore the absurdity of the situation.)
“You could sign in at the office,” she offered. “Don’t worry, I won’t be back,” I answered with a mix of sadness and anger.
OK. OK I get it; she was only ‘following orders.’ There have been unspeakable tragedies involving schools and crazy people and guns and nothing is more important than keeping our children safe. But the sad fact is that an evil-doer could sign in at the office and still do great harm with a concealed weapon. Remember the Columbine shooters?
So what’s the answer? More staff to enforce the rules? More rules to ‘protect’ the staff and children? How about metal detectors in every classroom? More taxes? Fewer taxes?
Do the ‘socialists’ have a plan to deal with the ways in which we marginalize each other in the name of some perceived greater good ? Do the Tea Partiers?
It’s a sad commentary on our crazy, paranoid, polarized world when little old ladies in tennis shoes are as welcome on school campuses as Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is in lower Manhattan.
Anne Peterson was a journalist at the R-S in her 20′, full-time mom in her 30s, full-time public school speech pathologist in her 40s and 50s, part-time instructor at National University and Shasta College in her early 60s … and currently a full-time grandmother of five.
A News Cafe, founded in Shasta County by Redding, CA journalist Doni Greenberg, is the place for people craving local Northern California news, commentary, food, arts and entertainment.
