Students should demand transparency

The school should not continue to sweep issues of student safety under the rug

Over a month after Fasel Mohamed Ali was arrested at the high school for nonconsensual sexual conduct, the high school has still failed to send any information about the situation to students and families.

As students, we have the right to know what happens in our school, even when it paints a less-than-positive picture of our administration. The fact that we were denied information about the incident remains unacceptable and students should not tolerate it.

Our school should be guaranteed as a safe space for students, and when the school refuses to inform us of these situations, we lose the assurance of our safety.

In an attempt to inform students of the situation, Echo reached out to a number of school administrators in the district and was either turned away, rerouted or provided with only limited comment.

In order to fully understand the events of the situation, students must question the administration. Students should demand to know what occurred and how the school will handle the situation to make sure this incident will not happen again.

However, the issues surrounding the incident only begin with the lack of communication.

After these events, we believe it is necessary for Park to reevaluate its policies of employing contracted workers, especially Ali’s employer, Command Center.

Although the school may save money contracting through outside agencies, keeping students safe should remain the main goal, not lowering finances. On average, Command Center pays $7 an hour to its employees, while the school, independently, will pay $14 an hour to substitute custodians in the future. Regardless, the school should never relegate safety to anything but the utmost importance.

Anyone working in our school, whether it be while students are present or not, should be subjected to extensive background checks. In the future, the district should run its own background checks and not rely on those of external companies.

The school must also set and follow clear guidelines as to what past offenses disqualify someone from employment. Ali has a number of previous offenses, such as assault in the fifth degree. This alone should have automatically disqualified him from working in a school.

Ignoring these offenses or trusting a third-party contractor to make decisions as to what offenses are acceptable on behalf of the school may lead to more incidents like this. Students should not tolerate this blatant disregard for their safety.

We have the right to be safe in our school and know the people working around us are not a threat. Until the school’s administration can be transparent about what happened in the school, we do not have that guarantee.

Additionally, students should be informed about the ways in which the district will change and reevaluate policies regarding temporary staff.

The administration must not pretend the school can function as a productive learning environment when students’ safety remains at risk.

It is up to students and families to demand information and change. It is up to the school to heed these concerns and change their policies.