As a resident of the Madrona neighborhood and a Madrona K-8 [School] parent I was dismayed, saddened and angered by your front-page article regarding the incident at Madrona. I agree that what happened was terrible; I agree that you have a right to report the incident. I disagree with the choice to make it front-page news and with the sensational nature of the headline and article.
I was unaware of the term "shank" and had to look it up. From the definition I could find I gather it to mean a slang prison-related term for a homemade knife. I do not know the details of the incident, but from your article I assume that the involved student took apart a pair of scissors to use part of it to threaten another student. Is a student using part of a pair of scissors really on par with an inmate filing down a piece of metal to make it a weapon?
I also have a hard time believing that this is the first time anything like that has happened in the district. No one has taken a razor blade out of a knife cutter to use as a weapon in a school before? Wouldn't that be shank? Are there really never any incidents at any of the other schools in our cluster? Given the nebulous definition of "shank" and the situation that occurred I'm not sure what using the term adds to the story other than to reinforce existing negative stereotypes about the students and the school.
There is a section of your paper dedicated to police reports. Why was this incident singled out to be front-page news over any of the others or any of the general news of the month? Wikipedia has a great entry on "yellow journalism," and in my mind, your article borders on just that. W.R. Hearst would be proud.
Don't get me wrong: Violence of any kind, with any type of instrument, should not be tolerated. From what I understand, it was not tolerated at Madrona. All procedures were followed, including alerting the police and district personnel, and those involved were expelled. The staff at Madrona work hard to make the school a safe place. As a parent of an elementary student at the school I have never felt that it was an unsafe place for my child.
Madrona K-8 has many great programs and wonderful things happening every day. When our middle-schoolers had the best writing-test scores in the district, that wasn't front-page news. When our middle-schoolers won Ultimate Frisbee and basketball city championships, that didn't make the news either. But when something unfortunate happens not only does it get reported but it is done so in a way that skews the information and negatively biases readers.
Positive events at Madrona K-8 far outweigh the negative ones. It would be great to see your paper supporting our school - not knocking it down - by highlighting the positive things the students, staff and families do all the time.
P.S.: It showed a total lack of understanding, a lack of regard and a lack of discretion to not alert the school administrative staff that you would not only be running the story on the front page but also that you would be dropping off a bundle of your papers in their library.
- Julie Hansen, Madrona[[In-content Ad]]
