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Saturday, September 28, 2024

Lack of Interest By City & Schools Puts Children's Safety at Risk

What Will It Take to Lock The School Security Gate at ECCL? 

A Bad Guy With a Gun?

Opinion

Rebecca Sermeno
Community Services Director
Emery School District begins the new year with an old reoccurring problem: a security gate off the San Pablo Avenue public sidewalk is constantly wide open during school hours, inviting anybody to stroll right in and access any classroom filled with children.  The Tattler has documented this for years now but so far there has been no fix for this easy to solve and potentially calamitous problem.

The school campus is part of a community center known as the Emeryville Center for Community Life (ECCL) and is a joint City/ School District facility.  As such, both the City of Emeryville and Emery Unified are responsible for keeping the children safe there.  The gate that they can’t seem to ever secure is just off the public lobby for both the Community Services Department and the School District. 

Quiauna Scott
Superintendent of the Schools
Rebecca Sermeno, the head of community services for the City and Dr Quiauna Scott, the superintendent of the schools are the two managers responsible for this ongoing problem and they have repeatedly told the Tattler they will fix it but virtually every time we pass by on San Pablo Avenue, we glance over and see the open gate. When we have time to stop and interact, each time the explanation is the same: “We thank you for bringing this to our attention, we take this seriously and we’re going to fix it.”  Then the next time, sometimes the very next day, it’s, “We thank you for bringing this to our attention, we take this seriously and we’re going to fix it”.

After a couple of years of this, it’s obvious they don’t take the children’s safety seriously.  Is it going to take some kind of violent security breach for the responsible employees, the one’s paid to provide safety, to fix this? We don’t think it’s too much to ask that the government keep our children in their care, safe.  Locking a security gate should be the simplest thing to do to provide a basic minimum of security for the children.  It’s sad the Tattler has to report on this.

 Here is a small sampling over the last few months:




8 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Nah. Not slow. Reporting on government dysfunction that puts children at risk is right in our wheelhouse. This story has the Tattler written all over it.

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  2. ADULTS need access through the unlocked gates to conduct their business. Sorry, I just don't see the problem!

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    1. Maybe you don't see a problem but the City and the School District does. They still accept the idea that school campuses should have security. But by all means, take your idea to them that ECCL doesn't need security. They might be receptive. I think they'd love to get the Tattler off their backs. Let us know what they say. If they throw in the towel on security at ECCL (it's just too hard), that will be another Tattler story. Thanks for commenting.

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    2. Really? Adults are the ones to worry about, not the children. Adults with bad intent are the ones a security door is for.

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  3. There was a survey sent around maybe 20 years ago (!) to high school students. One of the questions was what do you thing is the most pressing need? "SAFETY."

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  4. Thanks for telling people how and where to break into the school with such specific images.

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    1. Sure! You're welcome! In case people STILL don't know, the gate is on the north east side of the ECCL just before 53rd Street. What you do is you go through the gates adjacent to the San Pablo sidewalk (they're open to the public during business hours) and enter the public courtyard. The Community Services Department and the School District offices are in the lobby to your left and the Community Room is off to your right. The inner sanctum, the school campus where all the classrooms are, is through the gate straight ahead. That's the "security" gate that's commonly propped open, beckoning you to enter. But you won't be able to enter if the City of Emeryville and the School District decide they want to take children's safety seriously. It's all up to them. Got a problem with this situation? Go to them. So far they've been uninterested in fixing this. But if enough people complain, maybe they'll do something. Otherwise I think we're going to have to wait for a tragedy to happen before they take this seriously.

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