By KEN CARPENTER
Great Bend Post
A member of the Great Bend School Board expressed concern at Monday night's school board meeting about the physical safety of students. Chris Umphres raised the issue without citing a specific case.
“I’ve got some questions, concerns,” Umphres said. “I’ve got some parents that have had some things happen over the last couple of weeks and just wanted to get some stuff out in the open, I guess. Obviously, really, really general, but just some questions about how things are reported, how things get to the levels they’re supposed to get to, and the separate channels where they’re supposed to be."
"So we’ve had some instances at some of the schools not only with battery but some threats that are pretty serious. And they’re getting reported, but how do we as parents know that they get to the channels they’re supposed to get to? So, a couple of examples: Student A assaults Student B. Student B talks about it, goes to the channels that we’re supposed to go through. Nothing happens. Within five weeks, Student B gets assaulted again.”
Umphres explained why he brought the matter up during an open session of the school board.
“I think parents want to know that things are safe and things are getting taken care of,” Umphres noted. “I know in one of these examples that some of the kids are pulled out of class, asked for witness statements, and then these same kids then get blamed for it later on when they entrusted upper administration and SRO’s and all that. So, you know without going into great detail, how do you ever trust the process if kids are then being blamed for the process that they’re giving their witness statement to?”
Umphres spoke during a period set aside for board member comments.
"One thing, video, video is out there,” Umphres commented. “I’ve heard videos, hundreds and hundreds of video cameras out in the district, but yet when it’s needed, it’s either deleted, hasn’t been looked at, the video wasn’t working that day. How do we do that? How do we trust the process?”
Umphres finished his remarks by telling the other board members that the questions he asked needed to be answered. Board member Deanna Essmiller made a short comment after Umphres finished.
“What do we do as a board to make sure that things are being done?”
There was no further discussion in the school board's open meeting or suggestion that Umphres' concerns be placed on a future agenda. The board then moved on to other business.
