School crisis team responds to girl’s death

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Sunday, March 16, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The news spread quickly at Kathy and Tim Harney Middle School that a sixth grader had been killed Wednesday in a violent attack.

And just as quickly, Clark County School District’s crisis team sprang into action. Harney Principal John Scott said he always assumed there was a plan in place, “but it was very heartwarming to see the immediate response the district has for incidents like this. It’s comforting to know it’s in place, and does work.”

Counselors were deployed to the South Hollywood Boulevard campus to talk with students and staff. District administrators also visited to offer support.

Gloria Redman, 12, died after her father attacked her with a knife in their family’s trailer at the Road Runner RV Park, according to police. He was taken to Sunrise Hospital with what police described as self-inflicted wounds.

In addition to helping students, the crisis counselors have been on hand for Gloria’s teachers, Scott said. He’s heard from several distraught educators who taught Gloria at W.E. Ferron Elementary School.

“Some of them, understandably, are having a hard time dealing with this,” Scott said.

Gloria was “just a good, all-around student” and played clarinet in the sixth grade band, Scott said. She has an older brother in the eighth grade at Harney, as well as a brother attending Chaparral High School.

The Harney yearbook will include a page dedicated to Gloria. To help her family, the school has set up a memorial fund through Silver State Credit Union. The account number is 59907, attention Gloria Redman.

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When the district switches a school to a year-round schedule, parents complain about the lack of advance warning and question the district’s formula for making the decision.

In a draft revision of the regulation used to guide scheduling decisions, those issues are addressed head-on.

Several of the proposed changes, shared at last week’s Clark County School Board meeting, came directly from the Year-Round Study Group. The appointed committee (made up of parents, community representatives and district staff) met six times during a two-month period and later submitted a lengthy list of suggestions to Superintendent Walt Rulffes. He promised to consider their findings.

Under the current regulation, calendar changes are triggered when a school expects to need more than five teachers in certain grades. The revised regulation creates an alternative trigger — that enrollment projections be at least 14 percent above capacity (without the use of portable classrooms). Schools would have to meet at least one of the two thresholds.

The revised regulation also calls for parents to receive an “early warning notice” within 30 days of the official head count if a school’s enrollment appears close to triggering a schedule change. Previously, the regulation required only that the school community be notified by April 1 that the schedule would change the following academic year.

The proposed changes need the School Board’s approval, and a vote has not yet been scheduled.

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Arming administrators and School Police with pocket-size metal detectors could improve security at district campuses, a consultant wrote in a recent analysis commissioned by the superintendent.

The consultant, Gary Avery of the Advisory Law Group, also suggested adding real-time surveillance cameras to monitor the school entrance, and further limiting access to campus. Those elements could be incorporated into the next round of school designs if the School Board decides to follow the consultant’s recommendations.

The superintendent requested the analysis, which cost $3,200, following a shooting in December in which several students were wounded near a school bus stop.

But a nationally recognized school safety expert said Clark County shouldn’t pin its hopes on high-tech devices.

Ken Trump, asked to comment on the other consultant’s findings, said big-ticket items such as metal detectors and surveillance cameras are not a panacea for campus crime.

“The first and best line of defense is a well-trained and highly alert staff and student body,” Trump said. “Students will report weapons and plots to adults they trust. Any type of security technology is only going to be as strong as the weakest human link behind it.”