FOUNTAIN VALLEY : Safety Issues Draw 250 Parents to School

Issues of school safety, dress codes, gangs, graffiti and closing the campus drew more than 250 parents to a town hall meeting at Fountain Valley High School.

The parents unanimously agreed during Tuesday night’s meeting that they will not tolerate drugs, weapons or violence on campus.

“We all have one thing in common: the welfare of our children,” said Susan Doti, president of the Parent Teacher Student Assn., which co-sponsored the meeting.

“Schools cannot run in isolation from parents,” said Principal Gary Ernst. “Today, in order for kids to be in school, parents have to be involved.

“It was one of my highlights of the year to see so many parents involved in helping set directions for the school,” he said.

Ernst said the meeting was the beginning of efforts to solve campus problems and to obtain parent involvement to ensure safety of the school’s 2,600 students.

Ernst said that a random survey of students was taken on the issue of school safety and showed that “almost 80% of the students feel safe.”

The school has had two violent incidents this school year, one in which a student was stabbed by a non-student who came onto campus, and the other involving a student who was stabbed with a pencil in the back of the ear during a melee prompted by racial tensions between white and Asian-American students.

In a survey taken at Tuesday’s meeting, parents said they support a closed campus. Students can now leave school at lunch with parental permission. Parents also support a stricter dress code that prohibits students wearing head wear such as baseball caps and stocking caps, which can be associated with gangs, and elimination of lockers, which are prone to vandalism and can be used to hide weapons, drugs and other contraband.

Parents and school officials also discussed the Huntington Beach Union High School District’s recent approval of the use police dogs on campus to search for drugs in lockers and vehicles. Another issue raised was the use of metal detectors to screen for weapons.

“We don’t feel a need for metal detectors and we hope we don’t ever get to that point,” Ernst said.

Doti said more town hall meetings will be held so parents, as well as students, can express concerns.

“We want to stop the violence now before there’s a real tragedy . . . before something happens we all regret,” Doti said.