001hello this is Chris Cooper superintendent of Clearwater schools with an update and an address to some some recent concerns first of all I want to give an update about an accident that we had this morning unfortunately a couple of uh high school students were struck by a vehicle crossing the street by jump start today and uh the good news I want to give you an update they were both transported to the hospital one has been released and one is being observed overnight but really hopeful about everything coming out okay there so not great but it could have been a lot a lot worse and so we're very thankful for all those who responded not only are ems police School Personnel but construction workers who were on site a person who's not even our community was
002actually the first person there and taking care of of our community's kids and I really appreciate his efforts there and um everyone that was involved there and and they're in our thoughts and prayers for continued recovery from that accident I'm sure we will be looking at that situation with City officials and seeing if there's things we can do to make that area safer for students but I wanted to give everybody an update about that because we had a lot of lights and Sirens this morning and um some concern there the other thing I want to address uh has to do with rumors and realities about possible threats to school safety that we've been experiencing as always safety is our top priority we're in the business of educating kids all of us have careers that we
003have chosen because we have a love for for kids and keeping them safe and educating them is our business to do that successfully we need a lot of Partners we need great staff which we have we need partners with our parents our students we really need to partner with they need us or we need them to come to us as partners as well as students police which I greatly appreciate the partnership we've had with them and our whole community so we can't do this isolated on our own we need to all work together so we also need to be successful we need credible information and that's probably been one of the most challenging things here of recent I want to dig into one of our most recent concerns and be cautious to not violate the
004rights of any individual student but share a little bit of information about our last report of possible threat to school safety this report was taken very seriously our Administration investigated it they followed the protocols I really appreciate the school officials going through the steps of what needed to happen because it was a possible criminal threat Police Department was involved they investigated they did interviews they checked social media as we did we have talked to over 30 individuals as of last night and um the parents of the person who was accused of this threat the student who was accused of it anybody who we had any information any belief that had any information about it or talked to through all that police and school officials found that there was no basis in the allegation of the
005threat was actually being made we heard a lot of people say well I've heard that this was said but we could find no one who said yes I heard or I saw so there's no first-hand accounts it's kind of like the old Rumor Mill in that somebody said that this happened and then as that goes down the road down the row of people it just gets more elaborate and farther away from the truth um this was communicated to parents uh in an email early that we were investigation and then a a later uh phone call which I apologize that was so late but the reason was we had to get to the bottom of many leads that that we had been made aware of uh later in the day so we wanted to leave no
006stone unturned before we communicated to parents that we um what our findings were that there was no basis that we could find for that threat um so being keeping Kids Safe is our primary concern but the perception of safety is becoming more and more important so believing that we're we're uh safe and despite the communication that we did send out social media continued to perpetuate some of those rumors and false accusations and this frenzy I think in my personal opinion is kind of fueled by unfortunately what we see on the media every day and the anxiety that that builds up in us and it's understandable that we would have that anxiety those conversations I think led to more anxiety and unfortunately that is also on on some of our students so I want to talk
007a little bit about what we can do to hopefully eliminate some of that in the future but there's a lot of fear and anxiety based on as far as we can think as far as we can tell things that have no credibility it's just a story that's being told and retold and retold unfortunately in my opinion this also vilified us one of our community students that um as far as like I said again we can tell has not done anything wrong all students make some mistakes but um we need to be really cautious not to vilify or even slander someone in our community so that leads me to what can we do and I'm going to circle back around to those Partnerships we have to partner together we have to assume that we will assume
008that parents are doing the the best job that they can I think we need some assumption that we do care that we do take things very seriously that um it it is our business to do this work and it's what we signed up for we have a very caring staff our staff in a small town like this the nice thing is they are literally family their kids their cousins their nephews nieces their relatives are in our buildings and they are there not just for those who are direct family but for the extended family that is the Clearwater family and so it's very caring we love our students we are in this together the other thing I think that that I would ask parents is that you have ongoing conversation with with your kiddos about the
009anxiety that that this produces how some of it even um in the media may be accurate some of it may be embellished and and some of it is downright untruth uh one of my concerns is that from my perspective it feels like we seem more open to believe something that a random person puts on Facebook than what our police or our school officials are telling us the people we know the people we live with the people who are our neighbors we need to have some trust in those I would also say if you do have first information hand information information that you don't think we have we would ask that you report that to us because we can only follow up on things we know and I think sometimes there's a perception that lots of
010people have communicated this lots of people have brought this concern when in reality maybe no one has so um we if there is any threat to school safety we need that information we will partner with the police and we will do everything we can to ensure the highest level of safety for every student every day so please report that to us I want to end this update by circling back around to the incident that happened this morning the unfortunate unfortunate accident um a near jump start in our parking lot even though it was an unfortunate event it was a great example of what our society can do everyone was caring everyone was there for those kids this person who lives out of town was the first one there I actually went back and gave that
011individual construction worker an update this afternoon because he was so concerned about the well-being of our kiddos and um that's really what we're about and I think we can use that as a model it provided a great example of how we can come together so um if you have ideas how we can do that how we can I I do know I believe as a school we need to communicate in different ways but we do need good information and we can only communicate what we know as the facts so uh please reach out if you do have information about school safety talk to your kids in a realistic way about trying to differ between something that may have been said or that may have happened and something that we know happened because again a lot
012of people said well I have heard that I have heard that five people said this I have heard this but when we and the police have tried to dig in at least in this last case um that's not been the reality if it is the reality we need more information so let's come together let's be like that uh person working here in our town from out of town who showed care to a stranger today that's all I have for today this is Mr Cooper signing off work hard have fun and be your best self