Gun Violence Task Force meeting highlights hurdles Cape schools face to protect students

Cape Girardeau Public Schools staff spoke to the Gun Violence Task Force on Tuesday, Oct. 8, at City Hall about the improvements they would like to see made in their system and the issues they face.

Task force members superintendent of Cape Girardeau Public Schools Howard Benyon and assistant superintendent of support services Josh Crowell spoke alongside the school’s assistant superintendent of special services Mandy Keys to their fellow members and the public about how the school’s support system works and what issues the district faces.

Keys said an issue the community faces surrounding the youth involves children legally carrying guns. She pointed to people with National Rifle Association (NRA) hats in the back of the meeting saying from what she understood they didn’t even want children carrying guns around the city.

“I talked to a local representative about this ... who is a big gun supporter and my family has guns. I grew up on a farm. We shot guns on the farm. We did not carry guns in city limits. And what I was told, and I see we have some NRA representatives in the back, but I was told that the NRA doesn’t think that kids should be able to carry weapons around in city limits without an adult, without their parent with them,” Keys said. “If we don’t allow a child to drive until they’re 16 because we don’t think they’re responsible enough, we don’t allow them to vote until older than that, they can’t buy a gun until older than that, why are we letting kids carry weapons?”

She said the kids are not carrying guns around the city to hunt. Keys said they need lobbyists including the NRA to say they don’t need kids carrying guns in the city.

She said Missouri is the only state that has this law allowing children to carry guns with no parental supervision.

Crowell said a part of what needs to be addressed is the communication between agencies and schools.

“Many times we’ll have some students transfer to us. We’re dealing with a school from a neighboring state right now that does not want to share the discipline record of that student coming to us,” Crowell said. “By law, we have to enroll that student within a certain time frame, but we may not have the full records sent to us yet.”

Benyon added that they have five days to enroll the student in the school. Crowell said they not only need better ways to communicate with other agencies, but also schools.

Crowell also said another way to improve would be for the state to restore funding for the Department of Youth Services (DYS) program referred to as ECHO, which they’ve had to recreate internally.

“ECHO was a classroom that was set up for students that may be in the middle of their (juvenile) adjudication process, or it may be they were just not deemed, through DYS, to be able to attend a regular school setting and so this alternative setting was set up,” Crowell said.

He said it still exists in Sikeston and Columbia, as well as other areas but no longer in Cape Girardeau.