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A Boston community group is demanding Mayor Michelle Wu ensure the safety of schoolchildren after 10 guns have been found on campuses and amid reports rampant sexual abuse and bullying.
Boston S.O.S. (Safety of Our Schools), a community group of parents, residents and clergy dedicated to bringing awareness to serious physical safety issues happening in Boston Public Schools (BPS), issued a statement Monday pointing to the 10 firearms recently found at schools across the city.
The statement, provided to the Boston Herald and directed at the Democratic mayor, said: “School safety must be the top priority in these conversations because school safety is the foundation of good education and good mental health for our students.”
“Every week there is additional evidence that we have a school safety crisis throughout the entire Boston school system,” the group wrote. “The current safety plan is not working.”
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Boston Mayor Michelle Wu speaks to the media during a press conference at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing on May 19, 2022.
(Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
“In the face of this Boston school safety crisis, we are calling on Mayor Wu to lead the city of Boston to develop a well-crafted, comprehensive safety plan that addresses guns in schools, assaults, bullying, and provides an early intervention strategy for struggling students,” the statement said.
The group also noted the recent vote by the Boston School Committee to shutter Mission Hill School in Jamaica Plain by the end of June.
The decision came in response to a damning report exposing “systematic and pervasive accounts of student-on-student sexual and physical misconduct that began as far back as 2014,” affecting victims as young as age 5.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu speaks at a press conference that was held at the McKinley Elementary School on 90 Warren Street, South End in Boston on May 12, 2022, regarding school construction around the city of Boston.
(David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Released April 25, it also cited “explosive and violent episodes involving children that happened with alarming frequency” at the school and detailed how staff effectively “normalized” bullying and violence.
“As a BPS mom, it’s deeply personal for me that each and every one of our children will be safe and feel supported in our schools, on their commutes to school, and throughout our neighborhoods,” Wu said in a statement to the Herald.
“We are partnering with public safety and health agencies, the state, and community organizations on incident response time and community support systems,” the mayor added. “Together with our newly launched summer safety plan, the City is taking a wraparound approach to ensure every child has the nurturing environment they need and deserve.”
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu during a press conference at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Allston, Massachusetts, on May 19, 2022.
(Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
In a radio interview with WBUR Monday morning, Wu stressed that recent firearm incidents at Boston Public Schools have been “de-escalated very quickly,” explaining that some incidents involved students carrying guns who expressed concern about feeling unsafe while commuting to school.
“It is heartbreaking as a mom to think that any of our young people are making that decision knowing full well what it means,” Wu told the station. “And I take responsibility and urgency in making sure that we can ease that decision because no child should ever have to think that way.”
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Fox News Digital previously reported about a May 13 incident at Boston’s Madison Park Technical Vocational High School where a parent allegedly flashed a gun to provoke a fight and school officials have been accused of delaying calling police as the brawl unfolded.
Meanwhile, Boston police have cited an increased presence of juveniles “terrorizing” the downtown area, in several instances carrying out allegedly racially motivated beatings in broad daylight.
