A Santa Cruz County grand jury released a report Tuesday that said most public schools do not have up-to-date safety plans.
Read more here: KION News May 25, 2016
And then we received this:
I wanted to share with TBSC a letter I submitted to Mayor Mathews and the City Council. Hopefully you can post this on TBSCs FB site.
Tragedy at Bayview Elementary School Carnival
Dear Mayor Mathews and the Santa Cruz City Council,
Last Friday night my family went to our daughter’s School Carnival at Bayview Elementary right down the street from our house. It was a wonderful fun filled school community event until it ended in tragedy. I was waiting in line for the girls’ bathroom with a few kids in front of me when all of a sudden a mom in the bathroom called out for help. There was a woman lying on the floor of a locked bathroom stall. I ran in to help and told another parent outside to keep the kids back. We pulled the woman who was on the floor out from underneath the stall. She was stiff and blue. She was dead. As the other woman started doing chest compressions, I told everyone to stay back told the DJ to make an announcement asking any medical or first responders to come to the bathroom. I ran to find my friends, who are both doctors, who were about to leave with their six-year old son. They raced to the bathroom to do anything they could to help her while I held their son and my daughter’s little kindergarten hands. The Principal and Bayview School Community jumped in to save this woman’s life. I still don’t know whether she made it.
Here is what I do know:
I know that in the bathroom a faint heart beat was restored with a combination of Narcan, a drug that helps people who are overdosing on narcotics, and CPR. She wasn’t a parent at the school. She had a needle on her. I know an elementary school girl was the first to see her and I know that I am sick of this. This is not OK. There is a drug epidemic going on and the City of Santa Cruz needs to address it and make significant changes to combat it. What you are doing is not working. We can’t ignore that this problem is so pervasive it invades even the most innocent, sweet community events. From needles at the beaches and parks to someone overdosing at my child’s school Carnival to my neighbor’s house being broken into twice in one week. Enough is enough. What are you going to do about this? The community deserves answers and action.
YES – OUR COMMUNITY DOES DESERVE ANSWERS AND ACTION
Wow! A child finds an OD at the school carnival. When will it all be enough?
Thank you to TBSC for breaking the story. Why hasn’t the media taken this on? This seems like a big news story. But of course our local news source doesn’t disappoint! TBSC The Best SC!
Many of my friends have been asking about this. I don’t understand why we don’t hear more about it. This was not just a small medical emergency. It was a child finding a dead person in the bathroom. My question is this. Are our children safe on the property of these schools if they don’t know who they have on campus? I say this because backpacks were being stolen from right by the class room doors. That means someone that was not authorized to be on campus just walked right in. There should be limited entrances WITH someone checking everyone that walks in.
I am saddened and appalled at our city, my children went to Westside schools and I never dreamed that this could happen. I shake thinking of my grand-children and what the Santa Cruz has to offer them- ODs in the schools? Carnival is on a weekend, why did this happen. How do we stop this from happening in front of children.?
WTF? are you kidding me? Drug OD at school down the street from me. car broken into last month – NOTHING in the car – son’s bike stolen in december last year. when will it end?? We don’t have money for cameras or security, our street needs some help. Santa Cruz needs heaps of help, who do we call? What can be done to change this mess up?
They shoot up on Branciforte creek behind my moms house, it is so horrible that she has to deal with this on a weekly if not daily basis. When she calls the cops, they won’t do anything except ask them to keep the noise down. They don’t want to deal with the paper work for someone who will just be out the next day, they won’t take the drugs away because they will just steal to get more. This has got to end, I”m not sure what the answer is but we need to start looking for it.
our family moved here from Scotts Valley 4 years ago. Back then, it was a decent place to live and we could walk at all hours of the day and night. now, fast forward 4 years later, I fear for my family’s safety. Rampant drug epidemic, transients, and homeless (some obviously suffer from mental conditions) have taken over. I see young homeless who seem more than able to find a job, smoking pot in the middle of a day with not a care in the world. I’ve been confronted by homeless begging for money and when I say I don’t have any, they start to curse at me . . . . I am all for freedom but at what cost? What about us law abiding citizens who pay our fair share of tax (some more than others)? For this reason, we are moving out of SC and going to a much better and safer place.
This is the first I’ve heard of this event, but my husband and I were just discussing the inordinate number of drug addicts and homeless who have no respect for our beautiful community or the good people who make it up! The break-ins and robberies are out of hand, the safety of our children is ar stake, and our environment is being strewn with garbage and needles! We pay exorbitant rents and housing prices…and then this is what we have to contend with. Does anybody care???
AMEN! My thoughts as well .
It’s getting out of hand ! I feel for the woman’s family who must have felt the loss of her to drugs for some time now .
People are passionate about Santa Cruz , with the cost of living here people are being forced to leave the place they love and call home.
Myself , being fourth Generation to live and love Santa Cruz am appalled that a mobile home in one of thee less desirable parks …( drug harbor ) is selling for 300,000 . With the cost of living here SO HIGH tell us WHY we should be worried about our children’s safety ? Vandalism ? Robberies ? Stabbings of innocent high school students and business owners . I CARE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The culture in Santa Cruz with its “whatever” tolerance of drugs has done this. We also have seen more and more break ins in our neighborhood, when the people are caught they always have had drugs or needles on them. In high schools it’s difficult to get away from drugs, and some people shrug it off and say “It’s only weed.” Regardless of how you feel about legalizing pot for adults, for some people it is a gateway drug, and we really don’t know much about the effect of weed on a young kid’s neurological development long term. This was horrible, but in the current climate no one should be surprised that this happened.