UPDATE BELOW!

A concerned parent writes:

Mr. Gaffney, 

This morning, my daughter told me that she was happy school was delayed; wishing though, that it would have been 2 hrs vs. 1 hr.  I thought to myself, she never complains about going to school - but her tone was different.  I pursued and asked her why the negativity with school?  She began to tell me that the past 2 weeks it seems that there have been fights among the students and even the police has been involved.  The latest episode being yesterday morning and the police were brought in to help the situation.  And then last Friday, there were rumors a gang fight was going to happen and so the police were there at the end of the day while the kids got on the buses. So, knowing your “getting to the bottom of things”, I was wondering if you could ask your listeners if their children have been talking about the fighting that is going on at the HS.  My daughter did not know who specifically or what the fights were about, but she felt afraid going back to school this morning.  That maybe there would be more fighting, like retaliation. I tried calming her by telling her to not worry that it was a good thing the police were there - but thinking to myself, I thought “wow, with all the staff and even a resource office; the police had to help out”  and “it might have been a bad situation” 

During today’s Dan Gaffney Show, some students and other parents confirmed the story about fights between “groups” of students, but the class of 2007 wants you to know Cape is still a great place:

Our names are Laura and Elizabeth Hinkle and we are seniors at Cape Henlopen High School.  We were in school this week when two fights occurred between two groups of students.  First of all, we would like to say that we feel safe at Cape; we have never ever been scared or intimidated in school.  The groups of students at Cape that got into the fights were separated quickly and the administration at Cape handled the ordeal in a safe and constructive matter.  Mr. Yore has raised morale at Cape and has made the students feel more positive about the school.  Cape is a public school and not a private school which is probably why some of these events happen.  These fights do not occur on a daily basis and are isolated incidents when kids do not know how to handle their problems in a constructive matter.  There are many positive things that are happening at Cape that should get more media attention.  Our sports are excelling this year.  Our teachers are building up our AP and honors classes and we are constantly being offered more opportunities for new and interesting learning experiences.   Mr. Yore has made a huge positive impact on the students and staff.  He has constantly showed us dedication by showing up to every Cape sporting, marching band, and scholastic event.  Students treat him with the utmost respect because he has shown us respect. We understand that these fights were an unfortunate event but they in no way should be a reflection of the whole Cape Henlopen High School.  The students who get into fights put themselves into those situations and it is not the Cape environment that encourages it. Thank you for your time and understanding. 

 Elizabeth Hinkle , Class of 2007 President 

 Laura Hinkle , Class of 2007 Secretary

We welcome your comments about the Cape Henlopen fights. 

UPDATE 12/18/06:

I asked the nice young ladies from Cape; “who are these groups of students”?

As far as we know about the fights it was two groups of black students.  They are seperate groups of friends from different parts of the county.  What we have heard in school is that they are friends (from for example, because we aren’t sure, Rehoboth and Milton) not necessarily gangs.  We have a police officer who is on campus at all times and we know that he was there right away and we believe other officers came as well.  Everyone involved in the fight was taken into the school office and no one is really sure what happened after that.  Because we aren’t directly friends with anyone involved in the fights this is about all we know.

 Groups, not necessarily gangs?  Thanks ladies.

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 10:04 am and is filed under Delaware, Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.