The death of Gabriel Andrews stunned residents in the Bluegrass State’s capital city. The boy was caught in floodwaters early Friday while walking to the bus stop, police said. After an extensive search, his body was found about two hours after police were notified.
Gabriel’s death sparked questions from some who wondered why the Franklin County school district chose not to cancel in-person classes Friday when strong storms produced flash flooding.
If we close the school for floods or other emergencies, who will detain the children while the wage slaves are busy working?
The moment I heard about this, I immediately asked why he was on his way to school during a serious natural disaster. Why didn’t the school close? Perhaps even more importantly, why didn’t his parents say “I don’t care that schools are open, nobody is leaving the house today?”
That poor kid died in terror, knowing that everybody with the responsibility to keep him safe, failed him.
I live in Florida, and if a hurricane was on the way, my kid wasn’t going to school, no matter what the school decided. What’s the downside, he misses a day of school? No single day of school is worth dying over, even on pizza day.
States have idiotic rules that schools must be open X days a year to receive funding. So schools do everything they can to stay open during disasters so they don’t have to add days at the end of the school year.
It’s always about funding.
A lot of idiot parents assume “if the school is open, it’s safe enough together go. If there was an actual problem they would close it.”
Yeah, I’m not abdicating my responsibility for my kid’s LIFE to civil servants.
Maybe it’s because I’m an older Dad, and most teachers/administrators were younger than me, or maybe its because I’m a business owner, and I have confidence in my own decisions over those of others, but I don’t do what they tell me, they do what I tell them.
Every principle my son had, knew me by name. On Parent/ Teacher nights (which I NEVER missed), I always had a short meeting with the principle, and brought up any issues with my son, his teachers, and the school. I wasn’t a Parent-zilla, but my son was particularly intelligent, and uniquely talented, and I did not tolerate bullshit when it came to his education. He was NOT going to fall through the cracks, and I made sure he didn’t.
Every principal knew my name
Not parent zilla.
Idk man… Maybe if you’re in a more rural area
He had some pretty terrible elementary school teachers. Two of them ended up fired for being incompetent, in part because I reported their behavior (although in both cases I was only the final straw). His kindergarten teacher, in her first year, was so abusive, he started to develop a stutter, and he was telling us about physical abuse that he and others suffered. Then she refused to let the nurse give him medication for a waning illness hed had, and it was email time, complete with a legal threat. She was on maternity leave (scheduled for a month out) the very next day, and did not get return the following year.
His second grade teacher would hand-pick students from the first grade classes, and she always made sure to pick a few that she knew were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Then she would assign those kids to be table leaders, and those kids would then get after the non-JWs. We are non-religious, so when his table leader started telling him on a daily basis that God hates him for not being a JW, and he’s going to Hell, I took it to the principle. She wasn’t fired, but he was switched a different class where he thrived. Presumably other kids were being treated the same, but their parents didn’t stick up for their kids, so they had to suffer through 2nd grade.
His fourth grade teacher was too engrossed in tracking sports on the internet to teach class (I always figured he was gambling), so the classroom was chaotic, and eventually some kid stabbed my son with a pencil, lodging 2 inches deep in his calf. I didnt even have to ask, the principal (who I liked) just offered to put him in a different class. That teacher was gone at the end of the year.
He also had teachers who were amazing, and I made sure that the principal knew how great they were. His new 4th grade teacher asked for him to be in her class after the stabbing, because she had noticed him, and wanted to give him a proper classroom envir0¹onment to thrive in. She cared about him so much that she came to every play and musical he was in through his senior year.
So I had every reason to be a Parent-zilla, but I wasnt. I just wasn’t going to tolerate abuse against my son. These were normal schools in a good neighborhood, probably better schools than average, and this was our experience.
Christ, that’s unlucky. With an experience like that I wouldn’t even blame you if you had become one.
That’s great that you stood up for your kid like that.
My school took great pride in never canceling no matter what. Then Amber rolled her Mustang driving to school one icy morning and ended up in a wheelchair. Then admins started canceling school.
My school had two school shooting threats made the same week, and didn’t cancel school. They just called the whole sheriff’s department to play army at the school. Walking in looked like a scene from a movie in Nazi Germany, guys with guns at the door and dogs barking, APCs outside. I think there was even a helicopter at one point.
Then in March of 2020, we were supposed to come back from spring break, but the school STILL said that there was no danger because a county health offical said so. We almost went back to school until the state governor declared state of emergency and prohibited anyone from going to school.
That’s just life in the USA
I remember in elementary school, they told us not to walk alone and to “zig-zag” to avoid being shot when the snipers were on the loose. They still held classes during that time though even after a kid got shot.
Niko Bellic childhood
No, it’s called terrorism.
Glad that you have lead such a sheltered life.
Ok well I didn’t know the background or even heard of this, it just reminded me of a quote
One of the deputies probably made the threats from a burner phone or payphone. Cops love making anonymous calls to circumvent civil liberties.
No they got the kids and found them with their guns
While calling cops to school is a terrible idea, canceling at any bs threat is also not a great idea… There’s a good middle ground somewhere.
There were two made. At the same time.
“But, it builds character!”
Whole lotta “Why do we do X?? X is dumb, let’s stop doing X. Oh shit, X blew up in our faces, that’s why we do X” going on in America right now.
You can shorten that to, fuck around, and find out. Some of these people are gonna feel the latter half of that real soon as they end up with bird-flu induced measles or some shit!
It’s tragic, but it’s great to hear about Murca having schools. I thought they were all just bible camps now.
Hey now, try to see the silver lining: Since we underpay our teachers and then also expect them to spend their own money on supplies and beg the class parents for the rest, that means SOME of the teachers are still there because they’re passionate about it!
My son is in 2nd grade and we have had some great luck with teachers so far, but we are not a very “at risk” school district compared with the average.
Glad to hear it, sincerely. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops here in Canada, but at least we have a ministry of education and an agency to respond to disasters. Best wishes for you all down there. 😘😘😘
Glad to have any good vibes we can get!
Removed by mod
My question is why the fuck the parents thought sending their child to school by himself during flash flooding was a good idea?
The parents may have already gone to work, or they trusted the school to notify them if classes were cancelled.
Kind of hard to know unless the parents say. Maybe it would be good not to blame them without proof.
I believe the parents have a bigger responsibility for the child’s safety than the school. The school should obviously have shut down, but in the end, the parents are the people who are supposed to keep the child safe, not some strangers. And I don’t care wether the parents had already gone to work. If you live in a place where flash flooding can occour, you know the risk is there after strong storms. If the school is expected to know it was a risk, the parents should damn well know aswell.
Parents have to base their decisions on the available information from trusted sources. One assumes they would consider the school district a trusted source. It’s very possible that they didn’t imagine that the district would actually put their child in danger like this.
While the parents certainly now wish they had ignored the schools decision to hold classes, it’s not really their fault at all that they didn’t.
I don’t think there’s enough information to blame them but there’s also not enough to absolve them completely like that. If they were working you would think they would see how bad the weather and flooding was on their way to work or something and think, hey, maybe Johnny shouldn’t be walking in this?
The bus stop can be up to 1/4 mile away from the kids’ house so it could have looked fine to walk to the bus from a weather perspective, but the route to the stop was the dangerous area.
deleted by creator
