Happening This Weekend in Beacon, NY 3/9/2018
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Second Saturday! Gallery Openings for March 2018
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Happy Second Saturday, people of Beacon! Break that snowbound cabin fever by getting out and seeing some incredible art. We've got it all covered in Beacon's most comprehensive Art Gallery Guide.
Several shows around town are specifically celebrating Women's History Month, while other venues are exhibiting female artists' work. There's a new gallery/shop in town, Artifact Beacon, over on the East End of Main Street. Also note: The return of Scribbleheads, and the stellar work of talented Beacon High School art students at The Lofts At Beacon. Check the Guide for details!
Upcoming Creative + Fun Events Supporting Beacon Schools! Rubik's Cubes, Movie Night, and More
/A Little Beacon Blog now tracks the fundraising efforts for all of Beacon's public schools, and a few events are coming up! Movie Night, Line Dancing, Ice Cream Night - and Rubik's Cubes! See below for our roundup, and hit up A Little Beacon Blog's Public School Fundraising Guide for dates and details.
PS: Do you love this Guide? Your business could support it (with your logo as a lead sponsor) and reach so many parents in the Beacon community! Please contact us to be a lead sponsor, and thank you!
JV FORRESTAL ELEMENTARY:
• Rubik's Cubes for Hands-On Library Learning: JVF Librarian Ms. Coleman is raising money to buy Rubik's Cubes that students can check out of the library.
• Beacon's All-Star Lip Sync Battle: This adults-only event at the Towne Crier raises money to support the Center for Creative Education's outreach programs to BCSD schools!
• Book Fair Next week!
GLENHAM ELEMENTARY
• Ice Cream & Bingo Night! Friday, March 9, from 6 to 8 pm. Kids and adults get to play bingo and eat FREE ice cream, donated by Stewart's.
ROMBOUT MIDDLE SCHOOL
• Shake What Your Mama Gave You! Zumba and line dancing to benefit the Rombout PBIS Committee!
BEACON HIGH SCHOOL
• Movie Night! In the Beacon High School Cafeteria, Beacon High School's National Honor Society is sponsoring the Valuable for Veterans fundraiser, screening the Academy Award-winning movie "Coco."
Moving On, But First...A RoundUp of the Gun Violence Issue at the Community Level
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The past two weeks have been paralyzing for a lot of people, especially parents of young kids currently in school. As the region was gripped by threats made last week all over the Hudson Valley, last Friday's Snow Day was actually kind of welcome. Parents received several robo-calls - which normally announce dreaded Snow Day closures. Instead, these were about threats made to the middle school and the high school, and how police would be stationed there. A Little Beacon Blog took time to process what has been going on around the Hudson Valley and open up coverage on it, so that we can produce future articles to help people be aware and prepared. The below links are articles to create awareness of the leadership that has been happening in the Beacon City School District, Beacon Police Department, and some cultural questions about these issues.
- The School Shooting Issue Comes to The Hudson Valley
Striking observation from investigative reporter Nina Schutzman on the amount of shooting-related articles/arrests/threats/closures coming out in one day. - Beacon Increases School Searches and Safety Measures via Robo-Calls
Beacon Superintendent Dr. Matthew Landahl leads the charge in informing parents about issues as they happen. - City of Beacon to Vote on Joining National Day of Action on April 20 to Protect Students Against Gun Violence
Update: They voted Yes. - Beacon City Schools to Perform Security Audits with Altaris Consulting Group
- Toy Guns and No Big Deal Guns Sold in Kid Stores - Impact on Gun Culture
Echo Boutique's Karen Donohue weighs in on her choice not to sell toy guns in her story, and other kid issues explored. - Activities to Prepare for Scary Situations (aka Gun Situations)
Beacon's City Administrator, Police Chief, and Fire Chief provide resources.
Consider this our Action Item in advance of the National Day of Action on Saturday, April 20.
PS: Finally, this mini-series of articles is done (hopefully!) and we are moving on, resuming our usual coverage of the goings-on in Beacon! Not only that, but it's sunny out! Hurray! Yet all signs point to a Wednesday Snow Day. <angry-face emoji> Sleds may still be available at Mountain Tops, where the superhero owners continue to show up every Snow Day with an Open sign.
Activities to Prepare for Scary Situations (aka Gun Situations)
/This is (hopefully) the last in our series on gun shootings, because writing about this is no fun, but has been unavoidable after the last two weeks. The first response to the tragic events was feeling helpless. Questions like this ring loud when bad things happen: "What can I do? What are my kids doing? What are my kids trained to do? Are they being trained on the right things in Lock Down Drills? What am I trained to do? I don't even know how a gun works, and I'm fine with that, but what if I needed to use one?"
So many questions. I reached out to Beacon's new police chief, Kevin Junjulas, to ask if any community training workshops of any kind would be coming up. He responded right away with a flyer (pictured below) that came across his desk from Hudson Valley Safety Associates, LLC. The company is hosting a free Active Shooter training workshop on Thursday, March 15, in Brewster, NY. Beacon's city administrator, Anthony Ruggiero, responded that our city is planning on something in April.
Anthony also responded with links he has used to make a plan with his family:
• How to prepare a family plan for emergencies, from the Red Cross
• The federal government's tips for making - and practicing - a family emergency plan, from Ready.gov
And with the recent uptick in house fires, Beacon Fire Chief Gary Van Voorhis also recommended making a fire safety plan: Get together with your family and sketch out all of your home's windows and doors that could be used as escape routes, and then repeatedly practice getting out in a hurry. He really means business, too: He offered to come over to help us with forming our plan. #thatwasawesome
Toy Guns and "No Big Deal" Guns Sold in Kid Stores - Impact on Gun Culture
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Blended screenshots of sales pages at Walmart's website, where this pink BB gun could have been sold to any prospective buyer, regardless of age (the age limit tool was broken). Walmart has since reversed its online sales policy, and now prohibits purchases of airsoft guns and toys.
Photo Credit: A Little Beacon Blog
Growing up, you probably played Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers, or countless other kid games with guns. Your finger probably became a gun. Pew-pew! Your sister's magic wand probably became a gun. Heck, maybe a magic wand counts as a gun, when it hits someone with glitter.
Guns in our culture are as commonplace as staplers, or pens. You could even buy a bullet pen! I did for my dad last Christmas. I grew up making shotgun shells with him in our basement. He had the neatest shotgun shell-making thingy that clamped to the edge of the table. Toy guns for kids are sold in toy stores, in drug stores, and on any toy store website. How could you not want a Luke Skywalker laser gun? Or a Nerf gun blaster? And with YouTube videos featuring dads and their sons in all-out Nerf gun wars around the house, shooting people becomes very normal.
Toy Guns In Beacon
Echo Beacon, open for more than 10 years and one of Beacon's most popular toy stores, doesn't carry toy guns. Owner Karen Donohue is a mother of a daughter, and made the decision years ago not to sell toy guns in her toy store. "I chose not to sell toy guns, as it just made me uncomfortable. I've been told by mothers of boys that they [the boys] will find any sort of stick or anything, and turn it into a gun despite Mom's efforts to say 'No,'" Karen recalls.
Echo is known for carrying educational toys, and Karen is big on nurturing the imagination. "I still feel this is a better use of the imagination than something that truly resembles a gun. I have, on occasion over the years, sold miniature squirt pistols, but nothing that could ever be remotely mistaken for a gun. In recent years I've been tempted to order them again, but they still give me pause."
Fatal Mistakes
Back in 2014, a 12 year old boy named Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a rookie police officer while he was playing near a gazebo at a recreation center in Cleveland, OH. The boy was holding a pellet gun and a person called 911 to report that a person who was "probably" a child was holding a gun that was "probably fake," according to this Washington Post article. The officer was not told about the "probably" parts, and approached the child, and shot. The child died in the snow. The officer was not fired at the time, but in May of 2017, was fired for not including details about past employment when he was first hired months before the shooting, according to that Washing Post article.
Walmart Pulls Airsoft BB Guns From Website
Gun culture makes getting guns easy and a normalized part of life. When I published this article after the Parkland, Florida tragedy, I included a screenshot of Walmart's website to show how easy it was to purchase a rifle online. A reader commented that the rifle shown in the example was a BB gun, and not, I suppose, an assault weapon. The implication, it seemed, was that buying a BB gun was no big deal. Not wanting to exacerbate the debate, I removed the picture to keep the focus on finding a solution. In that time, however, Walmart announced that it was pulling rifles like BB guns from their website (see the NPR report "Walmart Joins Dick's Sporting Goods In Tighter Limits On Gun Sales"). And in an instant, the page I had just visited to buy the pink rifle BB gun had vanished.
From the NPR Article:
Walmart is also removing items from its website "resembling assault-style rifles, including nonlethal airsoft guns and toys" — like the air gun Tamir Rice was playing with when he was shot by a Cleveland police officer who thought the 12-year-old was armed.
Companies aren't wanting to be associated with gun accidents or planned tragedies. So they are backing away and minimizing their liability. Any connection with tragedies is bad for business; the gun shop owner who sold the Parkland shooter one of his weapons felt compelled to hire a PR company to help issue statements. The issue of gun control has taken on a new dimension as companies get involved by limiting - or even ending altogether - their involvement.
The Mindset of Guns as Toys, Tools, and the Norm
A page from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, where a swim meet starts with a pistol blast, scaring the Wimpy Kid.
With guns being so prevalent in everyday lives, is it time to look at them differently? Would fresh perspective curb the ease with which they are used as a solution to a social problem? To a troubled, heartbroken, misunderstood teenager?
The picture above is taken from a page in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules. In the book, the Wimpy Kid is forced to join a swim team. The first thing that scares him is the pistol shot to start the meet. He thinks it is a real gun, and hides under the water.
Why is a pistol used to start a swim meet? Could a whistle be used?
Why are toy pistols sold in a toy store? When a toy pistol is placed at 5-year-olds' eye level, where it hangs right next to something neutral like a slime-making kit or glow-in-the-dark bouncy ball, it conditions young minds that guns are toys.
The Not Discussed, Uncomfortable Notion of Gun Safety and Preparedness
If we consider CPR courses, Defensive Driving courses, and Fire Safety workshops to be normal and accepted practice, could Gun Safety training courses also become normal? To train prospective users that guns are really not toys, should be taken seriously, and how to use a gun in dangerous or threatening situations?
I asked Beacon's City Administrator, Anthony Ruggiero, if there had been any Active Shooter Training Workshops in Beacon. He responded that there have been in the past, when Beacon sponsored the County Citizens Preparedness Training courses, but he added that the sessions were not very well attended. He says another will be hosted in April.
Perhaps the mindset will shift, to one away from being a sitting duck, and one toward mental defense (think Bourne Identity...where are the exits? how to fight back? what everyday objects can become lifesaving tools?), planning, and rooting out the mindset of guns as toys.
Beacon City Schools to Perform Security Audits with Altaris Consulting Group
/Beacon's School Superintendent Matthew Landahl announced Sunday via the school blog that all school buildings will undergo security audits by the company Altaris Consulting Group in order to receive recommendations for improvement. Altaris Consulting Group will also provide specialized training for Beacon City School District staff throughout the next year.
"They [Altaris Consulting Group] work with many districts in the area and we are very excited to start this work," said Dr. Landahl in his blog article.
See A Little Beacon Blog's earlier article on how the school district has been responding to the current gun violence crises.
City of Beacon to Vote on Joining National Day of Action on April 20 to Protect Students Against Gun Violence
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UPDATE [3/6/2018]: The City Council voted Yes, and Beacon's School Superintendent attended the meeting and thanked the Beacon Police Department for their recent help.
During the March 5, 2018 City Council Meeting, the Beacon City Council will vote on a resolution to join the National Day of Action on April 20 to Protect Students Against Gun Violence, which is a movement spearheaded by the Network for Public Education after the shooting in Parkland, Florida. The Network for Public Education was founded in 2013 as an advocacy group whose mission is to preserve, promote, improve and strengthen public schools for both current and future generations of students.
As Stated by the Network for Public Education:
"Inspired by the courageous young people in Parkland, Florida, the Network for Public Education is joining with national organizations, schools and communities on April 20, 2018, the anniversary of the Columbine Massacre, to say 'No more.'
"Not one more child murdered in school. Not one more parent sending a child to school who never comes home. Not one more teacher, coach, principal, librarian or any school staff standing between students and a gunman. No. More.
"We call on every school community in America to join us to demand that our leaders take real action to end gun violence."
According to proposed legislation documents for Beacon, the Beacon City Council intends to join a National Day of Action on April 20, 2018, and "calls upon the state and federal governments to enact stricter controls governing the sale, possession and distribution of firearms and other dangerous weapons."
Several legislative suggestions are proposed on the National Day of Action's website, addressing gun control, mental health, and bullying prevention. At the local level here in Beacon, the City Council has written the following items to be sent to New York State Senator Sue Serino and Assemblyman Frank Skartados, and United States Representative Sean Patrick Maloney and United States Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer:
Beacon City Council's Suggested Legislation for New York State
- Legislation to raise the age to purchase a firearm to 21.
- Legislation to ban bump stocks.
- Legislation to prohibit the sale, production and importation of assault weapons and large capacity magazines.
- Legislation to prevent certain individuals with mental health conditions from buying firearms, in conjunction with legislation, regulations or public policies that encourage mental health evaluations, including ongoing mental and behavioral health support for students identified as being of imminent threat to themselves or others, and enhanced student access to mental health supports in schools and communities.
Additional Gun Awareness Events
Attendees at the February 20, 2018, City Council meeting thanked Mayor Randy Casale for holding a moment of silence for the victims of the Parkland, Florida, shooting. They then promoted nationwide events that are going on to address the issue, namely the school walkout on March 14, and nationwide demonstrations on March 24, 2018.
This week via the school blog, Beacon Schools' Superintendent Matthew Landahl announced a collaboration with the Beacon Police Department: "Working with the Beacon PD, we will have one police officer working between both Beacon High School and Rombout Middle School during the school day for the upcoming week. The presence of the police officer is simply to help us feel safe and secure next week. Thanks to the BPD for helping us out!"
The superintendent will be releasing more information on how Beacon City Schools will be participating in the National School Walkout on March 14, 2018.
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