Does Skyline school bear any responsibility?

[Haeve]

As budgets get cut and enrollment goes down, more and more smaller schools in Oregon are combining grades, especially the rural schools and the school districts that only had three schools to begin with.

Traditionally in Oregon, like many places in the U.S., the schools are: Elementary--K-5 (or 6), Junior High School--7-9 or Middle School--6-8, and High School--9 (or 10)-12.

I've seen more and more elementary/middle and middle/high combinations. In some places there is a single school that is K-12, and the name often gets changed to "__________ School", I've also seen districts where the Middle and High School grades are combined but it was still just called a high school. Others are called "___________ Jr./Sr. High School" or some variation.

I don't know the history of Skyline or how long it has been K-8, but being a somewhat rural (read: suburban) school despite being in the largest school district in Oregon, it may have always been that way, or the name may be a relic from when there was also a jr. high/middle school in the area.

Source: My hours of work researching, correcting and writing articles about Oregon schools and school districts for Wikipedia.

ETA: This article is horribly out-of-date, but it looks like Skyline was K-5 fairly recently: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Public_Schools_(Oregon)

 

[Haeve]

Some history of the grade change, when it was still being considered:

http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story_2nd.php?story_id=32652

 

[kappy50]

I know this is a old school, but would there be designated "Delivery/Recieving Doors" ? I couldn't tell from the maps that were provided.

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

One comment and one question.

It has become quite common for counties and/or school districts to offer at least one IB campus that is available to qualified students. IB high school programs are very prestigious and quite selective. As the demand for this exceptional internationally-based curriculum increases, school districts are providing facilities for elementary and middle school IB programs, as well. While not specifically geared towards gifted/talented students, the IB curriculum is quite challenging and has specific requirements that are not necessarily the same as those in most public high schools.

For locals or folks who have actually been to Skyline School: Is there a Janitor's closet or storage room that has direct access to the exterior of the building? I've studied the floorplans and photos of the building but can't tell where there are "exits" other than those that would be used by the public. The custodian would ordinarily have a way to go outdoors with lawn maintenance or snow removal equipment without having to go through the school. I noticed out-buildings on the campus, so maybe such equipment is stored there, but I still think that the custodian must have access to the outdoors from somewhere in the main school building. jmo

 

[citigirl]

One comment and one question.

It has become quite common for counties and/or school districts to offer at least one IB campus that is available to qualified students. IB high school programs are very prestigious and quite selective. As the demand for this exceptional internationally-based curriculum increases, school districts are providing facilities for elementary and middle school IB programs, as well. While not specifically geared towards gifted/talented students, the IB curriculum is quite challenging and has specific requirements that are not necessarily the same as those in most public high schools.

jmo

As a teacher in an IB school, I confirm what you are saying. For an elementary school to have an IB program is a real feather in its cap. IB is expensive and it assumes its students will go on the be world citizens--there is a de-emphasis on such practical courses as home ec and shop.

Teachers at an IB school work very very hard to align their curriculum not just to state and national standards, but also to IB standards. A school has to have very good teachers to pull this off. Not tooting my own horn--I teacher in an area that is not as impacted by IB.

I feel deeply for the principal and teachers at Kyron's little school. Nobody becomes a teacher expecting to be touched by a tragedy like this. It is almost unheard of for something like this to happen at a school. In an elementary school, especially, where the teachers are nurturers, this has to be devastating. The collateral damage done to the teachers and students at Skyline can't be minimized.

 

[shorty42404]

Something I was thinking about today, the schools' security system..
If someone did abduct or take Kyron from inside the school.. wouldn't they have realized the school could have cameras? Or did they know the security system well enough so that they believed they could pull it off? How would you find out if the school had cameras or not? Is this kind of information available to everyone? to parents? teachers?

 

[liz b.]

Has anyone ever heard of a missing child case in which a parent,or step parent, took a child to school, was seen by teachers,including the child's teacher,then took the child out of the school, took the child by car to another location, killed the child in cold blood,and disposed of the body leaving no DNA evidence ?

I am asking seriously. Because I have heard of the following :

The little girl in the Portland area from about 30 years ago,who was taken by a stranger from her grade school. IIRC, she was raped and left for dead. It was mentioned early on in the Kyron forum....

Etan Patz,aged 5, who was offered a ride to school by his babysitter's "boyfriend" . Etan was walking to the school bus alone for the first time.The 'boyfriend",of course, knew this and waited in his car down the street from the family's apartment... Because Etan knew the " boyfriend " by sight, he got in the car...

Sommer Thompson aged 7, who was lured while a few blocks away from her school,on her way home...

All JMO

 

[palladore]

I expect it is bad form to quote oneself - but that won't stop me. I made this comment in a different thread:

"I volunteer during the school year at a Portland grade school in a reading program in which adults read one-on-one with children in grades K-3 who either need help with reading or who teachers think would benefit from additional adult attention. Parents need to approve a child’s participation in the program and a background check is run on all volunteers. It will be interesting to see what changes are made to security in the Fall. The suburban grade school I volunteer at is about the size of Skyline, but newer, and situated on a much smaller piece of property. There is one entrance. Numerous door open onto the playground, but are locked from the outside, and the playground is surrounded by a high fence. The school office is adjacent to the entrance and is glassed in – but no one in the office has an eye fixed on the entrance at all times. Visitors are required to sign in using a PC in the school office and to wear a name tag. I admit that on one occasion last year when I was running late I walked past the office and down the hall without signing in. I understand parental concern about security, but the Portland school district is so short on funding and has already made so many cuts that, at this point, it is a zero sum game. Some big city schools elsewhere in the country have guards and metal detectors at their entrances. I hope we have not come to that."

2 additional comments:

(1) The Skyline parent handbook (available in Resources) states that if a parent needs to pick up a child during school they are to go to the office - not the child's classroom - and sign the child out. The glitch in the system on June 4th was that the kids reported to their classrooms at the normal start time of 8:45 - to be divided into small groups to tour the Science Fair - but classes, it appears, did not formally commence until 10:00.

(2) TH was very well known to Kyron's teacher, Ms. Porter, and I suspect she had no reason to mistrust TH. I base this contention on the fact that there were several pictures on TH's facebook page taken in Kryron's classroom during class. In one picture Kyron's entire class is grouped around Baby K. If TH purposely misled Ms Porter about a doctor's appointment she (Ms. Porter) must be feeling not only guilty, but betrayed. It is the good part of our nature that lets regulations slip with people we trust.

A final cynical note: In my experience about the only school funding issue that you can count on generating parent activism is cuts to sports.

 

[human]

A final cynical note: In my experience about the only school funding issue that you can count on generating parent activism is cuts to sports.-

quote from Palladore above.

Same in my state. Anything else can go. Anything, but do not touch sports.

 

[TxLady2]

Not every school can afford security cameras. I live in a small town, our schools have never had them, but we've never had a child go missing from school, either. By the 2nd week of school, the teachers know the parents and which kid belongs to them, so when picking them up, it's all pretty safe. If they don't know or recognize someone, they will come to their car and ask for ID, and if you're not on the list of approved people, they call the parent(s).
It's been about 7 years since my last one graduated, but at that time, you could walk in the door, go to the office and sign your child out for dr. or dental appts. with no trouble, as long as they could identify you.
I don't think they had a call policy either... my oldest 2 boys skipped school several times, and I don't remember ever getting a call that they were absent. I only found out about it after they were grown and married... they thought it was funny. Don't ask me how they got away with not having a written excuse, I have no idea.
But I know we've never had a kidnapping in our schools.... ever.
It's not the school's fault. It's not the parent's fault, it's the fault of whoever took Kyron and that might not necessarily be Terri. But if it was... then how could the school be blamed for that? She was the step-parent, and approved to pick him up. They had no way of knowing what she would do afterwards.
JMHO, and all that.

 

[cluciano63]

Isn't the name of this thread an oxymoron?

 

[Sherbie]

So far, all I can really say about the school is that in this day and age, there's no reason not to have some sort of security camera system in place (at least at the main entry points, where parents and guests most often enter/exit).

If Kyron left school with his stepmom (and especially if she had told his teacher they would be leaving for a dr's appt), then I can't really find fault with the school here, other than thinking they need cameras installed. Until we learn the exact circumstances of how Kyron left and with whom, it's tough for me to be too hard on the school.

 

[wondering1]

I think security and auto-dialer systems, etc. are a big red herring. The cameras and absentee verification systems are not even in place to protect the children from abductions, so any benefit of catching such a person based on a video would be a random side benefit of the system, not its purpose. And the 1-in-a-million (or more) chance of something like this happening is not a good reason, imo, to insist on making that kind of security mandatory. It might be justified for OTHER reasons, but definitely not to prevent abductions.

I'd much rather have my tax dollars spent on PE/sports -- like the rest of the unenlightened neanderthals. lol

 

[RubyRed]

Janitor Bill Tandy walks past Kyron Horman's classroom at Skyline Elementary School in the early hours of June 7, 2010

http://photos.oregonlive.com/oregonian/2010/06/kyron_horman_search_attracts_1_3.html


*sigh* I feel sad everytime I see this picture.

 

[cypress]

Regardless of Terri's innocence or guilt, confusion about the doctor's appointment or not, do you think Skyline bears any responsibility for Kyron's disappearance?

Honestly, I'm inclined to say yes. Even if Terri created confusion about the doctor's appointment, there was confusion. Something wasn't clear. Something was, perhaps, wrongly assumed. Admittedly, I don't discount TP witnessing the teacher assert early on that Kyron was in the bathroom or getting a drink of water when asked about his absence. Regardless of TP's use of the word sub, I believe his statement. I believe when Kyron didn't return it's possible that the teacher wrongly assumed he was at his doctor's appointment. I believe it's possible confusion over the doctor's appointment is fast becoming a scapegoat for the teacher's negligence.

Please, let's not let this thread devolve into bashing, but I'm genuinely curious about people's thoughts about this.

 

[Kat010]

Agreed. When a child tries to tell the teacher that his friend is missing, and a substitute (or whoever the person was, volunteer?) and the teacher says "oh, he's probably in the bathroom" something is really wrong.

Great minds are thinking alike! I earlier opened a thread to discuss school-related abductions.

[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111299"]Abductions or Attempted Abductions Involving Schools - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community[/ame]

 

[Aedrys]

I say no. This is a school in an area where something like this, I assume, either hasn't happened in a long time or has never happened at that school. Yes, it stinks that the staff was easily tricked by a confusing appointment, but I would never blame them for what happened to Kyron. TH took advantage of that school and it's lax security practices to do what she did. I am not going to blame the school when it was played by a cunning and manipulative woman, or even if by a predator. There is no way they could have known that he was kidnapped. I am sure every staff member feels terrible about what happened, and I am sure the kids are traumatized. It would add insult to injury to then blame them for what happened.

So no, I don't put any responsibility on them. I am sure they have learned their lesson and something like this won't happen again. I am sure they have tightened security and no teacher is just going to rely on a parent ever again for an appointment. I am sure they have to sign and verify the day and time a kid won't be there and even sign the kid out on the day of on top of that.

The responsibility should be shouldered by the person who did this, whether it's TH or a predator, and not the school. I see the school as a victim in all of this. How does it do any good to blame them for what happened to Kyron? It doesn't, and they shouldn't be blamed for it.

 

[BeanE]

Regardless of Terri's innocence or guilt, confusion about the doctor's appointment or not, do you think Skyline bears any responsibility for Kyron's disappearance?

Honestly, I'm inclined to say yes. Even if Terri created confusion about the doctor's appointment, there was confusion. Something wasn't clear. Something was, perhaps, wrongly assumed. Admittedly, I don't discount TP witnessing the teacher assert early on that Kyron was in the bathroom or getting a drink of water when asked about his absence. Regardless of TP's use of the word sub, I believe his statement. I believe when Kyron didn't return it's possible that the teacher wrongly assumed he was at his doctor's appointment. I believe it's possible confusion over the doctor's appointment is fast becoming a scapegoat for the teacher's negligence.

Please, let's not let this thread devolve into bashing, but I'm genuinely curious about people's thoughts about this.

Yes, they bear responsibility, regardless of whether or not Terri was involved. They should have had a sign out procedure in place, as well as a parent call-in procedure for children who are not coming to school at all.

There should have been a process in place whereby when the teacher's roll hit the office, somebody compared the ones marked 'absent' against the sign out sheet, and list of students whose parents had called them in sick.

Any student not accounted for should have immediately had a call home, and if the parents can't be reached, then a call to 911 to report the child missing unless/until they're accounted for.

It seems to me that's just common sense to protect the children for whom you are legally (I'll leave out morally) responsible.

 

[Kat010]

The fact that "it can't happen here" kind of feeling exists in that area is, IMHO, irrelevant. It can happen anywhere.

And we do not know for a fact about that alleged dr's appt. We have reports about it, and supposedly a "yelled" conversation. But we haven't heard from TH.

Yes, a school is responsible for students entrusted to them. It is not unreasonable to ask that schools have adequate security, which includes policies and procedures, and attentive teachers.

If I were responsible for a group of kids, and someone was concerned one was gone, and that child was gone, by cracky, I'd hie myself to the nearest authority--in this case, the school office--to make sure that there was an explanation like an appt. And I'd call the parent right away.

In this case, the school isn't a victim. They're part of the problem. And IMHO, there's been a lot of CYA going on from LE and the school. There could be a big $ lawsuit over this if someone other than TH nabbed Kyron. And you better believe the powers-that-be know that.

 

[nonfictionrocks]

Regardless of Terri's innocence or guilt, confusion about the doctor's appointment or not, do you think Skyline bears any responsibility for Kyron's disappearance?

Honestly, I'm inclined to say yes. Even if Terri created confusion about the doctor's appointment, there was confusion. Something wasn't clear. Something was, perhaps, wrongly assumed. Admittedly, I don't discount TP witnessing the teacher assert early on that Kyron was in the bathroom or getting a drink of water when asked about his absence. Regardless of TP's use of the word sub, I believe his statement. I believe when Kyron didn't return it's possible that the teacher wrongly assumed he was at his doctor's appointment. I believe it's possible confusion over the doctor's appointment is fast becoming a scapegoat for the teacher's negligence.

Please, let's not let this thread devolve into bashing, but I'm genuinely curious about people's thoughts about this.

Thank you for starting this thread. I have maintained from the beginning that it is in the school and the school board's best interest that TH is responsible for Kyron's disappearance because if she is not involved - what is the alternative? JMO