Guided Pathways unguided notions

Academic Senate members don't think enough time was given for a vote

DAVID ZAYER Reporter @DavidZayer

Pierce Academic Senate members have to make a vote to approve this year’s plan for the Guided Pathways program by March 30 or they will lose $1.8 million for funds, according to Vice President of Academic Affairs Sheri Berger.

During the Academic Senate meeting on Monday, members were concerned that they didn't have enough time to speak among themselves to make a decision about whether or not to vote on the Guided Pathways plan.

Professional Development Representative Maria Perser said the College Professional Development Department needs more staff.

“I was advocating for more staff because there is only one person in there right now,” Perser said. “We can not put together a comprehensive professional development program without fully staffing that office.”

Despite Perser’s concerns, the Academic Senate voted against using money from the budget to pay for the extra staff required by Guided Pathways. The senate suggests to get funds elsewhere.

Vice President of Curriculum Margarita Pillado said the senate did not have enough time to fully comprehend the plan.

“We have to make a decision at last second,” Pillado said. “If we make the wrong choice, we are constantly going to have to fight for reassigned times.”

Although the plan for Guided Pathways is already made, some senate members are relieved that the plans can be changed every year. A decision was made to suggest some changes to the wording. Senate members suggested to include Student Learning Outcomes into the Guided Pathways program.

Another issue that the senate was concerned with was whether the college had a plan to evacuate the college if needed.

In a recent semesters, including just this month, the campus was evacuated due to wildfires and possible threats.

Treasurer Angela Belden wants there to be a uniform plan as soon as possible.

“With the possibility of a natural disaster or possible school threat, we need to have a plan to evacuate the school quickly,” Belden said. “Last time, it seemed liked some people didn't even know the school was being evacuated.” dzayer.roundupnews@gmail.com

District Safety Manager William Ramirez, campus sheriff and administration met to discuss safety procedures. Administration is working to decrease the time of emergency evacuation while beating traffic, Berger said.

Berger also informed the senate that email and text templates were made and are ready to send in mass as precautions.

Implementing safety Admin works with law enforcement and district

The country’s youth are walking out, marching and standing up for their lives after the shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Locally, students at Pierce participated in the National Walkout on March 14. It included a march down the Mall to protest gun violence, a week after Pierce had a credible threat of a possible shooter on March 7.

Once they were informed of the perceived threat, administration decided to immediately evacuate the campus.

Vice President of Administrative Services Rolf Schleicher said that security cameras would be a beneficial addition to campus security.

“If there is a threat on campus, the ability to get Intel and to address the threat and subdue that threat quickly is even more important than how you evacuate,” Schleicher said.

During the Pierce College Council meeting on Thursday, March 22, college President Kathleen Burke said that it wasn’t a “wait and see situation.”

Burke wrote in an email that emergency preparedness is an ongoing series of decisions and/or recommendations made by herself and forwarded to the appropriate location.

“There has been a plan to install security cameras throughout the campus that goes back a number of years,” Burke wrote. “We are waiting for the building program oversight at the District to execute that plan. Other emergency preparedness activities are handled strictly on campus, such as the decision to place regular and ongoing emergency training in the Office of Professional Excellence.”

Burke wrote that the incident was not related to tensions on the campus.

“To the best of our knowledge, the threat was not made by a student and not tied to any particular ‘political climate’ or ‘ideology,’” Burke wrote.

While the campus evacuated, a traffic jam formed, causing major concerns about the quickness of future evacuations.

According to the PCC, the Los Angeles Police Department was not called in and issues with traffic are being accessed in case of future incidents.

“While we could open up additional lanes of traffic to exit the campus, for example the inbound lanes could temporarily be made outbound lanes, there is still only a certain amount of traffic that can be accommodated on the surrounding city streets at any one time,” Burke wrote in an email.

The California Highway Patrol said that in case of a future emergency, they should be contacted for evacuation assistance.

The Sheriff's Department is not staffed for emergency evacuation. There are not enough people, officials reported at the meeting.

On Wednesday, March 7, Pierce students were told to leave campus following a credible threat made against the college. Knowledge of the shutdown was spread via LACCD email and sheriff’s deputies blaring the information over their loudspeakers as they rolled down the mall in their squad car.

Some students and professors learned of the college shut down from peers rather than from official information released by Pierce or the Los Angeles Community College District, which led to bemused, disorganized exoduses from some classes.

To increase safety and overall security during a campus shutdown, Pierce College should emphasize a comprehensive and thorough evacuation procedure and drill students and faculty in the steps it would involve.

Pierce’s website says that the college has “emergency procedures on evacuations, general safety, communications, and response to a major disaster.”

But these procedures are not taught to students or, as made evident by the response to the credible threat on March 7, emphasized by faculty.

Pierce’s evacuation procedure, which is outlined in the Emergency Preparedness Booklet located somewhere in every class, offers directions for students to follow and includes the steps that a designated “Building Emergency Evacuation Coordinator” is meant to take to ensure that individuals on campus remain safe.

The directions in this procedure are suitably thorough, but they need to be imparted to those on campus.

Pierce should dedicate a day each semester to staging an evacuation drill, similar to the Great California Shakeout earthquake drill held every October.

-Corrections-

Volume 128, Issue 5:

Page 4: In the story "Strings and bows put on a show" the Schrubert String Quintet was referred to as a quartet. They are a quintet.

Page 7: In the story "Reserves depleted " the general fund budget is referred to as having $8-10 million. The general fund has a budget of $72 million. There is a seperate fund for specially funded programs which has the budget of $8-10 million.

If you would like to have the newspaper delivered to your classroom please email newsroom. roundupnews@gmail.com

See any corrections we missed?

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"You should be 25. There shouldalsobeyearly renewals for licenses. We have to start somewhere. We wonʼtknowuntilweactually trysomething.Anything wouldhelpatthispoint."

-FlorArreguin,19,Social Science

This drill could cover how faculty can maintain order in their classrooms following an announcement that there is a credible threat to the campus, how faculty and students can cooperate to ensure a successful egress to a designated safe zone, and where students outside of class can safely evacuate.

Staging a drill would help familiarize students and faculty with the steps involved in the procedure and increase the likelihood that it would be carried out safely and fluidly in the event of an actual evacuation. Communication also needs to be addressed—a simple email is an inadequate method of bringing awareness to a credible threat and campus evacuation. To properly convey to all present on campus that an emergency has arisen and there is a necessary procedure to be followed because of it, Pierce should install an intercom system. Students and faculty need to be made aware of an emergency as it unfolds.

Knowledge is power. And the knowledge of what to do in the event of an evacuation order has the power to keep us all safe during our time at Pierce.

Would you feel safe knowing there is an armed minor walking around campus and in public surroundings?

Allowing people younger than 21 to purchase firearms is the wrong decision, and thinking that they will only use it in reasonable situations is juvenile.

Being unaware of the intentions of minors who carry guns can be a serious threat to students and communities.

In the article titled “Children and Guns: The Hidden Toll,” The New York Times wrote of the 2012 death of Cassie Culpepper.

Culpepper, who was 11-years old at the time of her death, was with her 12-year-old brother when he began to play with his father’s gun. The article said he had been given the gun to scare off animals such as coyotes. Culpepper was accidentally shot and killed by her brother as he played with the gun.

According to The Washington Post, states such as Arizona, Vermont, Alaska and Wyoming allow concealed carry without any permit. Vermont, however, stands out from the list because it allows people as young as 16 to carry concealed weapons and purchase handguns without parental permission

So, a 16 year old from Vermont can’t legally go to an R-rated movie alone or join the military, but he or she can legally buy a handgun and carry it.

While the thought of someone handing a gun to someone under the age of 18 probably makes most people uncomfortable, there are minors living in California who own guns without a license. In some cases, these minors receive guns from adults who make the purchases for them.

According to the California Firearms Law Summary of 2016, published by oag.ca.gov, this practice is known as a straw purchase.

“A straw purchase is buying a firearm for someone who is prohibited by law from possessing one, or buying a firearm for someone who does not want his or her name associated with the transaction,” the summary said.

The summary suggests that a straw purchase can result in a 10 year felony charge and a fine no greater than $250,000.

According the CNN.com article, “A generation raised on gun violence sends a loud message to adults: Enough,” authors Emanuella Grinberg and Holly Yan wrote that thousands of students showed support during a nationwide school walkout on March 14.

Children and minors should not be given firearms at such a young age and shouldn’t be taught about violence. Lowering the age to purchase a firearm can increase the amount lives lost due to gun violence.

ROSA ORTEGA Reporter @RosaGabOrtega

Days after the Parkland, Florida shooting, I shared a video with my friends which showed a little girl receiving a rifle from her parents as a birthday present.

We thought it was ridiculous.

But I also thought, what would be the purpose of raising the legal age to buy weapons if those who are of legal age could just purchase a gun for a minor?

Guns will always land in wrong hands, and age has nothing to do with it.

Instead of focusing on raising the age to purchase firearms, our country should focus on teaching our youths about guns and gun safety.

In school, no one ever taught me about the risk of guns or how to own a gun safely. I knew a lot of my friends’ parents had guns and that they had access to the key to where the guns were stored. Others simply admitted that their parents kept their weapons in drawers, and they had easy access to them.

According to an article published by Everytown titled “Analysis of School Shootings,” in cases where minors caused a shooting, above half of the guns involved were from inside the home. Most incidents were also started by verbal arguments.

Even though purchasers are subject to thorough background checks, guns still somehow enter the wrong hands. There are also illegal gun sellers who don’t check who they’re selling to. the responsibility of the student newspaper staff. Under appropriate state and federal court decisions, these materials are free from prior restraint by the virtue of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. Accordingly, materials published herein, including any opinions expressed, should not be interpreted as the position of the L.A. Community College District, the college or any officer or employee thereof.

According to Giffords Law Center, the statistics show that more than half a million guns are stolen and sold illegally, most being handguns.

It is our right as Americans, as stated in the second amendment, to bear arms. Creating more regulations would violate that right. It is up to us to be responsible enough to own guns and keep our kids safe, but the government can only step in so far before violating our right to own weapons.

Taking away guns will not decrease the amount of crime in America.

We all know of people who are under 21, though they drink alcohol. If more gun regulations are put into place, they will work the same way. Raising the age to obtain a gun will not keep people from finding a way to kill or hurt others.

According to Gun-Control. ProCon.org, Mexico is an example of this.

“[Mexico has] the strictest gun control laws in the world, and yet, in 2012, Mexico had 11,309 gun murders," the website wrote.

Raising the age to obtain guns is not going to fix the gun violence problem. Guns will still be available illegally, and those who wish to obtain them will. Kids should be educated about guns so that they can make smart choices, and counselors and parents should be aware of the issues and feelings facing adolescents, to prevent a tragedy.