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I like a fence. But if you’re going to do it, don’t make it look like a damn prison. Whatever happened to a nice brick wall with some pointy ironwork on top of it? It serves the same function as a fence topped in razor wire. But it provides that function without making the place look like a prison. I know it’s way more expensive than a chain link fence. But damn. What is the value of the damage done to the souls of all the students that have to go to school behind razor wire. All schools should be surrounded by big brick walls with pointy bits of cast iron on them. Now it’s classy and doesn’t feel like the fucking state penitentiary.
Well, you see, damaging the souls of students is kind of the point. Undamaged souls aren’t submissive, and thus make bad wage slaves.
The school I went to for years one through six here in Sweden had a mostly fenced yard, it was a large yard, with football fields, a grass field, several swing sets, a zip line, exposed sewer pipes, wooded areas, stone staircases and more.
It had a low fence that had several unguarded entrences/exists that were completely open, there was no control of if any student left the yard, but it very seldom happened.
In years 7 through 9, we had no school yard as sutch, sure, there was a small, mostly paved area that belonged to the school and was a yard, but no real fencing.
In year 10 through 13 “gymnasiet” there was zero fencing, and no one cared if you left the school area on your breaks.
I see no reason not to.
Depends. I went to a exurb elementary school and it didn’t need a fence - walk through the woods until you get bored. However I’ve also seen schools where there is a busy road nearby and they need something to stop the kids that would run that way. (older kids would not, but very young will run without looking and a few special needs kids have no sense of what is safe)
Exactly, it entirely depends on context. In a big city they all have to be fenced, but in a rural area where the playground is in a giant open field then it’s fine to be unfenced
Dude from where I’m from schools are built like prisons by default: tall external walls, a single big black gate for entrance, ugly indoors without any personality, no locker rooms… We Don’t have metal detectors though, only Americans have type of issues
Fences are fine. Especially for young kids near the playground and streets.
Except the fact you need to maintain it (which will be in the form of a replacement every 73 years when enough kids get stabbed by it) and it needs to have enough exit points in case of emergency. It shouldn’t funnel everyone to one spot in the front.
Yeah but it depends.
An elementary school near me recently replaced their chest-height chain-link fence with a 10ft steel bar fence with spikes on top. There’s some benefits to a fence, but the spikes just make it seem menacing. And I guess more abstractly, it communicates that school is a dangerous place that’s walled-off from the rest of the world rather than a place that’s just like any other part of society. This is in the USA, I should mention, so maybe the cynical message is more accurate.Just put a big sports ground in the back. That tends to have a fence anyways. You can leave the front an open area with buildings to each side. That’ll provide another barrier without looking like a prison.
Sure, otherwise the
inmatesclassmates might escape.Electrified razor wire right?
No joke we actually had barbed wire fence around my high school. Magnetically sealed doors and cops stationed at the only entrance they didn’t lock all day.
I’m in favor of them. Just from a utilitarian standpoint, it helps to be able to demarcate the bounds of a school so that you don’t have random people just wandering up throughout the day mistaking a schoolyard for a park and causing disruptions. Moreover, it gives kids the freedom to roam relatively unsupervised during recess/break time without worry of them wandering off somewhere. In densely-populated areas, it’s basically a necessity to fence off athletic fields as well to prevent any accidental damage to nearby property if a ball goes flying.
There’s a lot that can be done to make school buildings feel less prison like, but a fence is just a fence and is innocuous enough.
I’m on the fence about it.
Nay. I hated elementary and middle schools that looked and felt like prisons. I’m sure it is way worse than it was twenty years ago now. The ambiance is an open threat and ode to for profit prisons
I mean it’s just an expression of disagreement. Most people aren’t fans of having their children kidnapped or them walking off and getting lost.
An expression is a reply or conversation, these have value. Anonymous negativity to strangers is psychotic behavior.
I went to highschool with a k-12 magnet school in a building from 1910. It was a beautiful historic building and was a wonderful change from the previous prison environments. No one wondered off or got abducted. It was even in a rough neighborhood and area. The grounds are of no concern here. If the kids are leaving, it is on purpose and there are far bigger issues at play, and again the issue is being handled like a prison mindset instead of a more practical approach.
I’m more concerned about the architecture being prison-like than the fence. We don’t need barbed wire, but having a clear boundary for little ones to stay inside the grounds during recess is a good thing.
I really wish they’d bring back natural lighting and windows that open. During the school shooting in south texas, a lot of people escaped through the windows because the building was old (late 60s early 70s). During Covid, the Europeans opened the school windows to let in fresh air on a regular basis. You couldn’t do either in a lot of the newer school buildings.
Dude, up/down votes are how this thing works. Don’t take the system personally.
Again anyone that feels this way is not someone I value or wish to interact with at all. The fact that anyone like this can see my posts when I have blocked them is a disgusting violation of trust. All I can do is request others to block me until I encounter an alternative to Lemmy that better fits my needs. I barely survive through massive pain day to day. I have no buffer left to compensate for psychotic negativity towards strangers. If anyone has something to say, then say it, but to be negative at diverse and opposing points of view is a regression into stupidity, echo chambers, and eventually global conflict as differences grow and accumulate. I want nothing to do with a culture or community like this. Down voting is for pointing out, bad bots, shills, trolls, and other meta problems. Suppressing discussion and diverse opinions is adolescent nonsense.
If you don’t want downvotes, you may find yourself happier on an instance that does not enable downvotes.
I’ve tried it but the scope was too limited for my interests. I would absolutely use Beehaw if they remained federated with dot world and other large instances.
Yes, and barbed wire, Czech hedgehogs, guard towers with snipers.
Jokes aside apart from preventing a ball flying into traffic during recess what are we trying to achieve?
how else are we supposed to have security theater preventing school shootings?
It’s different everywhere in the US. I grew up in California. Graduated HS 1989. My elementary and high schools were completely fenced in while the middle school i attended was not at the time, but has been for some time now. Even in high school it was a closed campus and only Seniors were allowed to leave at lunch if their parents signed off on it. It was called “Senior Privileges.” I had a friend that went to Highschool about 40mi from me and they had an open campus and everyone could leave at lunch. No clue how those decisions were made, but his HS had a literal smoking section on campus for students. The 80s were a different time.
They fenced my son’s school this summer. Previously it was only the playground and field that was fenced. New fence is 4 ft high, no gates, just gaps at walk ways.
At first I was unhappy about it, feeling that it cut the school off from the community. But then my son and I arrived early one day and had his soccer ball, we were able to really play on a lawn that would have been too small without a fence. So I can see that the fence creates more usable space for the school. And I’ve come around.
