What's Going on with the Stockton Unified School District?

This is a more sensitive topic than I am used to discussing (sorry Dan), however, it is an issue that I am genuinely concerned about, as it has to do with my community and the future of it. Pretty much the entire year I’ve been living out here, I’ve only been hearing negative things about the school district. From listening to first hand accounts of brutal incidents within these schools to reading through articles like the ones above, I think it’s safe to say that we just need to be doing better here… 

So apparently the most recent news about the SUSD has to do with its headquarters being raided with search warrants. No one credible has disclosed what they were being raided for, but there’s a lot of speculation regarding irresponsible use of public funds, inappropriate relations with the students, etc. I’m sure a lot of different school districts experience corruption similar to this, but again, these are only the most recent events on the negative track record that exists within the SUSD. 

Previously, the school district has faced backlash for the many cases of violence and assault between students. There are a shit ton of fights that happen in Stockton schools… like an un-proportional amount… really shameful to see. I was scrolling through Instagram reels the other night, and I found an account dedicated to bathroom fights within a local middle school. Bathroom fights in middle school were definitely a thing when I was growing up, but they weren’t very common and we definitely didn’t promote this activity via social media (Instagram wasn’t even a thing back then). 

Unfortunately, this is not where the violence stops. I was talking to a friend of mine who grew up here and she had told me that when she was in high school, a strange man trespassed her campus and slit a student’s throat. The student did not survive. In 1989, the very first mass school shooting also took place here in Stockton, at Cleveland Elementary- 6 students were killed and 32 were injured. 

https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/stockton/stockton-stabbing-stagg-high-school-student/103-7c1199a8-ff65-454d-9276-1a7c848b7e10

So between the corruption and violence within the SUSD, there is a root issue and commonality here that I cannot exactly put my finger on. I’m still sitting here trying to figure out, what makes Stockton schools so bad? Hell, I wouldn’t want to send my children here if I had any, or at least I wouldn’t have any peace of mind sending them here. It seems like it has already garnered the attention of law enforcement. So what is it? Does it require better leadership? Do we need to promote a higher level of ethical standards within these schools? Does security need to be stepped up? I don’t know, but I hope to revisit this issue again in the future.

God bless the school system,

God bless,

Producer Reese