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Abandoned vehicles cost police time and money BY DEAN A. RADFORD dradford@rentonreporter.com
They’re cast off for whatever reason without notice or they just sit next door for days or weeks on end, not moving. Some are hard to miss, out of water: A sailboat, about 35 feet long, was left abandoned in mid October on Monster Road Southwest on south Renton, still on its trailer but without a hull number or license plate there was no way to identify the owner. The City of Renton impounds or seizes between 80 and 100 vehicles a year, most because they’ve been abandoned or not moved for 72 hours – or less likely seized as evidence in a crime. Some vehicles were stolen, or in some way caught the notice of a neighborhood. Through mid-November, the city has impounded 46 vehicles, not including those seized as evidence. The number of abandoned-vehicle com[ more ABANDONED page 5 ]
Hassle-free start to shopping More than 100 vendors helped get the local shopping season started during this past weekend’s annual Hassle-Free Holiday Bazaar at the Renton Community Center. For a full slideshow from the event, visit www.rentonreporter.com TRACEY COMPTON, Renton Reporter
Renton Schools taking a new look at bullying prevention BY TRACEY COMPTON tcompton@rentonreporter.com
The Renton School District is updating its bullying prevention materials at the high school level, which are now about 20 years old. In the last two years the district has trained all its elementary school teachers, assigned a harassment, bullying and intimidation compliance officer as required by the state, and is now developing tools for
secondary staff to use with middle and high school students. According to administration, bullying is not as widespread and out-of-control in the district as one might think. Last year there were only three cases that rose to the attention of the compliance officer, Ginny Knox. Two of the incidents were at the elementary school level and one was at a high school. The state defines it as repeated bullying of a targeted student, where there is an imbalance of power. “I think the only difference (now) is that everybody’s much more aware of it,” said Knox about the climate for bullying awareness in schools today. “So when it happens, if it ends up on the news, it’s more publi-
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cized and people are talking about it more.” Knox is quick to point out that bullying has always been around, but people used to blow it off as “kids being kids.” “They would address it, but it wouldn’t get as much attention and now people are really noticing it because there’s been some links to suicide,” said Knox. “Kids now who’ve been bullied have been doing some of the mass shootings. I mean they’re seeing that bullying really does have an effect on kids. It’s not just kids being kids; we need to address it.” Now there is a whole language and lesson plans around bullying prevention. For 20 years the district had materials from the Committee for Children’s Second Step
program that talked about empathy and inclusion, but didn’t specifically offer lesson plans on bullying prevention. Two years ago the district purchased updated materials from the same company that it has been using to train staff. Not only are classroom teachers and principals receiving training, but bus drivers and custodians, who might also encounter incidents are included too. So far, training at the elementary level has gone well and teachers are committed and engrossed in providing the curriculum. Librarians teach a cyber-bullying component at all of the elementary schools too. McKnight Middle School staff seems to [ more BULLYING page 5 ]
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Bullying cases low as district revamps 20-year-old procedures