Posted on 02/27/2018 8:34:44 PM PST by Flintlocks Wife
"It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t have looked at this child a little more closely before transitioning him to Stoneman Douglas."
Retired Cross Creek teacher Joe Carrier
From Westglades, Cruz was transferred to Cross Creek School, a K-12 program with intensive programming for kids with emotional and behavioral disabilities. Retired Broward teacher Joe Carrier taught a woodworking class at Cross Creek while Cruz attended the school, and remembers Cruz as “a quiet kid” who kept to himself and appeared to be “mildly autistic.”
“He was odd but never showed any sign of aggression,” Carrier said. Cruz never had fights with other students in Carrier’s class and never discussed his life outside of school with the teacher. “He was really withdrawn,” Carrier said.
At Cross Creek, students always have access to counselors and can ask for “time outs” during the day if they feel frustrated or upset, Carrier said. A student who needs a break from class can visit his or her counselor or take a walk outside with a teacher’s aid to “de-stress.” Carrier said he doesn’t recall Cruz asking to see a counselor during his class and said that if he did, it wasn’t a frequent occurrence.
“Nikolas was a very odd child and we never really pushed him academically at Cross Creek to where he would face frustration or kids were belittling him,” Carrier said. That may have changed when Cruz got to Stoneman Douglas, where former classmates said he was bullied.
While students at Cross Creek receive regular counseling and the school is prepared to handle emotional outbursts, Carrier added, the lack of support at a regular school can be difficult for children with behavioral issues.
“It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t have looked at this child a little more closely before transitioning him to Stoneman Douglas,” Carrier added.
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
Miami Herald’s article, “Parkland Shooter always in trouble, never expelled. Could school system have done more?” includes the sweet spot of a solution that might have helped Nikolas Cruz tremendously and avoided this whole calamity. Contained in the above excerpt from this article are the comments of a woodworking teacher, Joe Carrier, who taught at the Cross Creek School, a program for kids with emotional and behavioral disabilities. Cruz spent time there. Notice and pay close attention to Mr. Carrier’s comments. He “remembers Cruz as a ‘quiet kid’ who kept to himself and appeared to be ‘mildly autistic’” and added, “He was odd but never showed any sigh of aggression”. Cruz “never had fights with other students in Carrier’s class”. The approach that Cross Creek School employed concerning the use of methods to handle emotional outbursts, timeouts, walks with a teacher’s aide to de-stress, availability of counselors, non-pressure in nonacademic areas, and NO BULLYING needs a much closer look as a potential solution to a perilous problem. The Cross Creek School seems to have the needed elements to make the situation Cruz faced work and possibly put him on a different path. When he was returned to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School, he faced a large (over 3000 students) school population containing substantial ingredients of bullying and ridicule. The special education literature is replete with situations covering such problems, and if addressed with good teachers and other school personnel, the student can rise to his full positive potential. Joe Carrie spoke of a solution that has unfortunately only appeared at the edges of the discussions on the Parkland shooting. Notice Mr. Carrier’s contribution of some important comments. These approaches have worked elsewhere, and the resulting possibility of a child’s life turned around can be beautiful.
Some kids simply cannot be “mainstreamed” in school.
Some adults cannot be mainstreamed into society.
That is why we have prisons and (used to have) mental hospitals.
I guess that is outdated thinking that doesn’t fit leftist ideology.
They could have stopped sucking at the government teat and told Obama and Holder “FU” when they said “Stop disciplining and arresting your child criminals or lose your money.”
Cruz started throwing eggs at Speno’s car with no warning, Speno recalled. He and a friend chased Cruz back to his house. "We were pissed off, so we knocked on the door and his mom came out," Speno said. When the two told her what happened, Cruz’s mom had a strange reaction. "She said, ‘No, my son would never do that. He’s inside sleeping,’ " Speno recalled.
It wasn’t up to the school. Others could have done something, though, because he was a danger to himself and others.
Bump
Well it takes a village to ignore a loon. And this chap by other accounts had a lurking evil side.
Is Cross Creek a private Christian school? That could explain why the trouble was in abeyance — there was a spiritual side.
Nikolas Cruz was “mainstreamed” back into the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School. It looks like the Cross Creek School has a special education environment which dealt with those students who have emotional and behavioral disabilities. The problem is that he was mainstreamed back into a school with 3100 plus students - NOT a good idea.
Since schools want such control over children and their behavior, in this case, they must take full responsibility for this massacre as well.
“Some kids simply cannot be “mainstreamed” in school. Some adults cannot be mainstreamed into society. That is why we have prisons and (used to have) mental hospitals.”
Society often creates those it fears and who hurt others. Cruz had multiple strikes against him, and all those adults who encountered him at school and elsewhere failed to see a gathering storm and protect others from him and him from himself.
The problems in Broward County will not go away until the voters in Broward County get rid of the liberal, left-wing, progressive “Hate America” Democrat Party. It’s the voters that are the problem. I mourn and cry for the innocents slaughtered by Nikolas Cruz, but I do not mourn for their families, most of whom voted for the Democrats that are directly responsible for this monsters slaughter.
You Broward County voters knew that Sheriff, Scott Israel was a loose left-wing nutcase ever since the shootings at Fort Lauderdale Airport.
It starts with, Democrats, Wasserman Schultz, Deutch, the school Administrators, Sheriff, Israel and his police department. The good news is the rest of the country realizes who the real murderers are: Cruz & the Broward county Democrat Party. Had their been a Conservative party in power....this nutcase, lunatic, Obamabot kid, would have been locked up long ago, and...these beautiful innocent murdered children and their hero teachers would be alive today.
Shame on every Democrat voter in Broward County. You should all hang your heads in shame. Yes, Virginia, guns are not the real problem...people are. There are evil people such as Cruz in this world, that are granted license by power hungry power politicians to reek havoc, murder and destruction. Keep it up Broward County and you will have more the Fort Lauderdale Airport & local High School murders, that you have eagerly endorsed by your own votes. SAD!! GO FIGURE...folks!!!
I don’t think that was the case here. Looking through the record it’s shocking how many people lined up to screw the hell out of this kid, and then how many people turned a blind eye to his years of begging for help.
This situation was all but manufactured by the sick ethics of modern, post-God society. At every level, evil was done to that helpless child... it should surprise no one that he eventally decided to lash out, having exhausted all other options for relief.
“At Cross Creek, students always have access to counselors and can ask for “time outs” during the day if they feel frustrated or upset, Carrier said. A student who needs a break from class can visit his or her counselor or take a walk outside with a teacher’s aid to “de-stress.”
Can you imagine ANY student in this atmosphere graduating with the skills to compete with the desperate foreigners pouring into our country? We are so #&@%ed...
Didn’t I read that there’s a law that you can’t kick kids out of school even if they threaten to blow it up or something else terrible.
As part of moves to pretty up the showing of the schools.
It took a village to muck this up.
Actually quite a few may, if they don’t pass into a vacuum but into a church that really means it to the Lord. It didn’t say that everybody had to do it all the time. Some people seem to put secular, self proud derring-do above all else. As for the foreigners pouring in, at least a partial solution is possible.
Crazy people dont get less crazy by association with sane people. Its the sane who suffer.
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