St. Paul Public Schools and city leaders gathered Tuesday to address questions about school safety just days after a Harding High School student was murdered in the school’s hallway and his classmate faces charges.
“Truthfully you go into these things and you believe you have an idea of what it’s going to take for a school community to come back together,” said Superintendent Dr. Joe Gothard at a press conference. “I don’t know that answer…right now.”
Questions surrounding school safety are the backdrop to both Monday night’s candlelight vigil to remember 15-year-old Devin Scott, whom police say was stabbed and killed by a 16-year-old boy, also a Harding student, and the re-opening of the school on Wednesday.
St. Paul Public Schools ended its official relationship with St. Paul police shortly after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, meaning there aren’t any school resource officers in place. Instead, district staff hired and trained school safety liaisons, who are armed with pepper spray. After the stabbing, Gothard said the district will add one more to each of its high schools.
“It’s an important piece of who staff on the front lines are, in terms of meeting students, meeting families, meeting new students, and making sure that they feel welcome, making sure that there’s a relationship that’s built that’s positive,” Gothard said.
He also said there is no plan in place currently for placing metal detectors in the schools, which requires the equipment, the training, and staff in place to handle the thousands of students who come through the doors each day. In a criminal complaint, authorities noted the knife used to kill Scott was a folding knife with a four-inch blade.
Gothard said he welcomes the opportunity to discuss more safety initiatives in partnership with the city.
“Safety is a complicated subject. There’s many right answers,” he said. “For us to land on one that is going to keep everybody safe, there’s no quick solution to that. There’s no quick fix.”
“We stand ready to help, 24-7, as long as the school district needs it, until that time when we can have those conversations to creating what that new future looks like,” said St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry, who was joined at the press conference by Mayor Melvin Carter.
Meanwhile, Gothard said he’s encouraged by the outpouring of support from community members in the wake of the tragedy last week.
“One of the themes I’m most comforted by is the number of people who have reached out to say ‘What can I do to help?’” Gothard said. “It hasn’t been ‘What are you doing?’ It’s been ‘What can I do to help?’”
