Hi everyone, thank you so much for coming to today's meeting on uh pathways and gun violence advisory council.

Um you have a forum today, which is really exciting, even though we technically aren't voting on anything, it's nice and uh a majority of us can come.

Um we'll uh we'll have a conversation at the later part of the meeting in terms of schedule and see if the things are challenged for folks.

Uh but with that being said, um can you get our roll call please?

Council McGill, cancer stanches, I'm sorry.

Who's that?

President, thank you.

Corey Jones present Diana Darlington present.

Alan Williams is that same detective David Perez?

Present.

Michael Stevens is that Robert Bailey?

Present.

James Fonds, you have seven present six apps, so you have a form.

Thank you.

Um so the first item uh discussion on the Rhode Island Safe uh School Act that suggestions to strengthen the policy is um so this is what we've talked about in the past.

Um it's in regards to trying to secure sustainable funding uh for this type of work.

Um as you're all aware, um a lot of funding for community wise intervention and similar programs uh comes from the federal government historically we are not seeing um a lot of action uh on that end under our current uh president uh has different priorities.

So um, you know in in that aspect of trying to do our due diligence and finding funds, because we obviously know uh what needs to happen.

We we have so many people um that are doing this type of work across the city and the city around this table.

So we could definitely hash out certain details for without having uh sustainable funding sources for this type of work.

Um a lot of it like uh is being done and we want to work on it is gonna be really difficult.

So this is something that has happened in other parts of the country and it has been um converse about athletes they house before.

Um so I think uh we are gonna be joining uh firearm.

Oh what's what's the little bit about it?

Sure.

So um with the um road island safe school act.

Um I've been working on sorry I've been working on um policies to see what we can do to actually um strengthen uh some of the policies that's already intact because as of right now um under this act is only for bulletin.

So um what I'd like to see um if we could work on adding is the um commute to one from school and um once again Kennedy Plaza and uh during school hours um with our youth.

So that was the uh policies that I feel we should try to work on in strength.

Um so just to clarify, so this is an existing uh state legislation and what what you're saying or proposing is a certain amendments to be added to to that.

Correct.

Okay.

So that it also entails um, as I said, it doesn't have the um safety of our um to inform school and um during school hours and in it only uh actually flexibility.

Yeah, I was gonna say um if you could just provide like a super brief, like general overview if folks that might not be in one of you guys provide that uh for folks that might not be super familiar with the Rhode Island Safe School Act.

So I'm not super familiar, so correct me if I say anything wrong.

But what it looks like is that it was uh a statute passed by the General Assembly, and then it gave some type of policy making jurisdiction through the Department of Education, um, where they have this seven page kind of statewide bullying policy, uh June 30th, 2020 twelve.

Um, and the introduction says the statewide bullying policy is promulgated pursuant to the authorities set forth in 1621 34 of the general laws of Rhode Island, known as the Safe School Act.

The statute recognizes that the bullying of a student creates a climate of fear and disrespect that can seriously impair the student's health and negatively affect learning.

Bullying undermines the state learning environment that students need to achieve their full potential.

The purpose of the policy is to ensure a consistent and unified statewide approach to the prohibition of bullying at school.

And then it looks like the sections are definitions, school climate, uh policy oversight and responsibility, information, destination, uh reporting, investigation slash response, disciplinary action, social services slash counseling, social networking, other redress, adoption of policy.

Yeah, so I think I like those additions.

I think this is a strong piece of policy that we probably should examine, you know, through in and throughout, um, because you know, violence starts with bullying, you know, a lot of times, right.

Yeah.

No, go ahead and be so.

I just want to add that I'm glad that you were mentioning um commuting, because most recently we've had um several parents and several young people express their safety getting to and from school.

Um we have just helped, we have three young people that we are helping, but it's really just a band-aid.

So what we've done is we've given uh parents a gift card for an Uber, but which is like a hundred dollar account.

So that will probably cover for two weeks of getting them back from school.

Um, one parent in particular, she can get her child to school, but has major concerns getting him home.

Um, so that's just a band-aid fix, right?

And we don't have the funds that we can do that for everyone, but even if we did, right?

I think we have to think about the fact that we are also now putting Uber drivers drivers at risk as well.

You know, so I don't know the solution, but I just wanted to share that we've been getting a lot of calls in regards to safety with commuting, mostly commuting home is uh is a big safety concern.

And I would like just to add quickly, I mean, even just transportation just generally it is already uh a difficult uh thing for the school department and the city and different schools.

Um I remember last year when uh the school district was proposing uh reducing the length that they would cover for uh very rip the password for students.

Um so I think we're kind of we should probably try to dig a little deeper on on that issue and definitely try to find um some alternatives or other solutions.

Yeah, that's uh definitely a very popular uh unfortunately place where where a lot of um violence, you know, after school, especially is happening among the youth in the city.

Anyone have any else about Dexter Moore from uh PBSD just joined us?

Uh he's the new chief operating um officer at ABSD.