Council Member MacCugan-Cassidy says city ‘needs to step up’
The bullying problem on Avalon has been plaguing parents and children for a long time. Some parents have pulled their kids from the school out of concern for their safey.
This week, it came up during the public comments segment of the City Council.
During the meeting, Council Member Cinde MacGugan-Cassidy said that, as of this week, there has been an escalation of physical and emotional abuse at Avalon School. She criticized “a very serious lack of consequences from the school district and the Sheriff’s Department.”
She said the city needed to say enough is enough.
Her comments were sparked by remarks made about bullying by the CEO of the Catalina Island Medical Center during the public comment segment of Tuesday’s council meeting.
Jason Paret, head of the Medical Center, said his family had pulled their daughter out of the school to be home schooled.
Paret said the status of Avalon School affects the ability of the hospital to recruit employees.
According to Paret, the Catalina Island Company, the Catalina Island Conservancy and he thought the city were also having an issue.
Mayor Anni Marshall said she was sorry Paret’s daughter had been pulled out of school. She said there needed to be a “pow-wow” with the school district, the principal and law enforcement.
She wondered when the school district would really try to change things.
“We’ve been going through this process for two years now,” Paret said. “We’ve all said, ‘good, we’re making headway.’ But the two incidents that have occurred in the past three, four months have been out of control.”
He said the work of the past two or three years had done nothing or made things worse.
According to Paret, children were being severely hurt and other children were compiling death lists, yet Long Beach Unified had not alerted parents. “It’s almost like they desire to sweep things under the carpet and hope nobody finds out,” Paret said.
“I know I’m not the only parent, and employer, that has a serious issue with this,” Paret said.
“The school is the single biggest reason not to live on this island,” Paret said.
Chamber of Commerce President Jim Luttjohann said the subject of bullying had overtaken many Chamber board meetings.
“It is an obstacle across the board for our membership,” Luttjohann.
“I’ve even been one of the attendees at the Long Beach Unified School District and was met with an almost zero level response,” Luttjohann said.
Cassidy, a parent who has been working with other parents on this issue, said, “The city of Avalon itself needs to step in and have a voice on behalf of all of its community members.”
Cassidy said that the methodology that the parents group she belonged to for the last two years had been to gather the facts, explain their concerns, work with the school, and get the superintendent to come to the island. According to Cassidy, it had been “empty promise after empty promise.”
Cassidy pointed out that more than 700 individuals on Avalon had signed a petition asking for the school district to pay attention.
