– News covered by Quincy Quarry News with commentary added.

Guarding a campus
An old Ben Margot/AP photo

Quincy High School student protest forum recap.

While other area media were barred from attending Monday night’s Parents and Guardians Forum at Quincy High School that was held in the wake of last Friday’s student protest and walkout at the school over racial discrimination, sexual harassment, as well as personal safety while at school, Quincy Quarry’s reporter who covered the event was greeted by a couple of school department senior managers as well as assigned to one of the breakout discussion rooms by one of them.

While overall the Quarry reporter found the forum pretty much the usual sort of defusing response undertaken by flak catchers when things hit the fan, a number of parents still managed to express how their children did not feel safe at school except when they are in class.

Time spent traveling through school corridors was described as running a gauntlet and bathroom visits were said to be avoided whenever possible or at least carefully planned. 

Test anxiety may be the least of the problems at Quincy High
A WHDH image

Bullying is thus only reasonably assumed to be a problem at Quincy High School as well as is subjected upon most anyone smaller, a minority, seen as merely but perhaps a bit different, and/or female.

Further, complaints to school administrators were said to go next to nowhere as well as that the School Committee was said to all too often wall job concerned parents with responses that it would be addressing parents’ concerns, only to then not do so with any sort of well-warranted alacrity.

At the same time as well as in all honesty, no one offered up what one could call an action plan even if the complaints have merit.

Additionally, no one addressed the pygmy elephant not in the room last night.  Then again, denial and fear of retribution do happen – especially, it would appear, in Quincy.

A “circular file”
An image via Sites at Penn State

Specifically, in this instance Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch – who as mayor is also the Chair of the School Committee – was MIA.  

After all, one would think that the buck stops in his expansive and expensively custom carpeted office suite inside of City Hall; however, the buck was apparently lost in a corner or perhaps filed away in “a circular file.”

Then again, perhaps he was already scheduled to be at a campaign fundraising event or simply could not be bothered during dinnertime.

Whatever the excuse for his absence, at the end of the day, Mayor and School Committee Chair Koch is not only unarguably accountable for the said to be long-ongoing problems that fueled last week’s wholly understandable student protest, he also is open to being seen as having culpability given both his actions and nonactions.

The brief for culpability follows.

Who is afraid of Chalk Talk?
A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel image

Over a year ago and in the wake of perfectly peaceful local Black Lives Matter rallies, Mayor Koch gobsmackingly spewed unconscionable hot talk which the Boston broadsheet then duly labeled as inexcusable as well as also questioned his fitness for the job.

After all, role models also matter.

Then earlier in the year this year, he pointedly refused to honor the City Council’s vote that the City of Quincy establish a Department of Social Equity and Equity as he felt it was not needed.

Oopsey …

Kayfabe also happens
A file photo

Even more troubling, last month during one of his good old boys’ happy yack podcasts, Mayor Koch spun kayfabe – if not also pimped fake news false narrative hot talk – that Critical Race Theory was detrimentally impacting public schools.

So what for the stubborn facts that Critical Race Theory classes are only offered at some law schools and a few colleges whereas Critical Race Theory itself is is not a part of any public school system’s curriculum, much less in Quincy,

And just yesterday, Mayor Koch went to a new low even though the hard-bitten team at Quincy Quarry suspected that such was probably not possible.

Not only did Mayor Koch summarily dismiss the Quincy HIgh students speaking up over their long ongoing frustrations over an abusive school environment as “unproductive,” but he was also thoroughly disingenuous with various of his other comments.

A Yarn gif

Specifically, he foisted all manner of bogus notions as to what triggered the student protest occurred, all of which by the way surely but coincidentally had nothing to do with him.

In short, appalling is a wholly inadequate word to describe what Mayor Koch shoveled so as to endeavor to duck his official accountability as both the mayor and School Committee Chair as well as that he also concurrently attempted to bury his undeniable responsibility with the bovine byproduct that he was shoveling.

Time to do the right thing?
A file photo

That and – again, showing his abject cowardice by not showing up at last night’s forum even if in fairness it must be noted that those in the auditorium included mama bear hockey moms.

In turn, Quincy Quarry cannot help but opine that perhaps the former common Japanese practice when someone in charge ends up being a failure could prove to be useful as a new local custom.

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