By Jenni Beauchamp
The Dallas Morning News
ARLINGTON, Texas — Sharon Richardson lives in fear that her 14-year-old son might not make it home someday because of the city’s troublesome gang activity.
“I’m so overwhelmed with the situation,” the single mother said Saturday. “I have a lot of fear that one day I’m going to go to work and he’s going to be one of those kids who’s doing the right thing in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m afraid to let him go to the park.
“It is so bad to the point that you don’t know if it’s going to be you or your child who’s going to get hurt.”
Hundreds of parents, teachers, students, administrators and law enforcement officials shared Ms. Richardson’s concerns as they gathered Saturday for an all-day summit focusing on gang-intervention strategies in Arlington.
School officials said positive action is the best way to reach at-risk students.
“This is absolutely a community effort,” said Linda Williams, principal at Turning Point Junior High School, an alternative school in Arlington. “The biggest thing that schools can do is to give them [students] hope, a dream for the future and a goal and how to get there.”
Ms. Williams said her biggest challenges have been getting students to realize what they have in common and teaching them how to protect themselves off campus.
“It is getting them to realize that they are similar and to find common ground with each other ... [and] to help them have a plan to be safe when they leave. When they are in my school, they are mine and they are safe. When they leave my school, it’s very scary.
“I have a wall full of students who have been killed,” she said. “They were mine and came through my school. I think it has to be a partnership. Schools can only do so much. Students can only do so much, and parents can only do so much. Together, we can do so much.”
For Ms. Richardson, the city’s gangs have been a problem, particularly when members have threatened her family.
“My daughter tried it out for a while, but she got her life back on track,” she said. “I am a single mother, and I work full-time, two jobs, just to provide. She was like a second parent to my son. They were very close. There was all of that negativity for him to see.”
The problem in Arlington has only gotten worse, she said.
Her 14-year-old son, Kieron, agreed. He spoke as part of a panel discussion at the summit.
“We can all sit down and talk about it, but it isn’t going to happen unless somebody takes action,” Kieron said. “If a group of people are doing right, it’s going to make other people do right.”
“I think it’s going out of control,” said his former schoolmate, Michael Moreno Jr. “It’s gone to a different level.”
Copyright 2008 The Dallas Morning News