Thanks to the Gazette for its most recent coverage of High-Five Friday, without adding to the sensationalist and thoughtless flames I’ve seen elsewhere (“High-Five’s rise, fall,” March 11).
And thanks also to the Northampton police chief and superintendent for listening to community input and being willing to rethink ways to have substantive relationships between police and schoolchildren.
As a local elementary school teacher, I know we would never institute any practice that could instill fear or trauma in our students, even if it were a very small number of students. Only a parent with children of color, or children who live with the fear of deportation, can truly imagine how their child might view an officer at the school door, no matter how friendly the intention is.
Finally, thanks to the community members who have had the courage to raise these important issues.
Kim Gerould
Northampton
The writer is a teacher at the Jackson Street School.