I know what you are saying. I've lived in a fantasy world until I moved to Reading (lucky to be the one of the highest murder rates per capita in the country... yippie) We have a lot... and I mean a lot of gang related incidents here. There are at least 6 gangs in the city. My husband teaches in the city and has 6th graders joining them. We had a gang try to buy up a whole block of house less than two blocks from my house! Fortunately the locals stopped it before its happened.

One student had his father shot point blank this year. The father was dealing drugs. One of my kids' friend's father and brother were arrested for attempted murder during a drug deal. Its everywhere and darn scary. My house is beautiful but the value is plummeting because of all of this violence. I am very good about calling the cops - and even managed to help bust a house down the street that was a drug house because of my calls. Hey, when you walk a dog 3 times a day you start to see a pattern to strangers walking in and out of houses!

I don't know what we can do about it. My husband says its because the teachers are so tied to do anything. They see these kids starting to get into trouble early but yet can't correct them or get involved. He has students tell him point blank to go F himself and these kids don't get a detention once they're sent to the office - the parents scome ranting and raving in that somehow my husband has something against their kid - or that he's racist. Please! The kids are being brats! Who cares what color you are - if you're bad, you're bad and should pay the price in detention... but once they realize they won't get into trouble, it escalates and they become fearless until they start breaking the rules outside of school. If teachers won't cacth them, how are the overworked and underpaid police going to?