KIC Club Gets Lesson In Personal Safety

By Susan Coney

The Newtown Middle School Kids In Charge (KIC) Club got a lesson in personal safety from school nurse, Barbara Reilly and school resource officer Gladys Pisani, on Wednesday, March 29.

Fifteen students who regularly attend the KIC Club sessions attended the workshop, which is designed to help teens make wise decisions when it comes to issues regarding personal safety and health.

During the after-school session students viewed videotapes of reenacted and real life emergency situations dealing with teens and guns. The students watched one tape depicting a situation where a teen shot a friend while playing with a gun in the home. The second video showed news footage of a school shooting. The videos served to bring forth discussions about what to do when confronted with knowledge that a dangerous situation may take place.

Officer Pisani stressed that television glamorizes guns, when in fact guns kill and maim people, making them far from glamorous. She emphasized that if a student knows of a possible dangerous situation he/she must tell someone. She also made it clear to the students that there is a difference between tattling and telling. Tattling is done to get someone into trouble, telling is done to get help.

Officer Pisani and Ms Reilly engaged the students in a dialogue helping the students to understand the numerous community resources available to them in the event they feel a dangerous situation may occur. All of the students at Reed Intermediate School, the middle school, and high school receive a red student safety hot line card at the beginning of the school year, which provides an emergency phone number students may call to report a possible dangerous threat or situation.

“The student safety card rings to an anonymous hotline. If you don’t want to tell someone face-to-face, you can call the number and be connected with an emergency dispatcher. The call is not traced. You should always go with your instinct. If your instinct tells you something is wrong you need to do something to prevent it. It is always better to be safe than sorry,” Officer Pisani stated.

Students gave several reasons for not telling about potentially dangerous situations. Fear of losing a friend, fear of retaliation, not wanting to be viewed as a tattletale, and not wanting to get in trouble themselves were all cited as reasons kids don’t tell.

The personal safety course also covered what students should do if someone who has been drinking offers them a ride. A scenario was presented to the group asking how they would handle a particular situation and the students discussed alternative solutions.

Officer Pisani provided the students with an opportunity to try walking a straight line down the hallway of the school wearing special goggles that are designed to simulate similar impairment to that of intoxication. The officer reminded the students that the goggles only affected the vision, not the other senses or the brain as real intoxication would. The students had fun trying to make their way down the hallway, most veering into the walls. School principal Diane Sherlock tried her skills and found it very difficult to walk wearing the goggles.

Seventh grader Jane Ellen Anderson said, “It felt like the floor was tilted and you were going to fall over.” Michael Chevalier said he took the class because it seemed like it would be fun and he would learn a lot about how to be safe. Eighth grader Jacey Mattegat said, “It is a really fun class to take. I really liked taking it because I am learning skills I can use everyday.”

Ms Reilly offers the KIC Club course every year. Students in the seventh and eighth grade are welcome to take the course, which offers lifesaving skills, first aid, and personal safety lessons. The sessions offer students a safe, nonthreatening environment in which to ask questions and also provides the opportunity to learn new life skills. Eighth grader Missy Thomson-Ferrara summed up the course by saying, “The KIC Club is good. It is especially helpful if you have younger siblings. If you saved someone because you took this course and knew what to do you would feel so good about yourself.”