SEATTLE — About 50,000 students are starting a new school year across Washington state's largest district - Seattle Public Schools.
Among them are Garfield High School students who are mourning the death of a classmate - 17-year-old Amarr Murphy-Paine.
Murphy-Paine was shot and killed in front of the building in June. Seattle Police have not yet announced any arrests in the case.
That shooting was among several violent incidents to happen outside of the high school. A shootout took place between two cars near the school’s campus in April and a drive-by shooting injured a 17-year-old girl who was waiting at a bus stop in March.
At Ingraham High School - a 14-year-old shot and killed 17-year-old Ebenezer Haile in November of 2022.
New safety plan
Amid calls for action to prevent further violence - SPS and the City of Seattle released a plans for a pilot program in late August.
It will be implemented during the 2024-2025 school year at 11 high schools and middle schools the district identified as having the highest rates of violence in and around their campuses.
The high schools in the program include Rainier Beach, Garfield, Chief Sealth International, Franklin, and Ingraham. Middle schools include Aki Kurose, Washington, Denny, Mercer, Robert Eagle Staff, and Meany.
According to SPS - a $14.55 million investment will go to mental health supports, violence prevention and intervention, community partnerships, and other resources.
As staffing allows- the Seattle Police Department will focus patrol officers, during critical times such as before school, during lunch, and after school for the five focus high schools - Rainier Beach, Garfield, Chief Sealth International, Franklin, and Ingraham.
'One death is too many. There's been more than one death.'
KING 5 sat down with SPS families after the new safety plan was released.
Two mothers with children who attend Garfield and Rainier Beach high schools say while they're optimistic, their concerns remain.
Students are also questioning how this plan will be any different from past efforts to prevent violence.
"It's a little too late for them to start caring, in my opinion," said Nyshae Griffin, a senior at Garfield. "Someone's life was already taken. Someone's gone and I feel like, you know, them trying to fix it or clean it up or finally start taking this stuff seriously is like...where were you a year ago? A couple months ago when we needed it before?"
Rainier Beach Junior Oteko Mwamba said he believes his school does "a good job" with security and for the most part, he feels safe. However, he says his school is not immune from violent incidents on or around campus.
"It took multiple children's lives being lost to make a serious plan on how to stop this," Mwamba said. "It shows lackluster effort and the lack of want with a lack of desire to keep our students safe."
Mwamba said he likes the idea of having more mental health support and awareness throughout the district, but he is less confident in how an increased police presence will impact student safety.
"I'm a little indifferent on police presence," Mwamba said. "My experience is anecdotal, but when I was in middle school, I had police presence. It was more of the same cops that were in the schools. So, our community centers, they were also at football games and basketball games. They felt like people that were just members of the community. So, that's what made us feel safer. Not really the fact that they were cops, but the fact that they were just people looking out."
Garfield senior Nyshae Griffin said she has mixed emotions about the upcoming school year and the new safety plan.
"There have been a lot of issues, like, all of my years since going to Garfield. There has been something going on every single year," Griffin said. "I feel like they always try to make a new initiative or new plan, but there's not a lot of follow-through. So, I feel like it shouldn't take someone's life for you guys, to take this seriously, but I do feel like they might actually stand on it and take our safety a bit more seriously."
Both Mwambe and Griffin said the factors causing violence inside schools or on school grounds are linked to what's happening within the communities where schools are located.
"I don't 100% feel safe," Griffin said. "A lot of the issues are surrounding my school since we have an open campus. So a lot of times, we'll have shelters in place because of an issue down the street or outside of it. So, it's like, though the issues are outside, it's still in my community of my school and if the issue is outside, it can get inside anytime."
Griffin's family is a Garfield family.
Her mother, Nykeesha Griffin, along with her grandparents and great-grandparents all attended their neighborhood's high school.
Nykeesha said there are larger problems impacting high schools like Garfield including gentrification and shattered trust with law enforcement.
"My child's not safe and there's not necessarily something I can do to ensure her safety, which is very concerning," Nykeesha said. "I think that there are so many factors that we may not be looking closely enough that we look at the aftermath of an incident occurring. So this is not just a gun violence issue. Sometimes policy addresses what has already happened, but we don't dig into why it happened. What are we missing from these children right now where they feel like they need a weapon? Or they need to resort to any element of violence?"
For now - Nykeesha said she will remain optimistic as her daughter begins her final year at Garfield.
"I'm appreciative that people have taken the time to think about what the needs of the students are, provide some reassurance to the parents of course because there's going to be hesitancy and concern with our children returning to the school," Nykeesha said. "I don't know the the details of the plan just yet but I'm excited to learn more and understand what they have in place."
Rainier Beach Junior Oteko Mwamba's mother - Anita Koyier-Mwamba - is the SPS Black Education Program Manager, but she spoke to KING 5 in her role as a parent.
Koyier-Mwamba described the issues SPS is facing as "complex."
"The problem is we're having this conversation in silos, so it's the law enforcement perspective, it is the district's perspective, the city's perspective and we get some information usually from Black and brown males, and that information is not widely distributed," Koyier-Mwamba said. "It's very hard to tell who's feeling isolated, who's feeling unseen. We have so many situations that make it easy to pick up a weapon, right?"
Koyier-Mwamba said it will take true community involvement and engagement to make any new safety measures impactful.
"It's not enough to have a written plan," Koyier-Mwamba said. "It's also important to engage the community. My understanding is that some of that community engagement has been happening during the summer. The question is how extensive is it? And how does the information get to families who have children in the demographic that were stakeholders?"