San Francisco Renaming Schools

[marshwiggle]

InSite Canada began operating in 2003, and we have reams of evidence from those 17 years indicating that it had a positive effect on drug deaths and treatment (as in: fewer and fewer deaths, more and more treatment).

From http://www.vch.ca/public-health/harm-reduction/supervised-consumption-sites/insite-user-statistics for 2018.

• 189,837 visits by 5,436 individuals
• An average of 337 injection room visits per day
• For the fiscal year 2017/18 443 clients accessed Onsite, the adjoining detox treatment facility, with an average stay of 11 days. Note: Clients may have been referred to other detox or treatment services elsewhere.

So the number getting treatment  at Onsite is less than 10% of the annual visitors, or about 25% more than visit Insite in one day. (Since that is the closest, and related treament facility, it probably gets most of those seeking treatment.)

[ciao_yall]

And when the drugs get to be too much, instead of offering treatment we throw them in jail with a whole lot of other people suffering from mental health crises. And we wonder why this problem continues...

If a school has a high dropout rate and/or a high failure rate, if the school "offers" tutoring, remedial help, etc. what matter is how many students actually avail themselves of it and profit by it. If no-one does, then it's not an effective solution, no matter how well intended.

The problem with this analogy is that in most places treatment resources for drug abuse are woefully inadequate.

And, it takes several tries with a person. The first time they may get clean, but relapse once or twice (or more) before finally pulling it together. That first or second time wasn't a failure, just a step in a very difficult journey.

[ciao_yall]

In the US, there are many accidental firearms deaths every year. These include things like toddler finding gun in mom's purse and shooting self, mom, sibling,etc. One case involved the birthday child at a party shooting self with gun whuch had fallen out of a relative's pocket.
An obvious "harm reduction" measure would be to give out free trigger locks to anyone and everyone. Clearly, trigger locks would prevent the kinds of deaths I mentioned. Even if only a fraction of gun owners used them, it would still reduce those accidental shootings.

I imagine most people appalled at the number of gun deaths would be somewhat unsatisfied with this "harm reduction" measure, because it doesn't get at the fundamental problem of the casual attitude towards guns that is behind those deaths. A person who casually brings a gun in their pocket to a child's birthday party, and doesn't even notice when it falls out, is a menace.

If giving out free trigger locks would be an effective way to reduce accidental shootings, I'd be all for it. If the person bringing a gun to a kid's birthday party is less likely to accidentally shoot someone there, that seems like a good thing, no?

Just because something doesn't completely fix a problem doesn't mean it isn't worth doing if it reduces some of the harms.

Something tells me someone who would bring a gun to a child's birthday party doesn't have enough sense to use a trigger lock.

[ciao_yall]

InSite Canada began operating in 2003, and we have reams of evidence from those 17 years indicating that it had a positive effect on drug deaths and treatment (as in: fewer and fewer deaths, more and more treatment).

From http://www.vch.ca/public-health/harm-reduction/supervised-consumption-sites/insite-user-statistics for 2018.

• 189,837 visits by 5,436 individuals
• An average of 337 injection room visits per day
• For the fiscal year 2017/18 443 clients accessed Onsite, the adjoining detox treatment facility, with an average stay of 11 days. Note: Clients may have been referred to other detox or treatment services elsewhere.

So the number getting treatment  at Onsite is less than 10% of the annual visitors, or about 25% more than visit Insite in one day. (Since that is the closest, and related treament facility, it probably gets most of those seeking treatment.)

That's 443 lives saved. And a ripple effect on those in their lives who would otherwise not have a role model for recovery.

I would wonder how many supervised uses the visitors used before deciding to get treatment. Of the remaining users, how many will go for treatment the following year?

[marshwiggle]

Something tells me someone who would bring a gun to a child's birthday party doesn't have enough sense to use a trigger lock.

That's exactly my point. The underlying issue is a much bigger factor than the "harm reduction" measure will affect to any great degree. See my post above, where Insite had less than 10% of its users go for treatment in 2018. That's not 10% who succeeded, (to address your earlier point), but less than 10% that even tried.

[marshwiggle]

That's 443 lives saved. And a ripple effect on those in their lives who would otherwise not have a role model for recovery.

I would wonder how many supervised uses the visitors used before deciding to get treatment. Of the remaining users, how many will go for treatment the following year?

Doesn't help the statistics; since Insite had been in business for 15 years by that point, that 443 in that year includes all of the people who may have started going there any time in the previous 15 years. The proportion is likely to be constant over time.

[Caracal]

Something tells me someone who would bring a gun to a child's birthday party doesn't have enough sense to use a trigger lock.

That's exactly my point. The underlying issue is a much bigger factor than the "harm reduction" measure will affect to any great degree. See my post above, where Insite had less than 10% of its users go for treatment in 2018. That's not 10% who succeeded, (to address your earlier point), but less than 10% that even tried.

I think you're missing the point. It makes sense to try to tie harm reduction measures to long term interventions. However, the harm reduction can be a big benefit in and of itself. In the case of drug injection facilities, you're avoiding not just deaths, but also 911 calls for overdoses. Clean needles keep people from not only getting diseases, but also from transmitting them to others.

It reminds me of new approaches to problems of homelessness. Many, Although not all, people who are homeless are dealing with mental illness and/or drug and alcohol abuse problems. Traditionally the approach has been for social service agencies to tie getting housing to rehab, treatment and mental health care. People who don't stay with programs can't stay in the housing. However, some places have tried just giving apartments in supervised building to people. The argument is that it actually ends up saving money as well as being more humane. A homeless person with an alcohol addiction is often going to end in jail or the hospital repeatedly. Being homeless and drunk is dangerous. Everyone is better off if the person can drink too much in a warm apartment. The same is true for lots of mental illnesses. That doesn't mean you give up on trying to help people long term, its just that you don't tie the immediate intervention which results in less harm to the long term one that deals with the problem.

[Langue_doc]

The renaming is on hold. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/22/san-francisco-schools-renamed-lincoln-washington

[Descartes]

So, wait, I'm sorry, but was Lincoln gay?   I saw it claimed, then refuted, then re-stated as having been well established.  I kept reading but never saw it addressed again.

Not stirring a pot, honestly asking.

[Anselm]

I would like to offer another suggestion for school names.  Use the titles of movies filmed there like Vertigo and Pacific Heights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_set_in_San_Francisco

[marshwiggle]

I would like to offer another suggestion for school names.  Use the titles of movies filmed there like Vertigo and Pacific Heights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_set_in_San_Francisco

Not a good idea: Now that DisneyPlus feels the need to add warnings and disclaimers to The Muppet Show for offensive content, any movie would certainly have something about it that would eventually make it unacceptable.

[Hibush]

I would like to offer another suggestion for school names.  Use the titles of movies filmed there like Vertigo and Pacific Heights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_set_in_San_Francisco

Several of them are close, but have some little problem.
If not for the pejorative, several schools could be in the running for "Fog Over Frisco Elementary School"
"Opium Eater Middle School" is archaic, but would have been good a few decades back.
The physical climate, if not the social one, is wrong for "Go Naked in the World Magnet School"
Possibly too accurate is "All About Evil High School"

[Langue_doc]

I suppose we could just ... name it after inanimate objects like ... fungi. 

This idea has merit. Such naming supports the study of the natural sciences and helps counteract the stunning blindness most kids have of the natural world.  It is workable as long as we can keep the taxonomists from changing the name of the fungus every few years.

Here's my prediction for what would happen: Some mischevious online community ties the school board in knots by starting to use whatever name they've chosen as a euphemism for something else. "Aaardvark Elementary"? Aardvark will be used to refer to some weird sexual practice and then the board will desperately have to rename. Repeat and rinse.
When any hint of scandal is enough to get someone (on in this case, something) cancelled, the dust will never settle.

Many structures and buildings are named after people whose last names are synonymous with inanimate objects. For the longest time, I had assumed that "Outerbridge Crossing", the bridge between Staten Island and New Jersey was a geographical term, describing the outer reaches of NYC. The bridge is actually named after a Mr. Outerbridge. Whenever I drive over the bridge I still think of my trip as leaving the outer limits of the city.

[Parasaurolophus]

Buildings named after corporations are kind of similar, too.

[Langue_doc]

Resurrecting this thread.

The school board that decided to rename 44 schools because the schools were supposedly named after racists such as Lincoln, Jefferson, and Revere is in trouble again.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/29/us/san-francisco-schools-racism.html

Tweets by the VP of the board accusing Asians of sidling up to whites and assimilating have surfaced.

This is not unlike the situation in the New York school system, where egregious instances of bias against Asians and others have been overlooked. In one instance Jackie Cody, a member of the school board referred to Asians as "yellow folks" in an email thread. Cody subsequently apologized, after remaining silent for 8-10 weeks; the mayor referred to the terminology as "inappropriate".  There were no repercussions.
https://www.amny.com/education/manhattan-parents-pressure-brooklyn-education-advocate-to-resign-over-slur/
https://nypost.com/2019/11/13/protesters-demand-resignation-of-nyc-school-board-member-who-called-asians-yellow-folks/
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/ny-asian-race-disrimination-school-20191115-6wa6krfxzbfixkwg4ggg3zpnny-story.html

In an earlier incident, a school principal in Queens had a giant mural of herself as a six-armed Hindu goddess painted on one of the walls in her school. She subsequently took down the mural but appears to have suffered no consequences professionally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU-3F4GVjvA
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/outrage-mural-shows-queens-principal-hindu-goddess-article-1.2692037