EDITORIAL: Police need to keep schools in the know or risk jeopardizing the safety of Monroe’s children.
Monroe school officials were quick to get the word out this week that a stranger had approached three girls in the Woods Edge neighborhood.
Too bad the Monroe Police Department failed to act as quickly.
Monroe police say that two men in a car approached the girls at about 5 p.m. on April 20 while they were playing in a driveway on Julia Drive. The girls ran into the home and the car sped away.
Police, however, did not release the information to the public until Tuesday and only after school officials had been alerted to the incident by a parent’s e-mail.
Superintendent Ralph Ferrie confirmed the incident Monday and immediately posted a letter to parents on the district’s Web site and then sent the letter home with students on Tuesday.
Luckily, the man in question turned out to be a resident of the neighborhood who was actually looking for his lost dog. But the police did not know that until Wednesday nearly a week after the incident occurred.
And the ultimate outcome does not diminish the need for police to keep school officials in the loop on situations like this. The schools are the best way to get information to parents, who need to know that strangers might be lurking in their neighborhoods.
Dr. Ferrie says the district and the Police Department have a good relationship and that communication between the two has been very effective. Police officials, for their part, say they are unsure why the district was not notified.
It needs to find out and make sure it does not happen again.
Parents, administrators, teachers and children deserve to know as quickly as possible when incidents like these occur. It allows them to take extra precautions, to be extra vigilant, to take an active role in their children s safety.

