Late yesterday, Somerville announced new hours at the city's central library: It will be closed between 2 and 4 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and between 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Wednesdays.
We are temporarily modifying the Central Library hours to better understand the needs of our community, and to work towards enhancing the City’s resources and programming to create spaces that provide local teens a place where they feel safe, welcome, and have the opportunity to engage in programming that feels meaningful and exciting for them.
Um, what?
The City of Somerville and Somerville Public Schools are actively working to implement alternative after school programming for teens. Additionally, the East Branch (115 Broadway) and West Branch (40 College Ave) of the Library will remain open for visitors with normal operating hours.
Again, um, what?
Here's one possible explanation, via the local Reddit:
During the past school year, when the high school got let out, there was a group of about 30-50 teens that consistently caused major disruptions in the library, they threw things at librarians and other people, got into fights in the entrance, been menacing to people walking in. Last spring about 15 kids beat up a random guy so bad that he had to be taken to the hospital and they had to close the library to clean up his blood. The police response? Nothing, no arrests, they didn’t even take any names down. The school’s response? Nothing, since it wasn’t “on school grounds†it wasn’t their problem.
A protest is planned in front of the library at 1 p.m. today.
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Comments
Would they intervene?
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 08/28/2024 - 7:59pm
Schools have rightfully been sued for overreaching their authority over students who are engaged in things that don't involve school.
Don't give more petty tyrant administrators any ideas. These are people who love to issue fatwahs about what parents are/aren't doing and then tell you what you can and can't do at home - even when these things contradict. The school administrator population was already reduced to self-important bloviates and power tripping megalomaniacs ten years ago. They love nothing more than to blame the bullying problems that they overlook on individuals and parents rather than the Kafkaesque school culture they create and foster.
Like the administrator that was activating school issued cameras in children's bedrooms. Or the kids suspended for posting pics with their extended families with glasses of wine on the table in countries where that is legal. There are limits to their authority for good reason.
Also, Cybah, you know the drill: "Teens are getting unruly"? Please link to something that supports that because I have two who were teens a decade ago and I came of age in the early 80s and most kids today are vastly better behaved than they were when I was one of them.
I don't
By cybah
Thu, 08/29/2024 - 7:27am
I don't have to provide links. You can search here :-) Just search for "Juvenile"
And as far as you kids, you've raised them right (from what you've posted over the years) so yeah maybe my comment was a little broad because its not all kids. But many.
I also added "now get off my lawn" at the end because it is all about prospective. In the 80s, people thought teens with their long hair, listening to Def Leppard and Poison were a bit unruly. By comparison now, it seems tame.
Now I'm the old man looking at teens and calling them unruly and want them off my lawn. I am willing to bet that teens today in 40 years will be saying the same thing about teens they meet. So its all about prospective.
That's not how it works
By lbb
Thu, 08/29/2024 - 9:16am
How is searching for "Juvenile" going to show that...
Emphasis mine.
Why?
By Omri
Thu, 08/29/2024 - 12:35pm
"Schools have rightfully been sued for overreaching their authority over students who are engaged in things that don't involve school."
Pardon the crotchety "in my day....." but in my day, schools very much did use their leverage over students to demand good behavior after the final bell during the walk home. When I was in middle school, my walk home (and that of my friends) was right past a supermarket, and the neighborhood elders knew the middle schoolers were expected to help them carry their groceries to their building's front door. If a single student wimped out of it, he'd be shamed by his peers, and if a whole clique refused, a school field trip would go up in smoke.
That experience might not be your cup of tea, but it sure is better than letting librarians deal with physical danger.
Let's blame the police...
By eddie van halen
Wed, 08/28/2024 - 3:33pm
But say nothing of the parents who should be supervising these urchins, or of the city politicians who apparently have not answered the library's call for assistance? Yes, that makes sense.
Also, outside of a post on Reddit, where are the journalists on this alleged violence?
This happens in Boston
By cinnamngrl
Wed, 08/28/2024 - 4:19pm
It is challenging to find a solution that avoids conflict. Calling the police implies that arresting the kids is the solution.
It needs to worked out because the library can be a important resources for young people.
Absolutely!
By Whit
Wed, 08/28/2024 - 4:41pm
Make whoever is supposed to be caring for these kids pick them up at the station and escalate from there.
That might work if ...
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 08/28/2024 - 9:17pm
What they were doing was something other than being loud kids, which we don't know and isn't criminal.
You realize that arrest records follow you the rest of your life now? Even if you aren't charged? Maybe if our carceral state ratcheted down this ridiculousness and only recorded actual convictions ...
Being loud and rowdy in a library shouldn't result in a life sentence of joblessness.
They apparently beat a man.
By Whit
Wed, 08/28/2024 - 10:02pm
They apparently beat a man. What exactly are these meek librarians supposed to do when objects are hurled at them?
Also, let’s take the venom down a few notches.
I can’t even imagine behaving this way with people now or when I was a yoof. It’s unthinkable.
Maybe ...
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 08/28/2024 - 10:41pm
The reality when I was a yoof was that cops would put a "teens fight" bubble around this and then pretend that their city was some small town where this sort of thing doesn't happen - and yet happened all the time.
Just because you had a nice upbringing in a nice place doesn't mean the reality of society wide youth violence in the 70s through 90s never happened.
Its not ok
By cinnamngrl
Thu, 08/29/2024 - 6:52am
but arresting them does not improve things. Beating someone is assault and those teens will be charged, probably without anyone knowing.
But the city does have a responsibility to prevent this. The kids need something to do. The city can blame the parents but the truth a lot of programs have been cut and more parents are working.
Please tell the class
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 08/28/2024 - 8:00pm
How much supervision did you have when you were a teen?
Be honest, now.
And did both of your parents have to work to make exorbitant rent?
It's common practice for
By anon
Thu, 08/29/2024 - 11:52am
It's common practice for parents to use public libraries as free after school child care venues. Bored kids can be found in Dedham libraries waiting until their parents get out of work to come pick them up. Every year the kids get a little older and in places like Somerville, they apparently are old enough to go "wilding".
Have you tried talking to the librarians?
By anon
Thu, 08/29/2024 - 3:53pm
A friend of mine works at the Central branch and has been personal witness to the disruption and chaos the teens cause. The fact that the cops had to be called at all bothers them deeply. According to them, the librarians in the teen area have tried everything to control the behavior, with no luck. Between the weed smoking (yes, it's legal here but it's still unpleasant to be around non-consensually), the fighting, and the overall violence and aggression of this subset of teens, it's made the library an unpleasant place to be for many people, including other teens that are well behaved.
The comments I've seen about this tend to boil down into a few categories:
1) "Where are the parents???" - they're probably working, Presumably either the parents know what their kids are doing and are unable to control them/do not care, or the kids are good at behaving under their watch and then going feral once released. Either way, handwringing about who /else/ should have responsibility for these children is useless.
2) "They should be controlled by the police/why don't they call the cops/why aren't the cops involved" - they've called the cops. Multiple times. As it says in the original post. They haven't been able to do squat. You think having them hang around being useless and scaring patrons who have good reason to be wary of the police is a good idea? Police aren't some kind of anti-chaos scarecrow, and the teens have proven to not be intimidated by them.
3) "The librarians should be doing more to address this" - This is what they're trying to do. All their in-the-moment attempts are clearly failing, so this is them trying to regroup and figure out a new approach and buy themselves some breathing room to think. Expecting librarians to simultaneously handle teen-caused crises as well as serve the better behaved patrons AND create and implement plans to manage the teenage troublemakers is up there with expecting someone to sing opera underwater.
It's the city
By AdamA
Thu, 08/29/2024 - 7:39pm
This was shared by the library union rep. The library has been trying to get the city to do something for two years, this is a last resort option for them.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Somerville/comments/1f46toe/a_statement_shared_by_the_union_library_closures/
Thanks for the link. This
By Scratchie
Fri, 08/30/2024 - 10:42am
Thanks for the link. This seems like important background info.
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