When the final bell rings, students stream out of Lansing’s three public high schools. And sometimes that’s when the trouble begins.
In 2013, an after-school shooting outside Lansing’s Sexton High School injured four students.
City officials are hoping a new team of volunteers may help head off problems in the future.
Police Chief Mike Yankowski says the “school watch” program will operate similar to a “neighborhood watch”, keeping an eye out for trouble during the hours after school.
“The studies have shown that kids, when they don’t have direction or extra school activities going on at that point in time, that they find themselves roaming the streets,” says Yankowski.
Yankowski says the program has about 10 volunteers at the moment. They hope to grow the number of volunteers to between 30 and 50 this fall.
The school watch will focus at first in the areas around Lansing’s 3 public high schools. Eventually, they hope to expand the program to other schools in the capitol district.
