By Linda Snyder

We are wounded. You can see it in the eyes of people at the market, in the stores, at the schools. The senseless death of Chelsea King has left our community in a state of collective shock and grief.

Our grief extends beyond our borders. The country mourns Chelsea King. A Poway High School honors student, a musician, an athlete. She was one of the best and the brightest, everyone’s treasured daughter. Most acutely, she was one of us.

Standing in the crowd at St. Michael’s Church last week, candle in hand, I watched the faces of hundreds of our children and teens. Were they all equally vulnerable to the ravages of a convict living among us?

As parents, we try to preserve the innocence and simple joys of childhood for as long as possible. Still, life will never be quite the same for our kids. They will live on, memories will fade, hopefully time will heal, but they will never forget.

As adults, we know about the dangers of society, that evil can invade a community. If the question is “What can we do as a community to better protect our children?” the answer is that we can do a lot, and we can do it now.

With relative ease and reasonable costs, we can empower our kids, especially our teens, to develop the tools they need to deal with potentially dangerous or vulnerable situations.

Here’s what we can do :

• We can show our support in asking the Poway Unified School District, our community leaders and the city to offer stranger/danger and basic self-defense classes. These classes could be offered in the existing health and physical education classes at the high school level. The Poway Adult Education center could offer these classes to all other teens, children, or adults at a nominal cost.

• We can use these classes to teach kids to utilize the social networks of Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. We can teach them to alert each other to possible suspicious activity, to program every cell phone on speed dial to 911, to reinstate a buddy system and possible use of virtual reality videos to illustrate situations of potential danger.

All of us can benefit from learning these skills, especially our teens. As teens cross the bridge from child to adult spreading their wings with new-found freedom, they are particularly vulnerable. These are skills that will travel with them to college and beyond as adults. 

Can we completely prevent this type of crime? No. There are though endless stories of attempts diverted using stranger/danger and self-defense techniques. If we can help thwart one attempt, avert one tragedy, we have succeeded.

We are resourceful, capable and caring. We can set the gold standard for our schools and community to create positive change out of this horrific tragedy. When united, we are a powerful force.

If you agree with what I’ve written, send an e-mail to me at LSS323@gmail.com. With enough e-mail support, a committee will be formed to request these classes to be integrated in the school and community programs.

Deep in her heart, Chelsea King knew she wanted to change the world. Let’s make sure she does.

Snyder, a 25-year Poway resident, has two children in the school system.