To the editor:

I live on West Watson Road, near South Technical High School. On Jan. 22, a student at Bridges, located next to South Tech, walked off school property, followed by two school staff members. The child crossed West Watson onto my property and attempted to enter my house through the rear basement door, then the garage door, then the front door. My wife was home alone at the time, but luckily, all the doors were locked. The school administrator warned the child verbally, from across the street, that he would “get in trouble,” but made no effort to stop the child. Frustrated, the child then picked up a large landscaping rock and used it to hit and damage our truck multiple times, causing over $5,000 in damage.  

The Sunset Hills police were called, and they quickly responded and apprehended the youth. According to the officers, calls for service are a very common occurrence at the school.  

Why is that? Apparently, unbeknownst to many in Sunset Hills, including the residents who live next to the school, South Tech is the headquarters of the St. Louis County Special School District’s (SSD) “Bridges Program.” It has been there at least since 1995, and a new school building was built on the campus in 2022. This program is a placement option for students with “specific needs in areas of social and emotional skills.” According to their website, they provide “social skills training, conflict resolution, and aggression replacement training.”

While we can agree that these young students need a facility for their special needs learning, the current situation is clearly a threat to public safety. There are obviously no controls in place to prevent a student from just walking off campus and attempting to break and enter a resident’s home and damage property. What would have happened if my doors had not been locked and he had entered the home? What if the student had entered the house of an armed resident willing to protect their home and family via the Castle Doctrine? While one of the staff members told my wife that someone from the school would contact us about the incident, that has not yet happened. 

Unfortunately, this is not the first incident involving a student from Bridges. We know of at least two other incidents where students have walked off campus undeterred and entered the private property of Sunset Hills residents. A Sunshine request for police call activity to Bridges at South Tech reveals a long history of over 150 juvenile incident calls, primarily for assault, but also drugs, trespassing and other illicit activities.

Further research into the Bridges program shows that this program is specifically designed to take behaviorally challenged students from all over St. Louis County and bus them to Sunset Hills. All these students have been removed from their host elementary, middle or high school. The administrators can, or will, only watch what a student does from a distance. Bridges even has its own officer on-site, but understanding those responsibilities is difficult as they defer to the Sunset Hills Police in juvenile incident calls and claim to have no responsibility for the child once he/she leaves campus. Could it be that this is exactly what they want? For the Sunset Hills Police or the community to clean up the mess?

Over a dozen calls and emails to SSD have been made, and nobody has responded to me. The city of Sunset Hills spoke with SSD after the incident, and SSD agreed that a Bridges security officer would promptly contact the South Tech officer in the event of a similar incident, but they will still not prevent the child from leaving the campus. 

It’s important to point out that while all these students have been removed from their host school, not all these kids are troubled and aggressive, but many are. Knowing that they have numerous behaviorally challenged or aggressive students, they are relying on the Sunset Hills Police Department for their security after the fact or at the time of an incident, rather than providing appropriate security for the prevention of such events, and for the public safety of the nearby residents.

I have lived at this address for 10 years, and until last week, we had no idea that this Bridges program was located nearly right across the street from my home. The fact that SSD would place such a program in any community, and not inform residents of its presence, is unconscionable. Or perhaps, maybe it is exactly what they intended due to the clear threat to public safety that this program poses in the absence of appropriate safety measures.  

What will it take for this program to provide reasonable controls to ensure student and community safety? How many police calls for service? How much more property damage? Maybe a troubled student actually breaking into somebody’s house? A resident getting assaulted? Or a resident defending his domicile with deadly force? Or what about the distinct possibility that one of these students gets hurt just crossing the street?

Something must be done here.

Mark Eichholz

Sunset Hills