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GREENSBORO — Colored bandannas. Coded T-shirts. Gang hand signs.

Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes brought his department’s gang awareness presentation to the county’s Board of Education on Friday.

 Barnes said he hopes the presentation will soon be available in Guilford County Schools to help parents, teachers and administrators recognize the signs of the county’s growing gang problem.

Although invited by the sheriff, none of the county commissioners attended the session, which proved a sore point when funding was brought up.

"I’m pretty disappointed with that," Barnes said of the absences. "This is a serious problem."

In the 40-minute slide show, sheriff’s deputies presented information on gangs — from organizational structure and colors to imagery and slang.

The sheriff and his deputies emphasized the importance of parents, teachers and other authority figures staying aware of gang culture symbols. The presentation emphasized the ways in which pop culture, especially rap music, often encourages drug and gang messages. The now infamous snowman T-shirt associated with rapper Young Jeezy was used as an example. Deputies said parents may not realize "snow" is a street term for cocaine.

"You may not like the music," said Cpl. Larry Lambreth. "I know I don’t care for it. But I still listen to it, so I will know what’s going on."

Barnes said teachers have called his office asking for information on gangs because there aren’t any classes or resources for them. "This isn’t a school problem. It’s a community problem," Barnes said.

School board members said they liked the presentation — but they aren’t ready to make it mandatory for teachers.

"In order for the school board to buy in, I think it needs to be a collaborative effort between Greensboro and High Point police and the sheriff," board member Dot Kearns said.

Kearns said any presentation should be informative without being alarmist.

"I also don’t want our presentation to frighten parents about public schools any more than they’re already frightened," Kearns said. "We need to take this problem seriously, but I don’t want us to just alarm people."

Barnes said he’d like to fast-track the presentations and would immediately make his deputies available to give them. But Superintendent Terry Grier said creating a video presentation would be a better idea.

"In the schools where you have sheriff school resource officers, we can immediately begin having the presentations, and you’ll have our 100 percent cooperation," Grier said. "But we’re going to have to spend some more money if we’re going to create a well-produced 45-minute video — and that’s going to require funding."

School board members agreed that getting gang information to teachers and administrators was a good first step, but they said more needs to be done — and soon.

"For so long, there was denial that there was a gang problem," board member Kris Cooke said. "I think that’s what helped it to grow. Now that we recognize the problem, we need to take the appropriate action."

Contact Joe Killian at 373-7023 or jkillian
@news-record.com