School Safety

School Safety      

    This week I read an article on the different challenges that are facing teachers and the education system today. One of the sections was regarding school safety and the violence that an alarming amount of schools have to deal with. Coupled with funding for schools increasingly getting cut, most schools are less prepared or don't have the proper resources to deal with major threats. 

    Due to schools' funding getting cut, many teachers are leaving the job they love, or picking up a second one. Now more than ever teachers don't just have the regular stressors of school, but now they have to worry about other forms of violence other than the school bully. Gun violence has steadily become an issue that schools across America have had to learn and deal with.  

                                           Photo credit: Buchholz, Katharina

I attend a smaller school, so as a community and district we don't have to deal with this issue. But even if we don't have it happen directly to us it does affect us. A couple years ago our school updated and added new security programs to the doors. Beforehand people could just walk in and out of the school. Now we have the people in the office unlock the doors electronically. These security updates were directly caused by the people of our town being concerned for the safety of the students due to what was going on across the country. 

One of the biggest events that shocked the whole country into awareness was the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting. On December 14, 2012, 28 people were killed and 2 injured. This kickstarted action all over America to change how law enforcement, schools, and even teachers and students would respond should they ever be put in that situation. An example of such precautions was that law enforcement would now have to go through Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT). The general tactics of the ALERRT training were also given to the public so they can better their chances of surviving or going unharmed in the instance that there is a school shooter. 

I believe that the safety of the people that are in schools shouldn't be up for debate. But the safety of those people is also dependent on funding and how much help the school is getting from the government and the community alike. Their safety is equally dependent on not just the fact that people can walk in and out, but also what the inside conditions of the school are like itself. Teachers and students need help to have access to better conditions to be in.

Works Cited

Buchholz, Katharina. "Number of School Shootings Increased Every Decade." Statista, statista, 15 Nov. 2019. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

Jimenez, Omar. "How Sandy Hook changed the response to mass shootings." cnn.com, CNN, 14 Dec. 2018. Accessed 4 Jan. 2021.

Ray, Micheal. "Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting." Encyclopaedia Britannica, 7 Dec. 2020. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.