Dear School Administrators: Are Your Schools Safer Today?
Having spent about eighteen years in school buildings as a student and twenty-nine years in school buildings as an unarmed teacher, fifteen of them post-Columbine, I think I have a right to voice an opinion on this matter. I’m pretty proficient with firearms, yet I faced each day of teaching knowing that I could easily be shot down right along with my students!
So, school administrators, board members, parents, and anybody else responsible for the kids in your community, is your school safer this week? If it is, great work. Thanks for getting at this important task. If not, WHY not! Are you not angry enough yet? I am angry, and I don’t blame students around the country for being angry. Why would they NOT be angry; they are at risk, and nobody seems interested in actually fixing the problem. And I can’t blame an immature sixteen-year-old for placing all the blame on guns; there are plenty of adults who can’t get past that false notion themselves.
I want to know – are you one of the many school administrators just sitting around this week philosophizing and pontificating over coffee about gun control fantasies and improvements needed in the mental healthcare system? Meanwhile, hundreds of unprotected, innocent young people are streaming into your buildings every morning. Since you’ve probably devoted much of your life to obtaining multiple degrees, you are likely well prepared to be a very confident and polished speaker when the national news stations stick their microphones in your face. But if tragedy strikes YOUR school system next week, next month, next year, tomorrow, are you prepared to sacrifice the lives of your students, all the while knowing that there were some pretty effective preventative measures that could have been taken.
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4 comments:
Damn straight. We need to let these attackers know that they will be walking in to a building that has trained, armed people in any direction they may look. No longer a soft target, you will die quickly if you try this.
This will end these attacks.
Teachers with guns are not the answer. I am a teacher who owns and is proficient with handguns and long guns. I do not want to have to carry all the while scared some little thug will try to jump me while I am actually doing my job to steal my weapon. It happens to cops all the time. It is a sad statement we are even discussing this. Steve, you once told me that my career was "pitious" so what makes you an expert on what I should or shouldn't do? Grow up.
School safety is not that difficult of a problem to solve but no one simple fix will do it.First guns have to be kept out of the hands of mentally sick people,and then access onto school property or into buildings has to be very carefully checked.It really is not that difficult to fix and not that expensive. Also there has to be a way for students to anonymously report something that doesn't seem right.Kids usually know if something isn't right.
Are our schools safe today? Ask all the Parkside kids whose classrooms don't even have doors on them.
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