Searching for Safety in Schools

If you feel as though there has been a school shooting every week in 2019, then you are not exaggerating. In 46 weeks, there have been 45 school shootings, according to CNN. With more than 180 school shootings in the last ten years, student safety has become one of the first priorities in American education today.

One approach is to say that students should be prepared for these incidents with seminars or drills, but there is a concern that that experience can be traumatizing for students of all ages.

“We don’t want to go too overboard, ” Safe Kids Inc. vice-president Scott Coleman said. “[We don’t want to take measures] that make schools feel like a jail.” Coleman said having a healthy school culture is as important as physical security.  Safe Kids Inc. is a group of law enforcement officers and educators committed to preventing violence while empowering students and educators. Safe Kids Inc. employs former police officers, like Coleman, to try to bring safety and learning together in harmony.

“That’s what I left law enforcement to focus on: equipping students with age-appropriate resources to deal with violence,” Coleman said. “We want students to understand that violence is statistically unlikely to find a student at school. School is still a really safe place to be.”

Another aspect of the school shooting crisis is providing better mental health care to students. Discussions of mental health always begin after every school shooting, with many wondering if something could have been done to prevent it, and others asking how to help those affected by them.

“Do we know every student’s name, face, and story?” Dr. Loretta Whitson, Executive Director of the California Association of School Counselors, asked. “Do we have enough support staff, like school counselors, to help teachers identify students with prevailing issues? I would say we don’t have that, and that is extremely important.”

The recommended ratio for students to counselors is 250:1, which might still seem to be a large number of students for one counselor to keep track of. In California, there aren’t nearly enough counselors to begin to help the students who need them.

“It’s identifying [problems] early, and building relationships,” Whitson said. “Our ratio [in California] is nearly three times the average, with 622 students for each counselor, so it’s very difficult to develop a relationship.”

The demand for school counselors is at an all-time high. Every Town for Gun Safety reports more than 100 gunfire incidents near schools in the United States this year, including incidents where no one was harmed. These incidents have resulted in 26 deaths.

“We don’t want to tell students to fight,” Coleman said. Safe Kids Inc. came up with a system to help students before and after a shooting occurs: H.E.R.O. (Hide, Escape, Run, Overcome). “We would rather tell them to overcome, both physically and mentally, in the aftermath, as they’re dealing with trauma.”

Some states have started using school shooting drills to help students be ready in the case of a shooting. Both Whitson and Coleman agreed that these drills can be extremely beneficial. The key element is to make sure that the drills are performed appropriately to avoid traumatizing students.

The trauma caused by school shootings lasts longer when it goes unnoticed or unspoken. Now more than ever, students nationwide require the resources to empower themselves. Students also need the resources to feel heard in the chaos of growing up. While prevention of school shootings seems almost impossible, what we can control is how we respond as a community to those events.

Moderator: Jenny Almanza

Producer: Jenny Almanza

Anchor: Tamie Benitez

Social Media Editor: Vivian Rayos

Reporters: Jenny Almanza, Tamie Benitez, Damian Gordon, Vivian Rayos and Joe Willeford