Early in the afternoon while heading toward the cafe is when it happened. Chaos everywhere when the first shot’s pulsing echo passed through your ears. Hearing the sounds was the first part. The second, more ultimate, part was connecting what's happening around you. You started attempting to attach a source to the sound, believing it’s a bus or a chair propelled down a flight of stairs. But, you realized the situation you were in, a chill ran down your spine. You realized the one place on earth you’re supposed to be safe had turned into a horror scene. Doing your best to remain calm and collected, seeking a safe way to escape your school.
My name is William and I’m a junior in high school. I lost my trust in the school system as far as safety is concerned many years ago. Some students or some other students have also lost their trust in school.
Consider, after break students walked into school and discover the school district had installed multiple door alarm systems. We were told the alarmed doors were to “stop intruders;” however, they were really there to stop kids from ditching class. As a result, students felt antagonized by the school. School security used the alarms to control truancy, prevent ditching. Thanks to these security practices I felt worse about coming to a brick and mortar school. While attending class these alarms would drag many of the students out of a learning environment into a “fight or flight” situation, distracting them from academic pursuits. I felt lied to, increasingly unsafe, and angry about the distrust in the student body.
After the Jefferson County Columbine high school shooting, the school system implemented the lockdown, lockout, evacuate, and shelter system. The LLES system had been more effective in keeping students lives safer than the more recent implementations of security in schools. Developments including alarmed doors; school security; SRO’s (School Resource Officer) and multiple other security measures have been tested and found wanting. Even in recent years congress and other gun activists have suggested arming the teachers with the same weapons that are destroying students safety and trust in the school environment. Every new addition to the security system is changing the school environment from a learning institution into one of an incarceration facility. Unacceptable behavior following these lines just shows the instability of our public school system everywhere. Every security situation, thus far, has proven acceptable for inmates not students.
Due to the overwhelming number of school shootings in recent years, an even greater number of children are being afflicted by this trend of chaos. Ponder Parkland. Pre-existing security measures made little difference in casualties; Parkland’s student’s efforts to change societal standards were ignored due to the age of the individuals. Results like these provoke student reluctance to confide in faculty they do not trust, and faculty are hesitant to consult with the student body concerning these issues, claiming “They’re just kids. They don’t know any better.”
Contrary to common beliefs, gathering students’ perspectives would prove tremendously helpful when solidifying a helpful environment for troubled kids. Especially in today’s rigid environments, kids need to be coached in making good decisions and helping themselves. Solutions are going to take more than just arming the teachers or adding alarmed doors. Creating a solution requires halting a problem at its source. More resources should go into helping students with mental disorders and disabilities not adding ludicrous amounts of security. Having security measures is one approach; however, not consulting with the student body to determine whether the measures make them feel safe is unacceptable. Actions such as distrust in the student body, security implementations, false claims of use, and inmate conditioning are leading students into an environment constantly in flux, wobbling back and forth from learning to battlefield. The world of learning and education requires to be stable and respectful in order to minimize the occurrence of destructive crises such as...
Sprinting through the halls you feel trapped, scared, and hopeless. Wishing, wanting it to be untrue. Soon winding to a dead end realizing your fate. Turning around you see him, the one person you wished not to see in this moment. A familiar chill runs down your spine just until the echo passes through you. Don’t feel, can’t feel for just a moment till you realize the fate we all wish weren’t true. crashing to the ground, this is you. Unstopped by the measures set in place; not rescued by the people there; killed in a place of “safety.”; lost to a world unwilling to change, unwilling to accept its observable flaws.
Truly what is safe if this is the fate of children in the school system?