In my second year of teaching, two male students at Columbine High School in Colorado killed 15 people and injured more in what has become one of the most gruesome mass shootings in American history.

I remember the very days Sandy Hook, Parkland, and Uvalde happened. Sadly, those are just a small number in the hundreds of shootings that have happened in schools since that fateful day in Colorado on April 20, 1999.

I also remember after the Columbine shootings that schools began implementing safety plans and enacting drills directly designed to confront an active shooter if one was on campus. Instructions on keeping doors locked and communication protocols changed. Even the doors for classrooms underwent changes in construction to not present students in open view if something went awry.

Since 2000, the proliferation of social media, smart phones, connectivity, and instant communication has provided both tools and obstacles to alleviating potential safety threats.

But has anything really helped?

According to Sandy Hook Promise (sandyhookpromise.org):

Since the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, more than 338,000 students in the U.S. have experienced gun violence at school.

There were more school shootings in 2022 – 46 – than in any year since Columbine. 

No state or community is immune from having a shooting at a school – public or private. Columbine High School was at the time of its massacre a student population that drew from fairly affluent neighborhoods socioeconomically speaking.

Below is a screenshot from the statutes of the General Assembly concerning the “duties” of teachers.

They include a variety of “duties,” some more defined than others: discipline, “teaching,” reporting, provide for well-being, medical care, keep order, etc.

Nowhere does that list or even suggest that part of my duties would include helping screen book bags for weapons and guiding students through metal detectors to see if they may have guns on their person.

But here we are.

Within the last few years, our lawmakers in Raleigh have suggested bills ranging from increasing police on campus, arming teachers, making all book bags be clear on campus, and other reactionary measures.

Some of those same lawmakers who promote more “security” also have voted for budgets that lessen the ability to offer more social services or fund positions for nurses, counselors, administration, and psychologists. They certainly have not passed any legislation that would help curb the amount of guns that people can get their hands on like expanding background checks.

Some of those lawmakers may even be working to stop social and emotional health measures that arose from what happened during the pandemic but are applicable for many situations.

We even have a candidate running for state superintendent whose foundational platform is “safety in schools.” Yet that same person has not offered one tangible detail of even a skeletal plan to make that happen, but there are pictures of her attending the January 6^th, 2021 storming of the US Capitol building to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power.

We as a state just allotted five times the amount of money it would take to offer a free daily lunch for any student in public schools to go to private school vouchers.

Yes. Student safety is paramount.

Yes. Security is vital.

But the measures that are in place right now are reactionary and make physical well-being the only barometer for student safety in a society that keeps demanding more from teachers when respect for those teachers is constantly being eroded by misinformation and the schools they work in are erroneously scapegoated as the battlegrounds for culture wars.

I do know that most educators probably think of the emotional and mental aspects of health when thinking of overall student well-being and we as a state are not proactive enough to help with those facets.

I also know that most people did not become educators to help run metal detectors and screen book bags for weapons.

The fact that we are seeing more metal detectors being used in schools should not offer any solace in and of itself. It should make us look for more ways to make the use of metal detectors in schools something that never becomes the norm but the exception.