Page 34 - spaces4learning, Summer 2022

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CAMPUS SAFETY
SITTING DUCKS ARE FOR CARNIVALS—NOT SCHOOLS
By Dennis Truxler
THE MOST VIOLENT YEAR TO DATE FOR SCHOOL shootings was 2021, with 193 people killed or wounded. Thus far this year, there have already been 145 victims. This is unac- ceptable and unconscionable.
The security measures currently employed in schools have not worked.
What can be done to keep kids safe and make them feel safe while at school? As an administrator, this is the most important question you will ever need to answer. That’s because if the next Uvalde or Parkland or Sandy Hook happens on your watch, you will have to face many more uncomfortable questions, and you may be haunted by excruciating regrets. It all hinges on what you do now.
Happily, a key safety measure has emerged that answers the above question, and you will want to know about it.
Students Are Sitting Ducks
"We trained our kids to sit under the table, and that's what I thought of at the time. But we set them up to be like [sit- ting] ducks." That’s the lament of Arnulfo Reyes, a teacher at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, who was shot and seriously wounded in the attack. He witnessed the horrific murder of all of his students right in front of him.
School districts have had 23 years since Columbine to fig- ure out a solution. Yet, kids keep getting shot at and killed in schools. Why? Simple—they are sitting ducks, helpless targets.
That’s wrong. Sitting ducks are for carnivals, not schools. Regardless of what security measures are in place on the front end, once a shooter gets in the building, schools need something else to prevent casualties.
Although the challenge of preventing casualties seems elu- sive, there now exists a key formula to meet it successfully. Ad- mittedly, school safety requires a multi-layer approach, such as, “see something, say something” campaigns, campus security personnel, security cameras, metal detectors, panic alarm sys- tems, door locks, etc. However, should any of those front-end measures fail or prove inadequate (and they sometimes do), what then? At the end of the day, kids in classrooms must be protected, somehow.
Searching for the “Somehow”
When I woke up on Valentine’s Day 2018, my foremost thought was, “Where should I take my fiancée for dinner tonight?” Little did I (or anyone) know that within just a few hours, a horrific tragedy was about to occur. In a period of less than four min- utes, a shooter killed 17 victims and wounded another 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Very soon after this, our school board and I urgently em- barked on a mission to find the best way to protect our precious students and staff should a similar threat ever befall our campus.
The big question was this: What can protect potential vic- tims—in reality, sitting ducks—from a killer with a gun?
Lori Alhadeff, whose daughter Alyssa was shot and killed at the Parkland massacre, wisely said, “Seconds matter.” Once a shooter arrives on campus, there is precious little time before the carnage begins—and ends. At Sandy Hook, for example, before the arrival of the first police officer, the shooter had al- ready fired 154 rounds within five minutes, ultimately killing 20 children and 6 adults.
So, here is what is needed to save lives: immediate access to a safe place right in the classroom, where most casualties occur. That is the key, the “somehow” that was needed.
Once we realized this, we began an earnest search for such a solution.
The “Somehow” Found
After much investigation, we found an American manufacturer that produced custom modular bullet-proof safety pods that could fit right into our classrooms and were capable of stopping high-cal- iber rounds from assault weapons, like the AR-15 or AK-47. These safety pods are made using a military-grade ballistic steel used
ALEKSANDAR MALIVUK/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
34 SUMMER 2022 | spaces4learning.com