Can Moms Make a Difference? Brainstorming School Preparedness

I think you're not getting a lot of responses because you are asking a very, very complicated question. Someone could write a dissertation on this subject (many someones probably have.)
I know OUR schools are doing the best they can. I know that violence is as old as time and will always be a sad and tragic part of life. I know that my kids are WAY safer and healthier than any generation of kids before them, and for that, I am grateful.

ETA: Apparently, the OP feels personally attacked by my response..let me clarify the "YOU" stated below does NOT mean "you" personally - it means the collective you...general...I stated our schools plans and MY OPINION.

Our schools have great plans!!

Our high school had a chemical spill in O. of the labs DURING SCHOOL HOURS... the kid behaved appropriately and filed out of the classroom to the designated area.

Our middle school had a bomb threat in October. The students were told the truth (thank God they didn't pull a liberal lie "it's just a drill") and told them to pay attention to what was around them. NOT to wander and to stay alert. They did. They found the back pack and it was NOT a real bomb but a kid who thought it would be funny.

Our elementary school practices drills every few weeks. We had a tornado here 4 or 5 years ago. The school went into lockdown mode and the students were led to the center of the building and gym (depending upon where they were in the school). The teachers kept the kids occupied with songs and kept calm when the wind battered the school. No O. was injured.

Our doors are LOCKED. You must have a key card to get in. You must be buzzed in. The ONLY doors that allow buzzer is the main door. All other doors can ONLY be accessed with a key card and access code. So someone can't steal a teachers badge and get into the school - they must have the access code as well.

What do I attribute to the raise in school violence? Simply put - entitlement. Parents aren't active in their kids lives and expect the school to raise them. The liberal left media gives attention to violence and showcases their 15 minutes of fame...

Do I think metal detectors will make a difference?? No. Where there is a will, there is a way.

If you want to improve your child's school - you MUST get involved. PERIOD. And that means joining the PTA and attending meetings. You also would have to join the school district meetings and voice your opinion there. That's how you can make a difference.

ETA - THIS IS MY OPINION....IF you raise your child with morals, values and integrity - and not idolizing the liberal media 15 minutes of fame attitude - your child will be better for it..

Back in the 1970's... There was a school shooting here in Austin at a public middle School. It was at the time O. of the wealthier neighborhoods, now it is considered middle class.

Did any of you know this? Probably not, because back then, we did not have cable news making a big old deal about it and it was kept a bit quiet.

An 8th grader was upset with his teacher, took his fathers loaded shotgun to school and murdered his teacher. The reason? This student was upset about his grade in the class.

It was determined this child was suffering with schizophrenia. Instead of being sent to a reform school, he was sent to a mental institution. Back then it cost $125. PER DAY. he was there 2 years.

Oh yea, he attended college and is now an Attorney here in town. Most people do not have any idea this ever happened, unless you lived here at the time. Again, because it was not splashed all over the news and turned into a clown car story.

These things have been happening all along in Americas history, because children are people and can suffer with mental illness. It is not something that you can just look at a child and know they will be suffering with mental illness when they are born. Sometimes, it presents itself when children's hormones begin to change.

It happens to all sorts of children. All races, all incomes, all types of children.

And so our school district was O. of the leaders in school safety and awareness. The schools safety measures are set up by the district. They are excellent. If you want to know what they are you can request the information from our school district.

Yes, they do special drills and practices. The parents are informed before they are held in the elementary schools. Some are unannounced. in the higher grades.

And O. of the most important parts of this is that the district expects the parents to discuss all of this with their own children at home also. Some parents do not like this and feel like it will scare their children.

Of course anyone can easily shoot you in your front yard. While you are driving. While you are attending church. (which a man did pull a gun from the balcony here O. Easter in our church when I was a child, and no he did not shoot, but you can imagine, we all were completely shocked).It can happen while you are walking through your front door, but no O. expects this to happen to them in their home. Just like we have never thought our children would have to worry about this at school.

The expectations of behaviors. The expectation of what cannot EVER be brought into a school ZONE. That is so many feet around school property. This is all highly enforced.

If any of you are EVER confused or concerned about what goes on in your schools, set up a meeting with the Principal and find out. Better yet, join the safety committee, Join your PTA and become active, Agree to join the the city wide school committees available to parents to participate in.

Standing back and assuming, does not work. There are real needs for parents to be a part of the solutions. If you do not become part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

There are many mentally ill children out there. They cannot help it. The more we accept and find solutions, without judgment, the sooner these children can be given the help they need.

And for goodness sakes, lock up all of your weapons, separately from your ammunition. Or else use a gun lock on loaded weapons.

I saw the best response today on a friend's Facebook page. She had shared a post written by a Chief Oliver at Brimfield Police Department (not sure where that is). Here is part of his post and I think a partial answer to your second question.

"Until we, as adults, learn to stop being angry, insulting each other and picking fights every chance we get, how in heck can we expect our kids to behave any differently? I guarantee, it you are an Internet troll, generally angry and surly and by all appearances hate the human race, the children around you will act no better than what you are modeling. We have to be the examples for those who are still growing up.

"If you want another opinion, here you go. Until adults start leading and acting like adults, we are just spinning our wheels. There is no perfect political party, no perfect way to peel a banana, and no perfect person. Adults insulting each other and cramming political views in our ears is a constant barrage of 'the world is ending,' is only making the kids in our society more stressed and angry."--Chief Oliver

I would add to Chief Oliver's statement that a lot of it starts at home and in the media. Acts of violence get spread all over the news shows and analyzed to the nth degree. They are almost sensationalized. The video games and movies that kids watch. The use of social media that isn't monitored by parents. (Did you know that there are Dylan Klebold fan clubs?) The cyber bullying that happens. Parents' use of social media that takes them away from their kids. The lack of communication that happens between parents and kids. Our feelings that we "shouldn't get involved" in what we see happening with other families. The lack of community that we have with our neighbors. The loss of "it takes a village to raise a child." We as adults are failing to model to our kids how to handle stress, differences of opinions, anger, hurt, sadness, etc.

I'm a teacher and I can tell you that there is only so much that schools can do to keep our buildings safe. I can't think of much more that our district could do. We have safety drills. We have had multiple trainings in what to do in emergency situations. We have all of our doors locked between certain hours of the day. If you don't have a key fob, you have to be buzzed into the building. There are only two doors that can be buzzed open and both have cameras. Our front office staff has a "panic button" that connects directly to the police. But those measures wouldn't do anything to stop someone who had a high powered weapon who was intent on getting into the building. It wouldn't stop someone posing as a delivery person from getting into the building. It won't stop a student who attends that school (like what happened today).

We have to do more at home. We have to take steps to be sure that our kids and their friends know that there is someone who cares about them, who is willing to listen to anything they want to say without judgment. They need to know that they can come to us about anything! Things going on in their own lives, or things that they notice with their friends or school mates. They need to know that we will be there for them no matter what the situation. In many incidences of school violence (and other acts of violence) the initial interviews say that the attacker "seemed like a normal kid." And then you start hearing about the things that were being said on the Internet, or written on the bathroom wall, or talked about in the halls or even among adults in the community. And a lot of times, there were warning signs that others ignored because they "didn't want to get involved" or they "didn't want to cause problems" or they thought "the family had it under control."

I don't think there are easy answers to your questions. I don't think there are easy solutions.

We don't have all the school shooting up here that you do down there, yet we have taken security measures, such as locking doors, having visitors sign in, and "lock down drills". I would prefer to see the preventative measures in the form of gun control and mental health care, rather than making schools into fortresses.

Too much to go through so I'll answer Number 2.

School violence comes down in 2 ways -
from the outside (person comes in from the outside who's not suppose to be there)
from the inside (person is a student who's suppose to be there)

Schools are pretty good with screening for sex offenders and keeping them out - but they are not usually the ones who come in looking to cause bloodshed.

I have serious doubts as to how secure portable classrooms are - and we have them at almost every school over here.

I also think that middle schools and high schools are way too big - with 400+ people in every grade (so you get schools with 1200-2000+ students).
I don't think they need to be as small as elementary schools but would it hurt to keep a grade size to no more than 200 students?
(So in a high school with grades 9-12 with about 200 in every grade you'd have a student population of about 800).

Our son's schools were/are:

elementary school: grades PK-5 · 455 students

middle school: grades 6-8 · 1456 students
the kids were broken into teams (about 125 kids to a team of 4 teachers each - the teams didn't interact with each other and each class traveled with the same kids from classroom to classroom so really no O. knew everyone but you knew everyone in your class and quite a few people on your team).

high school: grades 9-12 · 2038 students
The school is fairly new and beautiful but it's freaking huge - I've seen smaller college campuses.

This school could be broken down into 2 or even 3 high schools.

Is it really wise to cram than many hormonal teens into O. building?
Is it all that difficult for troubled students to get lost in a crowd and slip through the cracks?
If there are mental health issues the crowded environment only makes things worse.
Too many hamsters in a cage will have them stressed and eating each other in a short amount of time.
Our schools are showing some serious signs of stress.

Additional:

100 largest high schools in USA

http://highschoolguide.org/624/top-100-largest-high-schoo...

(Number O. has - get ready for this - 8076 students!
And that was in 2011.)

I am in the classroom often (elementary level) as a long term substitute. We have regular drills and I have been a part of all of them.

My typical class is 1st grade and although they knew a drill was coming so they would not be frightened, it was difficult to keep them still and quiet in the front corner of my classroom in the dark. Some of them got scared, as expected but I assured them that it was a drill and if it were for real, I would let them know.

Our school plan has been very open. However within the last 4 yrs, there is now a sign in plan for everyone at the school in the front office. Just after Sandy Hook, the elementary school implemented a plan where it is not as open and ALL doors are closed and locked as soon as the first bell rings at 7:30am and they are not opened until 2:45 when children are dismissed. The elementary schools now have a police officer that comes around regularly (no police officer is at the elementary full time). However the higher grades do have police liaison within the school.

During a drill, we do go on full lockdown (each grade level has their own hallway with secure doors that are locked down as well as the regular daily lockdown of the access.

I can't answer to why it is happening, etc. It is sad to see things happening and I just try to be as prepared as possible and have tried to teach my daughter to always be prepared for the unthinkable and have a plan in her head if something were to happen in O. of her classrooms.

Overall, I believe our schools are very safe and so far we've had no issues. The school system and police dept work together and also have regular discussions at the school with students about preventing violence, etc.

I don't know if my view makes any sense... I am writing while I am working at the same time.

I agree that the liberal media is causing the violence-wait what?

I don't know, but I'll soon see. I've been homeschooling for a few years but we're moving so I enrolled kids today in public school so I can clean out our house for a few weeks undisturbed. I was VERY IMPRESSED with the lockdown atmosphere and security cameras at all doors...NOT. So freaking sad.

Anyway...violence in society comes from ignorance and hate and neglect and so many things.... Same goes for schools. Kids without feelings for their peers...for whatever reason.

What can we do? We can try to do our best to promote love, inclusion and empathy for all kids.

And try to improve our gun laws -I KNOW I KNOW THERE WAS O. STABBING NOW SO GUNS AREN'T THE PROBLEM ANYMORE....I won't even go there but....yeah.

We just have to do the best we can to build up our own personal communities. Try to take notice of the other kids and not be in our own bubbles. Teach our kids to reach out to kids who may not be feeling welcome in their social circles. Try to be good people and raise good people. And the rest is up to fate. :(

Not sure, but this O. I find really difficult to handle. gun violence can take place in the blink of an eye, but how did this kid get to stabbing 20 people?

Best,
F. B.

Intruder drills cover...intruders. The person who stabbed students today was not an intruder but a student, someone who was supposed to be inside the building at that time of day, someone whose presence was not just unremarkable -- it was expected.

Short of a pat-down of every single student as they entered the building, or perhaps a metal detector to detect the knife blades -- how would procedures like intruder drills have prevented today's particular incident? The answer is that they wouldn't have.

I am entirely in favor of intruder drills, "shelter in place" drills, all of it. Locked doors with cameras where anyone turning up must be buzzed in and must report to the office (and in our school, if you were buzzed in and did not turn up in the office, you would be sought -- immediately). But those things would not have affected the student who committed the stabbings today.

Improving security and preparedness is fine, but frankly, I don't know if there's a lot more that our particular school system here could do along those lines; our schools are tight ships. What may need more work and more resources (yes, I mean money) are ways to better identify kids who have personal issues that could lead to this.

I think the questions need to wait until more is known about this student at this school today. Mental health and home environment may play a role.

I am not exactly sure what the 'liberal media' has to do with school violence. Also, I am not sure that this is in any way a new problem. I went to high school between 1979 - 1982. We had bomb threats (multiple, no actual bombs though) and a girl brought in a knife O. year and tried to stab her unfaithful boyfriend and his new girlfriend. And it was an upper middle class suburban high school with a 98% rate of college acceptance. We had regular fire drills and air raid drills (like hiding under your desk would prevent damage from nuclear fallout). We did not have 'intruder' drills.

My son is in second grade. They have regular fire drills, bus drills and intruder drills as well. They are still teaching the kids to hide though, not how to quickly exit out the window (it is a single story building). They were actually on 'lockdown' the day before the Sandy Hook shooting because a burglar had been reported in the neighborhood.

Since Sandy Hook they have instituted a locked door policy where you are buzzed into the entry atrium but are still outside a set of double locked doors. All the other doors are locked. They have a police officer roaming the school (I don't know what his hours are).

I think a big part of the issue in Murrysville this morning was the event occurred before school started. So, it doesn't sound like there were teachers in every classroom (who would have immediately locked the doors and called an alarm) and there were kids in the hallways.

I don't think we can make schools perfectly safe from the children who attend them. I am firmly opposed to armed security officers and certainly to armed teachers (way more likely to cause death or injury than the actual assailant). I disagree strongly with the Supreme Court about the privacy of a child's locker. I think the school has no right to search them.

I am not sure is is the right thing to do to teach children that their schools are dangerous. I suspect (have not done the research) that schools are safer places for children than most other places in their communities. I don't know that metal detectors are warranted in most schools (I am sure there are some, if there is a high incidence of gun violence within the school, then certainly).

I don't see that teaching children morals will prevent school violence. I am fairly sure that all parents who are moral and ethical people, already do this. I am also fairly sure that there is no way to get people who have no moral compass, behave unethically and are basically bad people, to teach their children to be fine upstanding citizens. I also don't see that joining the PTO is a solution.

ETA - kids can get out of our school (and I assume most) without a problem. ALL school doors are unlocked from the inside and locked from the outside. It's the law.

The first thing we can do is teach our children to be kind to O. another. In almost all of these cases, the violence stems from someone who has been bullied.

As far as this case goes, only a few people were stabbed. Many of the other injuries were caused by the chaos of people running away, which changes the time frame of the event.

I encourage sharing your ideas with school decision makers, but don't be upset if your idea is not implemented. Principals get a lot of emails with suggestions about how to improve their school. You have to trust them as professionals to make good decisions. But who knows, your idea may be the gem that they did not think about and could save lives.

1. What are the highlights of your school's Emergency a Preparedness plans and what are the weaknesses? (if you're familiar with them)

No idea. I know that they have practiced for fire drills, tornado drills, earthquake drills and active shooter scenarios. I assume that they have hired or utilize a specific curriculum or follow state guidelines in each of these, which was implemented by professionals in their respective fields. I don't stress over whether there are weaknesses in the plans because that is not my area of expertise. If I was constantly looking for weaknesses in school curriculum and safetly plans, I'd never get any sleep. The statistical liklihood is that my kids will be fine, so I'm going to guilelessly tiptoe in the tulips and be comforted by the data.

2. To what do you attribute the increase in incidents if school violence?

Two things. It's a soft target. And broken, dysfunctional families.

3. What are your ideas to make schools the safe places they're meant to be? (For example, is there only O. entrance that is locked after the start of school?)

Allow all adult personnel who wish to do so to complete firearms training and carry concealed (only those who can complete and meet the licensing and registration requirements).

4. Have you/do you plan to speak with your school's decision makers about improving security and preparedness?

Nope.

I feel like I shouldn't respond because we homeschool. My kids did attend traditional school for many years, though, and all my nieces and nephews go to public school. So here goes:

1) My nieces and nephew's schools have plans. O. of them is so good that my niece was scared half to death a month or two ago when they had a shooting nearby and locked the school down as a precaution. She cried for hours after school.

2) I think school violence has multi-pronged causation. O. thing I seldom hear discussed is the side effects to the many prescription drugs kids take today. For a small sub-set of our population some of these drugs can create serious mental problems. And more and more kids take them. I also think our society is desensitized to violence, for various reasons.

3) I don't have a plan but O. thing that bothers me is how severely schools are "locked" down now. If people can't get in easily (which is great) it's also hard to get out (unforeseen consequence). I'm not sure how to fix that though. I'm just glad my kids are not in crowded, enclosed spaces on a daily basis. I don't even like to go to concerts, sporting events anymore (same reason). I like to have an exit strategy.

4) n/a

Generally I think it's good to teach our kids how to be aware of their surroundings and to keep an eye on the exits and where they are. We also talk about how most humans have innate survival instincts, and that those instincts are good. Trust yourself.

After Sandy Hook, our school district got together with the police department and emergency services (EMS, fire) to review all of the safety and emergency preparedness plans. While there were some good things already in place, this assessment prompted some changes including:

-Number and label the outside of all classroom doors so that emergency personnel can quickly locate a classroom
- Video cameras at the entrances of all schools (some had them, some didn't)
- Photo ID badges worn by students and staff at all schools grade 3 and up (previously that was in place at only grade 6 and up)
- The addition of emergency drills for shelter in place and escaping the building. These are done in the same spirit as fire drills have always been done for the school and bus.

1. As far as the highlights and weaknesses go, there have been locked doors in place at all of our schools for many years and all visitors must sign into the office. The police & fire departments are located on the same campus as 5 of the 7 schools in town so it would take them only a few minutes to arrive at any of the schools in an emergency. Beyond, what I've mentioned, we don't know the rest of the details of the emergency plans as those are kept private...if the whole world knows every detail of your plan, then the plans can be more easily thwarted.

2. I have no idea...perhaps a correlation to the overall increase in mental health issues we're seeing among our children?

3. I don't have any ideas that aren't already in place at our schools. I think the issue is bigger than schools though...there are some really unstable and at-risk folks out there who just aren't being recognized as a danger to themselves and others before it's too late...why? What signs are being missed?

4. No, my school district has been proactive and communicative about emergency preparedness. They send out regular messages about any changes/enhancements being made (that they can share), let us know when a drill is planned and how it went, and usually reach out after incidents like this with an attempt at a reassuring message to parents and students that these things are rare, we are safe, etc.

don't know, really.
but i'm scratching my head at the spin that it's all because of the 'liberal left media.'
cuz there's no coverage of this stuff on fox news...........
@@
khairete
S.

All of the schools in my district have been remodeled so that the offices are right inside the main entrance All other entrances are locked unless an emergency. You ring a bell for admittance, enter a hall/foyer, then ring another bell to enter the office. Our HS has guards stationed at 3 entrances that are available--only O. is unlocked for general admittance. They also have police on campus for assistance if needed.

Unfortunately, it is hard to cover everything. How do you know if a child--a student--has something or an intent to harm others.

1. I don't know what the plan is, although I ought to.

2. So many things: a) kids are being anesthetized to violence through media; parents are letting kids have too much power and control for fear of hurting their feelings and quahsing their spirit. I'm a true believer in "spare the rod; spoil the child.; increase in bullying and schools reluctance to take any steps to stop it (again, because they might quash someone's spirit).

3. Implement corporal punishment in elementary school to lay the foundation for good behavior at school; become more proactive with regard to bullying; get the kids off the tv and video games so that blood, gore and human suffering again become unacceptable (they used to be in my day, but not anymore!)

4. No. Wouldn't do any good. They do/don't do as they please and could really care less what you and I want. They don't have to.

I am with Fanged Bunny on this O.. My first response was why didn't a security person jump him, some male teachers etc. it took a time to stab 20 people. Shootings happen within seconds. Hate to say it but stuff like this has been going on for a long time, we just did not have 24/7 news channels!!!

The schools can have the best plans. You can plan, prepare, talk about it, but lets face it, in an emergency it all goes out the window.

Look at the cop that was critically injured and the cop that was killed. Even my 10 year old granddaughter knew, when I questioned her today, that you never take the elevator where there is fire. So here you have two professionals arriving at an emergency and did not follow the cardinal,rule of apartment/high rise buildings.

Hat I am saying you can plan and plan, you just have to hope for the best.

Since most of the "intruders" are students or kids well known to the school, I am not sure what else can be done. The schools will just have to do the best they can.