The terrible shooting in Ohio and the seemingly more frequent attacks around the country have me thinking about school security. My mom actually called me yesterday to ask my daughter's middle school has metal detectors. I don' think we do; it's not one of those things I ever thought I should ask. It's so scary to consider that perhaps I should find out. What kind of security do your schools have? We do have screening protocols for lockers, etc and a staff police officer as well as bullying/conflict resolution type of ongoing programs.
I was just talking to my son and daughters about this last night. Talking about why someone would want to do that and what would prevent them from carrying through with their plan. My son's Jr. High has no medal detectors, nothing. There's a police officer in the school almost every time I go over there. . .so maybe some enforcement is there daily. But, I'm not 100% sure. They seem to run a tight ship as to getting your child out of school and getting work to them if they've left it home, but if someone were to suddenly go crazy. . .. . it wouldn't be good.
We have SRO (School Resource Officers) in Grades 5-12. No metal detectors, though, and we are inundated by Bullying/Cyberbullying programs. And, we have an emergency notification system and a protocol in case something does happen.
We have a zero tolerance policy on bullying in our school, but i know that in the past 2 years we've had at least 2 suicides at the high school/middle school because of bullying/online tormenting/gay harassment....... no metal detectors as far as i know of. i remember when the Columbine shootings happened i was student teaching 1st grade and remember thinking.... how they heck do you explain this to children and how do you make them feel like they are truly safe..... very scary world. anyone wanna move to a bubble island w/ me?!
I'm honestly not sure that metal detectors would solve the problem anyway. The kid that did this was not a student at this school and could just as easily have done this outside in the parking lot. And did you hear about the little 10 year old girl who died a few hours after she was in a fight with another girl over a boy? They met up in an alley near the school. Apparently she was struck in the head by the other girl's fist but never fell to the ground or anything. Who knew that a 10 year old girls punch could be hard enough to cause someone to die?!
This is just way to scary to think about. I don't think our local schools have metal detectors either, but I know they have police officers on duty at all times. My kids homeschool though, so I'm really not sure on all of the policies.
My brother and sister are both teachers in my town. I know they have officers in the schools now and lock down drills. News like this scares me.
I'm not sure what we have around here actually... It makes me so sad how different life is now for my kids than it was when I was a kid... We didn't have to worry about all this stuff... I would leave the house in the morning and would walk to school without any parents and walk home without any parents... When I was older I would leave the house on my bike and be gone all day and come home for lunch and head back out and then be back for dinner and head out again and be home to go to bed... I didn't even have a curfew because I was always home at a decent time... And during the school year I would come home for dinner and then instead of going out again I'd do my homework and then head to bed... I can't do that with my kids and it makes me sad knowing that I would get in trouble for not being around or the very real possibility of something happening to them that when I was a kid would have never crossed anyone's minds... I sound like an old lady with the "when I was a kid" lol... But bullying and suicides weren't much of a problem back then because bullies weren't allowed to continue their actions and we learned to accept people for who they were and not judge... It totally breaks my heart to see kids going through so much in their young lives instead of being able to just be kids and seeing kids hurting so badly that they come to a point of hurting others for attention or hurting themselves because they can't handle it anymore... It's just so heartbreaking to see it happening so much!!!
Nicely put, Heather! I sat down with my son last night at dinner and we talked about it. He's a senior in high school so old enough to deal with all of it. But in my family we've discussed how nothing could be bad enough to consider suicide/violence. There is always something to be done to make it better. I've always encourage to talk about the good and the bad stuff with me, either their own or if it might be a friend that seemed to need help.
I've been teaching students in rural and urban areas for almost 20 years now and the thing that comforts me is the amount of schools that do not have violent events. It's kind of like plane crashes... when you hear about one, it's tragic and terrifying and of course you think about it when you're on a plane but the truth is, there are thousands of flights that go up and come down every day without incident. Furthermore, even though we are now living in a world that does not feel nearly as safe as it did when we were kids, the fact is (as some people mentioned) it has forced us to become a lot tighter about bullying and safety protocols within schools. I was bullied terribly when I was in 6th grade and I think it would have been a bit easier for me to be in middle school these days because there is more protection and prosecution related to it. I'm not saying it's safe but at least it's gotten the attention of school officials who are (hopefully) working to the best of their ability to prevent it. As it stands, I agree with pianomom that these things are sometimes very difficult to predict. However, just like our behavior changed after 9/11, hopefully students and staff will be on the lookout for signs and help to prevent tragedies before they happen. Rather than sending a message of safety, I think metal detectors sometimes send a message that we expect students to bring in weapons. Sometimes it also has a tendency to make staff a bit more lax about keeping a close eye on conversations, relationships and behaviors between students.
The school doors are locked after 8:30 in the morning and they will leave one handicap accessible door unlocked...but you cannot get to any of the corridors where the classrooms are. They have those under lock too and you have to know the key code to get into them. There is a zero tolerance policy here too. It's a small community and nothing major has happened here that I know of thankfully. It's pretty guarded. There are cameras outside and inside as well.
This is one of the main reasons we wanted to move out of Florida before Colin started middle school. The Elementary schools here (if you move to the right area) are fabulous but the middle/high schools are just bad, bad BAD. We just have too many to send to private and I would be driving between 3 different schools for a few years so there was just no way. They don't have any security here at all. It's so scary the things that go on now
ours are pretty much the same,if you need to fetch your child out you have to sign in and out and you cant access the school without going through reception and then they unlock the door for you so it is pretty safe and i feel safe letting my kids go there
there is no security here. Some schools have fences around them, but most still dont. (ours are many buildings spread out) There is a sign in book in the office which you are supposed to use, but that's only in case of a fire etc so they know how many to count. But things are so different here and as guns are illegal, it's not so much of an issue. Bullying still is, and we get a lot of pamphlets about it. I agree that kids are better able to deal with bullying these days. They are taught what to do, which certainly didnt happen when i was in school
