All school systems should ensure equal and proper protection for students in classrooms across America and shouldn’t have to depend on unfair demographic factors. There are several demographic factors when it comes to school shootings, but all school systems, including college campuses, need to work harder to prevent them from happening.
Income should not be a factor in how safe a school can be; all schools in America should have the funding to protect themselves with something as simple as a lock.
Pew Research analyst Katherine Schaeffer wrote, “Classrooms are less likely to have locking doors in schools where greater shares of students come from households with lower incomes.”
Another statistic from Schaeffer said, “In the 2019-20 school year, middle and high schools were more likely than elementary schools to have anonymous threat-reporting systems (77% of middle schools and 76% of high schools, vs. 59% of elementary schools) and security cameras (94% of middle schools and 97% of high schools, vs. 88% of elementary schools).” Although this statistic is shocking, it supports the point that all students should be taken care of equally, no matter how old.
Fallacies, such as security response time and guns entering school systems across America, cost students and staff their lives from mass shootings.
The most recent school shooting in the US—marking the 46th shooting in 2024 alone—was at Apalachee High School in Winder, GA, only an hour outside of Atlanta. The shooting took four people’s lives. The shooting is so close to campus, it begs the question: What would ABAC’s preparations be for a shooting?
The 14-year-old Apalachee High School shooter, Colt Gray, committed the crime with an AR-15-style rifle. The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office knew that Gray had made prior threats, so this school should have seen this instance as a higher priority. The resource officer should have checked Gray and his belongings as he arrived at school that day with extra officers on the scene instead of officers only responding once the shooting occurred. The Apalachee High School shooting should not be part of a statistic.
Most schools have a single resource officer, but there should be two-to-three minimum resource officers at each school prepared for any situation. This staff increase could be achieved by allocating resources from somewhere else, but this would vary from system to system.
One officer should monitor metal detectors at student and visitor points of entrance in all schools. This would help prevent the case of firearms from entering schools.
Depending on the state, teachers can or can’t carry guns on school campuses. Competent and psychologically tested teachers should also be allowed to have firearm protection if they choose to. If the teacher does decide to carry, they shouldn’t use it as a sign of authority but only use it in the case of emergency. The firearm should also be somewhere undisclosed to anyone but the teacher or professional in the classroom.
ABAC’s Chief of Police Frank Strictland said, “Run, hide, fight. The first thing to do is to either get out of there or hide where you are and secure yourself in place. The last resort is fighting. We respond immediately and confront the threat.”
While thankfully no one has had to enact this plan at ABAC, there should be more precautions on campus. When any student on campus is interested in the safety of their school, campus officers should be ready to inform them on what to do in such a situation.