Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Does More Security Make Them Safer?
Helicopters buzzed overhead, camera crews rushed to take pictures, and students headed to their classes:
It was the first day back at school at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday — one day after the six-month anniversary of the massacre that left 17 dead. With driver’s license-size IDs on red lanyards hanging from their necks, students trickled into the sprawling campus in Parkland, Fla., which had school resource officers staffed at every entrance.
Students reflected on their return to school in many ways: some suggested it was time to move forward; others thought about the friends they had lost.
Costly measures had been taken to ensure the safety of teachers and students, but more needed to be done, said Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie:
No matter what security measures we put in place, we need discipline in and around schools, including monthly code red and active shooter drills, clinician-staffed wellness centers and assigned victims advocates and therapy dogs.
I wonder, though, with school resource officers at every entrance, three more school resource officers, three security specialists, 18 safety monitors, new classroom locks, and upgraded video surveillance, at a cost of $6.5 million, whether they will be safer or is it an overreaction? Is safety an illusion?
Will the safety measures become part of a new norm that people accept? Will future students adjust to the constant reminders? Will they eventually become indifferent to the potential dangers?
My guess is that everyone will adjust as the years pass, especially when the current student population is replaced by new students.
I just can’t help feeling sad about transforming school campuses into armed fortresses.
Published in Education
Nobody wants to say it, because this extra security is for the children, but most of this stuff makes about as much sense as issuing each passenger aboard an airliner a parachute – just in case. Maybe it isn’t needed, but you never know.
I feel sorry for the kids and their parents. I have a long ago memory of psychic discomfort as the final weeks of school slowly ticked away after the Columbine atrocity. My son was in high school, then. Nowhere near Columbine, of course, but we were all suddenly aware that inchoate evil could break out even in our nice, suburban schools.
I had the experience of being in lockdown at US Army Headquarters owing to a gunman in the building, and another secure installation I am familiar with was Washington Navy Yard building 193, now famous for the shootings that killed three of my former coworkers and six others.
Perfect safety is unachievable in this world. There are roughly 67,000 public elementary schools in the US and the total fatality count from all school categories in the US from school shootings since 1990 is 202.
The level of security described here is comparable to what my much younger sister experienced in the Maryland suburbs of DC, though only at the high school level, and considerably more than my own children experienced more recently in the Virginia suburbs.
Every shooting of an innocent is tragic, and these students and parents and teachers deserve a very high level of assurance that their children will be much safer following this traumatic event. As a parent who has experienced having a child in mortal danger, the volatilization of ones entire being is unimaginable. The measures described are comparable to secure locations I’ve visited in government and private sectors.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Broward County…
This is political theater.
I remember in 1988 when I was visiting Caracas,Venezuela , and a school bus stopped about a block away from the cafe where I was having coffee. First person off the bus was a guard with a rifle. The school was walled with big iron barred gate. Several guards came out and the children were escorted into the school.
I remember thinking how sad it was that the children needed armed guards to get to school, and feeling a bit smug that I was an American and no such thing was needed for our children. What a difference 30 years can make. Venezuela was a beautiful country, people were so nice and polite. Today it is near destroyed and we need armed guards for our children.
I was able to take a photo of Simón Bolívar, in full sail. Beautiful ship.
I’m so sorry about the life experiences you have had–those must stay with you in some form forever. I am glad to know that from your diverse experience, these make some sense. I think it’s a double-edged sword knowing the security might make them safer–as @seawriter says, you never know, but so many things will be around to trigger fear and discomfort. Thanks, @sisyphus.
And the fact that the sheriff is still there angers me beyond belief. He must have amazing political connections to be kept on in the face of his incompetence.
Yes, @kayofmt, much has changed. And not necessarily for the better.
I find this the most interesting point. After the shooting little details have slowly emerged about the failures of bureaucrats and systems despite the efforts of those entities to hide them.
That is the opposite of an umbrella of concern. It is a lack of concern at every level. Maybe some security procedures will be implemented, but there will not be safety as long as the bureaucrats don’t prioritize the concern. Parents everywhere should be skeptical and harass their school boards until safety is achieved. The bigger the school system, the less responsive it is and the louder the parents need to be.
Excellent point, @dong. They implemented visible changes that would make people feel better, but have they dealt with the issues of student mental illness? Proper training for police and follow-up drills? The things they’ve done are relatively easy; the others are much harder.
I’m old enough to remember the “duck and hide” drills we had in elementary school in the event of a nuclear attack. It was a scary time, but most of us survived those years without major emotional damage. I think the current hysterical media coverage of these mass shootings adds a lot to the trauma of the children.
I remember those, too, @jimmcconnell, and in fact wrote a post on them some time back. I had the same reaction, and didn’t dwell on the drills. But I discovered that many kids were traumatized by that period. I’m guessing their parents or teachers catastrophized current events. Nowadays I think the ongoing hysteria is not helpful, just as you say. It’s just hard to get perspective when people are dying.
The Sheriff is an elected official. It is very hard to remove him from office before the end of his term.
Maybe so. This came out in early July:
High level sources within the Broward County Sheriff’s office exclusively revealed to Big League Politics that disgraced Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel is set to be removed from his position as Sheriff next week.
According to the source, Sheriff Israel is being removed from office for criminal issues, not malfeasance, following an investigation conducted by the office of Florida Governor Rick Scott. The source exclusively revealed to Big League Politics that Sheriff Israel is also being investigated by the IRS.
The high-level police source within the Sheriff’s Office disclosed that over the last several months, four candidates have been interviewed to refill the position of Broward County Sheriff. One of the candidates who were interviewed is Emery Giany, a Republican Florida law enforcement official who is closely associated with Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Didn’t happen. But Captain Jan Jordan was just removed for her incompetence. And there is word that more heads are going to roll. We’ll see.
It’s extra security for the jobs of administrators.
“Does more security make them safer”?
No, but it costs a hell of a lot, so the administrator can say they’ve done something.
@thereticulator and @dnewlander, as I said earlier this troubles me in two ways. We are creating a false sense of security, that now all their problems regarding shootings are solved and life can go on–and spending a heck of a lot of money to make that statement. Life will never go on as it once did–actually that is true whether there was a shooting or not. But also, these actions and dollars are not just being spent in Florida, but all over the country. It’s sort of like TSA making us take off our shoes–it’s all theater, but will it make a difference. I can see you are as skeptical as I am.
Not the first time, or the last that such measures will be instituted, SQ…Northeastern OH, late-1960s/early-1970s – armed police in the halls of a high school for which my special physical needs el/jr.-high acted as a feeder. Needless to say, I attended elsewhere.
@susanquinn, you bet I’m skeptical. I travel a lot, so I got TSA Pre-Check, which means that in exchange for TSA having my fingerprints, I don’t have to take off my shoes and belt, and don’t have to take anything out of my bag.
To prove that the TSA is all Kabuki, I present this fact:
When the regular security lines get too long at many airports, the TSA agents start shuffling the overflow into the Pre-Check line. Meaning all those people just went back in time to the pre-TSA security regime. Randomly.
But, heaven forbid you have a 6 am flight on a Monday, and get to security at 4, right after they open. Because no one else is there, you will always, always, get pinged for a “random” inspection. Guarantee it. Why? Because by rule, they have to do a certain number of these “random” inspections per hour, so they take the first person that comes through each hour.
Complete and total Kabuki, with worse costumes.
We have it, too, but I had no idea how they were abusing the system. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. And I’ll tell you, what a nightmare trying to get fingerprints off me! They finally gave up and said they’d find them “somewhere else in the system” since others have been able to get them, rarely, elsewhere. But what a pain!
No it does not make them safer because the risk was already so low. Even accounting for recent mass school shootings school is one of the safest places a child can be. Yet we have many students convinced that they are in constant danger of imminent assault. Adult overreactions such as this create an irrational sense of fear in students.
[I think the “duck and cover” drills of the 1960’s were less likely to inflict emotional scarring because they were always abstract and theoretical. Today’s hysteria builds on actual (if infinitesimally low probability) events that are made vivid by widespread publicity and visual media.
The answer is not more “paid” security from whatever source, it is a re-embracing of a culture of personal self-defense and reliance. School shooters are cowardly — they pick soft targets. Whatever justification they conjure up in their mind to do the deed, it is not valor and bravery. Thus, while there may have been deaths in all of the shootings, the body count would have been much less absent a WMD if protection of students by forceful response would have been integral to existence at the school. When you outsource personal security you become totally reliant on their timing, presence and expertise. That makes you lucky, not safe.
@nandapanjandrum, were those set up to deal with war protests, like Kent State?
I agree. These actions are not based on the theoretical, @fullsizetabby. I worry that they will do more harm than good. Thanks for weighing in.
As always, @rodin, spot on. We are not empowering these kids. We’re just scaring them. So frustrating.
Two issues. First, are students safer? Yes. Even though this feels like substantial over-kill, and hopefully will be lessened over time.
Second, do the students feel safer? I hope so. And for now that is reason enough for the overkill.
Racial tensions in Cleveland high schools…