Bolstering safety plans may not be enough to stop school shootings
So-called safe corners of schools, secured spaces with two of more sets of doors, and bullet-resistant material built into the entryways are among precautions schools nationwide either had in place or are starting.
Here’s how schools are protecting students and faculty
In Mississippi’s Jackson County School District, a smaller district with a student population similar to Uvalde’s, Superintendent John Strycker and about 30 administrators met to review safety protocols.
He told CNN he’s losing sleep over finding honest solutions.
The superintendent of 30 years said he can’t guarantee 100 percent safety in schools, despite all the precautionary measures the campuses are taking.
“If someone is focused on doing evil, it can happen, and so we will do the best that we can to ensure the safety of our young people,” Strycker said. “I’m not gonna lie to people because I think you need to work from a playing field of authenticity.”
New York City Public Schools, the nation’s largest district, told CNN it is working with partners including the fire and police departments to “make certain that our schools remain as safe as possible in all situations and continue to serve as safe havens for our children.”
Technology and training offer limited protection
She says there should be discussion about security, access control and law enforcement. But she also wants schools’ daily operations to be assessed.
“We have something written down, and then we have what we really do,” she said. “That discrepancy becomes very dangerous because we are not necessarily following the protocols, or there could be the possibility that we’re creating even more vulnerabilities by the way our facility is run by what we do every day or don’t do every day.”
Matthew Mayer, an associate professor at Rutgers Graduate School of Education who has studied school violence, told CNN it’s not a good policy and “there is no one size fits all answer.”
“Having a gun in the class doesn’t do much to protect kids and, in several ways, actually elevates the risk factors for more injuries,” he said. “So it’s a misguided effort that on the surface may be appealing, but it’s just fraught with pitfalls.”
“There’s a question here, of this tendency to just have a knee-jerk reaction, but also the tendency for school leaders and politicians to make the appearance and show that they’re doing something,” Mayer said. “It is complex, but I think the argument is we need to take balanced and comprehensive approaches.”
CNN’s Virginia Langmaid and Stella Chan contributed to this report.
