Armed Teachers and Staff in Schools

1406 Words3 Pages

Schools were once traditionally viewed as a safe place for children, teenagers, and adults. The educational setting coupled with community involvement gave no reason for violence to occur in schools. As years progressed, the occurrence of violence in school shocked communities across the nation, calling for state lawmakers and school districts to produce a solution to prevent these acts from occurring. Events such as the 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado urged schools throughout the U.S. to increase their security measures with more stringent policies and procedures while spending millions of dollars on security equipment from security cameras to metal detectors. While schools increase their safety measures to prevent another major incident from occurring, such as a suspect with a firearm (active shooter) from entering school property, some of the security measures have not been effective. An example is the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, where the shooter was able to bypass a locked door which is one of the security measures the school had in place, making personnel visiting the school required to request entrance into the building (Barron). Although most security measures passively make schools safer, it is not nearly enough to prevent an individual who intends on creating mass violence from completing his or her task. State representatives, national organizations, school staff, and parents need to come together to figure out the most reliable ways to prevent an active shooter situation from occurring in their schools. One solution that has been active is many schools have partnered with local law enforcement agencies to provide a police officers to patrol school grounds.... ... middle of paper ... ...oday. "More Locked Doors, Police as Schools Ramp Up Security." USA Today 2013: Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. Ripley, Amanda. "Your Brain Under Fire. (Cover Story)." Time 181.3 (2013): 34-41. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Mar. 2014. Rostron, Allen, and Brian Siebel. "No Gun Left Behind: The Gun Lobby's Campaign to Push Guns into Colleges and Schools." Www.bradycampaign.org. N.p.: Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 2007. 9-11. Rpt. in Juvenile Crime. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2012. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 31 Mar. 2014. Shah, Nirvi. "Teachers Already Armed in some Districts." Education Week 32.21 (2013): 1,1, 14, 15. ProQuest. Web. 31 Mar. 2014. Severson, Kim, and Alan Blinder. "Guns at School? If There's A Will, There Are Ways." LexisNexis Academic. LexisNexis, 28 Sept. 2013. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.

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