A Different Way to Arm our Schools

A different way to arm our schools

We have this whole situation of school invasions bass ackwards.  Nearly every school invader has been a current or former student.  They know the layout of the school.  They know where people hang out.  They know there are 2000 or more students in that building.

So, our foolish way to deal with the issue is to have MORE guns in the schools.  We will hire MORE SRO’s or school resource officers, our euphemistic name for in-school armed security.  We will get more metal detectors.  How many security people can we put in one building.   Will high schools with thousands of kids and hundreds of staff have five officers, maybe six, how many would be enough? How will they be in the right spot at the right time?  We can “harden” our schools as has been suggested.  Think about it, prisons are pretty hardened places and even they have riots!  Do we want our schools to resemble prisons? That is where we are heading with all of these security guards, metal detectors and lock down drills.  It has been suggested that retired police officers and retired military make the best SRO's.  Do these people know how to work with kids?

Money is finite.  We have so much and that is it.  Doesn’t matter if the finite amount is five billion or 5 dollars.  It is finite.  The money being spent to harden our schools is not going to do the job.  If anything it will create more reasons for kids to grab a gun and invade the building.  The students who are shooting up our schools already feel disconnected.  Adding more guns will only make them feel more so.

In fact, what we need to do is soften our schools.   Use that money for SRO’s to hire more teachers.  Let’s put an SRT- school resource TEACHER in every classroom.  Let’s encourage teachers to KNOW their students and to interact with them on a personal level.  Let’s tell teachers that in addition to getting students to pass a test they need to find out how the kid is.  How is your mother?  Is she feeling better from the flu?   Did your dad get that job he was going after?  Did you make the team?  How is your school year going?   Kids who feel cared about and connected do not shoot up a school.  We need to arm our teachers and staff with caring not with weapons.

And while I am at it, bigger is not better when it comes to schools. There is a reason private schools are not invaded and it has nothing to do with the funding source.  Private schools are by their nature smaller.  You don’t need to walk  miles to get to the next classroom.  Teachers and staff know you by name.  They ask how are you? And they really want to know and really want an answer.  It isn’t perfunctory.  

We can never hire enough school security to cover every place in a comprehensive public school.  We can never harden our schools to look like prisons or airport security.   Why would we want to?

We can allow our teachers the time and the energy to care about their students.  We can free counselors up to counsel. Now there’s an interesting idea.  If they were not chasing tests and test scores they might have time for what brought them to the profession.

How about we arm our schools with people who have the time to care.