Mar. 12—Safety on a school campus used to not be a problem. Almost nineteen years ago the first mass shooting happened at Columbine High School. Twelve students and one teacher were murdered, twenty one others were injured. On February 14, 2018 a mass shooting occurred at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; seventeen students and teachers were killed and fourteen others were taken to the hospital. It was one of the deadliest school massacres in the world. Now, the world is in an uncomfortable situation… some people want to make it illegal to buy semi-automatic weapons, some want to arm teachers, and some want to increase the age limit to buy a gun. Weather any of those things happen, all schools should be updating their safety regulations.

Our current campus is very open to the public unlike the other high schools in our district, anyone has the ability to walk right into our school. All the doors are unlocked to the school, it would be very easy for an intruder to get in. The new building however has some changes, “There is going to be fewer entrances and some kind of key card entry”. Although that solves future problems, we have to focus on the current buildings safety, we are in this school for at least two more years. Mrs. Ferate, whose classroom is located in the unlocked and open cafeteria, suggested more security guards, “Two people cannot secure the whole building”. The website Campus Safety suggests: stricter visitor guidelines, more staff monitoring passing periods/ dismissal, and keep as many doors locked as possible so there is only a couple points of entry.

I asked our Vice Principal if he thought our current school could be safer, he said, “The short answer is yes, I believe our building is safe. Having said that however, I do believe that there is always room for improvement. Personally, I would like to see an increased focus in reporting incidents to adults”. That is something all of us as students have to work on but, it is a different story when most students don’t feel comfortable having a regular conversation with the adults at the school. The administrators are more known for the bad interactions with students than the good, no one sees the principles out walking the school greeting students and the administrators that secure the get a bad reputation because they keep the students from doing what they aren’t supposed to do. There should be a stronger connection between all of us, we spend five days out of the week with the people at this school.  

One thing we did start training for as a school is the ALICE protocol, it stands for Alert, Lock down, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. It was created in 2013 to improve situations when there is an intruder on campus. Instead of turning off the lights locking the doors and hiding all together in a corner, we lock down the class and get prepared for anything to come through the door. At the Stoneman Douglas school shooting, the fire alarm was pulled which rushed everyone out in the hallways so it was easier for the shooter to harm them. Many people are going to be very paranoid leaving classrooms for a fire drill. Our school is working on “rerouting fire drill evacuation routes to make the process more streamlined” says Vice Principal Clouser. We all have to work on improving on school safety to prevent a situation like there was at Stoneman Douglas or Sandy Hook or Columbine. Students should not be afraid to go to school.