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If I were to volunteer to sub on a Monday, I would always ask students about their weekends. When subbing students from underserved communities, it would not be unusual to hear comments about being around a loaded gun, hearing gunshots, or knowing someone involved in a shooting in their neighborhood.
Because of that, these students had a jaded view of school shootings. One said, “That until you hear the sound of a gunshot, it’s not real.”
What is real is the fear students carry to school along with their over-weighted backpacks. I remember, sadly, one of my first substitute assignments when I was responsible for supervising an active shooter drill. It was surreal and quite disturbing.
GUNSHOT SOUND: POPPING BALLOON
Yesterday I subbed for the first time this school year. And since lesson plans were not left, I did what I enjoyed the best – talking to kids. We talked about everything. And as I do with my Student Success Project, I ask what’s top of mind. And considering how much they have to choose from, the main issue of concern was surprising.
The usual topics include bullying, both traditional and cyber bullying, drug use and now fentanyl-laced drugs, alcohol abuse, academic problems, peer pressure, the environment, climate change, racial justice and gun control.
GUNSHOT SOUND: BOMB OR CANNON
Feeling “completely unsafe” at school still tops the list.
These kids are angry and express their feelings precisely.
They are still scared to come to school and constantly look over their shoulders.
They are incredibly disappointed in adults that are supposed to make them feel safe in school and do not.
They need to understand why school building expansion occurs while their current building still needs to be remotely shooter-proof.
They think it’s moronic to arm teachers as “security guards” when it’s not their job.
They want to know why administrators say, “they prioritize student safety,” yet it takes months to fix a lock on a classroom door.
They know this feeling of fear all too well. And sadly enough, they know the stats.
In many of these shootings, somebody had a gun. They weren’t planning a shooting that day, but something occurred where they had a dispute with somebody. There was a fight, and for whatever reason, they decided to pull out a gun that they habitually carried in school and then shoot somebody with it.
GUNSHOT SOUND: RAPID FIRE CRACKS
There have been more school shootings with more victims in the first three months of 2023 than in the same period last year. If trends from the past five decades continue for the remainder of the year, there will be about 400 shootings in 2023, outpacing last year’s record high of 273.
These counts include any acts of gun violence on K-12 public, private, and charter school campuses, including mass shootings, gang shootings, domestic violence, shootings at sports games and after-hours school events, suicides, and other incidents.
“Based on 53 years of data, a predictive model estimates approximately 400 shootings this year, which follows the observed trend of increased gun violence at schools since 2018,” said David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, which is updated daily.
The 2022 calendar year broke the record for the most school shootings in over four decades and marked one of the most violent years for youth ages 12-17, according to various unofficial counts.
GUNSHOT SOUND: FIREWORKS
As of Dec. 20, there were 300 shooting incidents on school grounds in 2022, compared to 250 in 2021 and 114 in 2020, according to the publicly accessible K-12 School Shooting Database. A decade earlier, 2010 saw 15 school shootings.
“Many students shared stories of sleeping problems, fear of coming to school in the morning, staying in the afternoon for activities, and returning for night events. Most have some anxiety while at school and real fright when seeing someone in the halls they have never before seen.”
Note: the last paragraph was pulled from my column five years ago after the Parkland Shooting titled: “The Deep Sadness of My First Active Shooter Drill.”
Some things always sound the same.
This column is by Ritchie Lucas, Founder of The Student Success Project and Think Factory Consulting. He can be reached by email at ritchie@thinkfactory.com and on Facebook and You Tube as The Student Success Project.
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