Saving Students From Gun Violence

Source: Jose Alonso/Unsplash

This is the first of a two-part series.

News headlines are following the mourning of three lives lost in another campus shooting, this one at the University of Virginia. Earlier this year another shooter killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Texas. As saddened as we are to hear of school shootings, they regularly cross our headlines. Educators, parents, students, and community members wonder what can be done to stop such tragedies.

In the wake of school gun violence, Megan Sweet released a recent whitepaper gathering crucial policy implications and recommendations. Sweet is an author, speaker, and school board member who previously served as a teacher, school administrator, and district leader during 25 years in the education field. In this interview, she helps us explore what can be done to keep our students safe.

What are the most effective means school districts have for preventing gun violence in schools?

Our best means for preventing future gun violence is creating safe and supportive school communities. While campus security is important, when our efforts center more on promoting physical safety and less on students’ social-emotional well-being, we miss our greatest means for preventing individuals from accessing guns in the first place.

Schools can provide generalized support by including social-emotional learning strategies in the classroom, using positive behavior interventions and supports to promote an inclusive and welcoming school community, and fostering positive relationships between students and adults. Further, schools can establish interdisciplinary teams, sometimes called coordination of service teams (COST), where administrators, school safety personnel, teachers, and mental health providers identify students in need of additional support and provide them with the interventions they need, such as academic support and counseling.

The more that students are known, have positive relationships with adults at school, and have access to the services they need, the less that guns and other forms of violence will feel like their only recourse.

In the wake of mass shootings in schools, there are often calls for increasing armed presence on school campuses, including arming teachers. Does arming school staff keep students safe?

A growing body of research shows that while school-based law enforcement (SBLE) does mitigate some forms of campus violence, their presence is associated with increases in other forms of discipline such as suspensions, expulsions, and arrests that disproportionately impact Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Further, SBLE presence has not been proven to prevent gun violence. (Fisher & Petrosino, 2022; Sawchuck, 2021; Sorensen et al., 2021). In fact, SBLE was on campus at Columbine, Parkland, Santa Fe, and Robb Elementary School—four of the last five mass shootings on school campuses.

Following mass shootings, the subject of arming teachers also arises. While it is touted as an efficient and cost-effective way of keeping our schools safe, in reality, arming teachers would cost billions of dollars in specialized training, equipment, and insurance. Further, police officers and other first responders receive hundreds of hours of training on how to handle weapons and remain calm in violent situations, but that same kind of training is not provided to teachers. Everytown for Gun Safety (2022) reviewed 10 state laws that permit armed staff and found that they receive far less training, if any at all. Some states even permit local school districts to establish their own policies for training armed personnel (Everytown, 2022).

To continue reading, see Part II of this interview.