How can we best ensure the safety of our students? – The Vicksburg Post

This is a question we ask ourselves far too often in response to the recent tragic events at an American school: How can we ensure the safety of our students?

Violence in schools is nothing new. It has existed as long as children have been learning in groups. But over the past 30 years, there appears to have been a dramatic increase not only in the number of violent incidents in schools across the country, but also in the severity of the incidents – with weapons almost always playing a central role.

In the past two weeks, we have seen two concerning situations at schools in the Vicksburg Warren School District. Thankfully, no one was injured in either case. In fact, the first incident turns out not to have been an actual incident. Rather, a “non-credible” threat was made via Instagram suggesting a shooting at a middle school, Vicksburg police said.

The second incident involved an elementary school student who brought an air rifle to a school bus stop. We don't know much more than that, mostly due to the student's age, but we do know that the student had already been suspended from school.

In both cases, we reached out to school district and local police officials. And in both cases, they said protocols were followed and the situations were either quickly brought under control or quickly dismissed as non-credible. When the details of the situation became public, many parents were concerned not only about what had happened, but how it was handled. That's completely understandable. I have two school-age children myself and am eager to know what is being done to keep them safe while they are in the care of school officials.

So is what is being done enough? Is anything ever really enough? I was a sophomore in high school when Columbine happened, and it was the first time a school shooting had sparked a national response. Unfortunately, it has happened many more times since then. But I remember my school district quickly switching to school uniforms as part of the “answer” to the problem of protecting our campus from people who didn't belong there. That mindset wasn't without its problems, not least because the people who killed students at Columbine were students too. They belonged there.

The point is that there don't seem to be any clear rules for dealing with dangers on our campuses. Metal detectors are certainly a good idea, but what about kids on buses who haven't made it to campus yet? School uniforms actually help identify people who shouldn't be on campus, except for the fact that every clothing store in a school district that requires uniforms sells these nondescript clothes, which has the unintended side effect of making someone who isn't a student look more like a student.

In our case, although there were no injuries in either recent incident, VPD Chief Penny Jones said additional officers would be added to the school's existing security force in the foreseeable future, just to be safe. Meanwhile, VWSD Superintendent Dr. Tori Holloway said the protocols in place worked well in both cases, even though they were completely different cases.

This is all good news, but since threats to our students now come from the void of cyberspace and are as worthy of investigation as any other, it seems we need to adapt our security protocols just as those who could do harm have adapted their methods. What that looks like is something we all need to figure out.

Blake Bell is general manager and managing editor of the Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at [email protected].