Children should be able to attend school and focus on academics and playing with their classmates... Parents should be able to drop their children off at school and have no doubts on whether or not their child will come home safely. Tragically, this has not been the case over the past 2 decades, and recent trends are not showing a promising future. Since the Columbine Shooting (1999), there have been 106 active school shooter incidents (grades K-12) in the United States - resulting in the deaths of 101 innocent children and teachers, with another 69 injured. Schools should be one of the safest and most protected institutions that we have, and sadly this is far from the case.

What do we need to do?

• Mandatory police presence in every school, every day
  • Current policing in schools has not been done efficiently, nor correctly as many schools only employ a School Resource Officer (SRO) once per week
  • A study conducted in the school year of 2015-2016 showed that only 22% of school had a full-time officer, while only 21% had a part-time officer. This leaves 57% of schools with no officer presence at all.
  • There needs to be more oversight of officers in schools. More involvement from the state government to ensure a streamlined, foolproof approach to prevention, complete with a checks and balance system.
• Mandatory metal detectors in every school
  • A study conducted in school year 2015-2016 reported that only 4.5% of school used random metal detector checks - and only 1.8% used daily searches.
  • Metal detectors are a visual symbol of deterrence, and an active tool of prevention
  • Again, more oversight needs to be enacted to oversee the execution of metal detector use, because the way they are used now is not consistent, nor effective.
• Mandatory locked doors policy in every school
  • Every single school should be required to have their exterior doors locked at all times - only entry from outside individuals must be granted from school officials within the building. This would be an incredibly easy, fast, and effective change with the installation of improved entry systems.
• Invest in mental health
  • A recent study conducted looked at 35 school shooters from 1982 through 2019, and showed that 28 of those 35 (80%) had either undiagnosed or untreated mental illnesses.
  • Preventative safeguards need to be revamped and implemented. Safeguards that are currently in place in regards to gun access and mental health concerns are horribly flawed and not reliable. Often times following an incident, people point out the signs that were seemingly obvious. In other instances, the signs were known, but they "fell through the cracks" in the safeguard system.
  • Mental health is still considered "less important" when compared to physical health by many, including insurance companies and Medicaid. As it stands, both options, as a whole, have inadequate coverages for mental health care - resulting in people that need it not getting the help they need.
• Counselors in schools
  • Yes, there are "counselors" in schools; however, most schools' counselors are better defined as academic advisors. Schools need counselors dedicated solely to providing children with psychological help. Someone for children to talk to outside of their home or friends.

How can this be done?

• Obviously, funding this would be a great undertaking, but, a huge amount of this could easily be taken care of with the reallocation of funds that go to standardized testing. Across the country, $1.7 billion dollars is spent on standardized testing - and for what? For kids to learn how to memorize and recite information to put on paper. Standardized testing has been a debate for a long time, and repeatedly shown to not be effective in schools. That funding must be reallocated to keeping our children safe. 
• Any further funding must come from the federal government, if needed. We must take care of our children, and if that means we reallocate money from things such as foreign aid, we must demand it. Imagine how much could be improved in schools' safety and security with just a fraction of the $40 billion dollars that the U.S. government recently approved for Ukraine aid.

Enough is enough. The revolving door of "incident, mourn, forget, repeat" must STOP! 

I hope you choose to sign this petition to bring this to the front desk of all governmental lawmakers and personnel. We cannot wait any longer and risk any more innocent children and teachers. The plan is here, the funding is there, the change must happen. 

Please help protect our children.