My name is Dillon Nissen, and I am currently a junior in portage public schools. I am only 17, and I have my whole life ahead of me. School shootings have always been prevalent, but recently they’ve reached an all time high. With this threat abroad, the lack of security and safeguards in our schools is extremely worrying. In the span of just 6 years from 2013-2019, there have been over 2,100 school shootings in the U.S., resulting in almost 2,500 deaths. That’s at least 2,500 parents that will never be able to see their children again. 2,500 innocent lives that were unjustly taken. That number is alarming, and should be so to anybody whether it be a child, student, or a parent. However, that number doesn’t have to keep climbing. School security needs to be improved. There are so many easy ways to get into a school that a lot of the time you wouldn’t even need to sneak to get into a building. Entrances are left unlocked, no ID’s are checked, and people can walk in and out with no problems, whether they even go to the school or not. Most of the time the only thing keeping someone with bad intentions from hundreds of innocent lives is just one unlocked door. I tell you this because it is a huge concern, for parents and students alike. We want to feel safe when we go to school. We want to be better prepared. Yes, some schools have the IN-CASE-OF-SHOOTER drills, but it shouldn’t stop there. We should start enforcing ID checks, and not letting people in without proper identification. It might not be as convenient, but it’s not worth the risk to have unguarded entrances. We all want a future and we all want our voices heard. The question is, are you willing to make that change?