Post date: Mar 21, 2018 1:32:34 PM
Aimee Nugent-12 In America today, school shootings are increasing to epidemic levels. School safety precautions play a vital role in the protection of students.
Many doors in Kirksville high school are unlocked each day. Anyone can walk in at anytime. Seemingly nothing is stopping a school shooter from entering at any moment. Every other building in the district has a locked front door with a buzz-in system for safety.
Officer Harden, School Resource Officer, had this to say when asked about how safe he feels KHS is, “It’s safe, but there is always more you can do. I don’t think we're ever gonna be 100% [safe] to the point where we don’t have to worry about it”.
Superintendent Dr. Kizzire reported the safety improvements in the works for KHS, “When school starts up next year we will have a locking front door, north door, and [the] door by Karen Keck’s room that we’ll open up during passing times but the only way to get it otherwise [will] be through the front door...”.
Kizzire is open to making adjustments for the safety of the students here at KHS. Kizzire also mentioned, “Two others things we’re looking at at right now are, not bulletproof glass but, a coating that kind of looks like tinted windows. It is not only tinted, it’s break resistant. So it’s not bulletproof by any stretch of the imagination, something could go through it. But to get into it takes a significant amount of time”.
Locking doors, having resource officers, and other precautions of that nature seem to be relatively obvious.
However, a social worker in the school or extra counselors are also safety precautions.
They are important in terms of taking care of the mental health of students.
If mental health professionals were in every school in America, there could be a tremendous change in this epidemic our society is facing.
School safety is one solution that schools, like KHS, can have direct control over.
Improving the safety of KHS is up to our administrators and they are not waiting for legislation to be passed before taking action to protect their students.