Opinion - School safety: Are we doing enough?

I carry around a kid’s shoe on the backpack I take to the office every day.

The shoe is hard to miss since it’s full of vibrant tie-dyed colors and has a big pink bow on it. Once in a while, someone will ask me why I do this and I share that it’s because of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Some of the children killed on that horrible day were decapitated or so disfigured, they had to be identified by their shoes. I tied that shoe to my backpack several months ago so I wouldn’t forget the anger and sadness it evokes and so I can share my feelings with others to motivate change.

As I visited with people in our community after the Uvalde shooting, a couple of questions kept coming up during those discussions, “Are our schools as physically safe as they can be? Are we doing everything we can to ensure the well-being of our kids?” There was agreement that the well-being and safety of our kids is our shared responsibility and we can’t wait to take action.

This year, there have been 48 school shootings with injuries or death (36 people have been killed and 97 people have been injured). School safety concerns, the global pandemic and many other issues have negatively impacted student mental health. The National Education Association reported that 15% of teens suffered a major depressive episode in the past year and 60% of teens with depression did not get treatment.?

Our community has a long history of tackling difficult issues with independence and a sense of urgency. This same thinking led to the formation of a grass-roots task force called Safer Kids, Safer Schools (www.sksstc.com). The SKSS task force is a short-term, citizen-led group dedicated to exploring perspectives and solutions to increase the safety and well-being of the youth in our schools and our community. This 30+ member task force is engaging in collaborative learning and open-minded discussion around school safety through solutions for both kids’ well-being and physical safety. Members of the task force include parents, grandparents like me, students, principals, counselors, law enforcement, business members, nonprofit organizations and others.

We held our first task force meeting in October and we have been meeting twice a month since then. We will complete our seventh and final session in late January. We invite you to follow the progress of the task force, provide your comments and review the learning resources we are using at our website?www.sksstc.com.

While there is no “one thing” that will eliminate the risk of a mass shooting at our schools, we are confident we can reduce the risk. We’ll be sharing what we learn with the community and providing opportunities for public input in early 2023.

Solutions to difficult problems take sustained collective action. Together, we can make our schools and our kids safer.

About the author:?Jay Berger is a co-chair of the Safer Kids, Safer Schools Task Force. He is part of the 30+ group of community members who are examining school safety and kids’ well-being.