Public School Safety

As I began my research for this article on school shootings, I thought it best to look at the history of shootings in American schools. I expected the timeline to cover the 19th and 20th centuries, but I wasn't prepared to discover that the first shootings dated back to the 1700s. First, read K12 Academics' History of School Shootings in the United States. That article covers from colonial days through to 2010. Then, to take us up to 2015 read Maria Esther Hammack's A Brief History of Mass Shootings. Reporting in the New York Times, Christine Hauser's article A Partial List Of Mass Shootings In 2022 chronicles the first five months of 2022. Having documented shootings, let us look at what you and I can do to keep our children safe in schools at every level.

Inspired by past school shooters, some perpetrators are seeking fame and notoriety. However, most school shooters are motivated by a generalized anger. Their path to violence involves self-hate and despair turned outward at the world, and our research finds they often communicate their intent to do harm in advance as a final, desperate cry for help. The key to stopping these tragedies is for society to be alert to these warning signs and act on them immediately. from What we know about mass school shootings in the US – and the

The hurricane that ripped through the Northeast October 22 through November 2, 2012, left a trail of destruction that impacted every aspect of the lives of the residents there, including the children. Many students and teachers were left without a school to return to since the storm-ravaged school buildings to the point where they were not considered inhabitable. In addition to the challenges of the storm clean-up, schools that were currently being used as shelters had to find a way to allow students and strangers to live together harmoniously, at least for a short period of time. How did schools recover from unprecedented Hurricane Sandy? Very slowly, in some areas.

This video describes how Storm Sandy evolved.

Challenges Schools Faced

To understand the many challenges facing schools that were in the path of Hurricane Sandy, the Wall Street Journal went inside the thought process of one of New Jersey’s superintendents. Dr. James A. Crisfield, the superintendent of Milburn Township Public Schools, explained to the publication that many factors had to be considered before children could be allowed back into schools, including:

• Electricity - Many schools were still without power and they could not reopen until electricity was back on.
• Gasoline – Gasoline shortages across the region made it difficult to get sufficient emergency personnel and school buses running. In addition, faculty and administration were unable to make it to school due to fuel shortages.
• Damage

Presidential election season is in full swing, and the yard signs, bumper stickers, and campaign buttons prove it. Paraphernalia is one way Americans show their support for their favorite candidate, but as one high school student in Philadelphia found out, public support of a candidate doesn’t always go as planned. This student got more than she bargained for when she wore a pink Romney-Ryan t-shirt to school. She was publically humiliated and harassed for her choice – not by fellow students, but by her own teacher.

The Samantha Pawlucy Story

Samantha Pawlucy is a sophomore at Charles Carroll High School in the Philadelphia area. Pawlucy decided to wear her Romney-Ryan t-shirt to class on “dress-down” day when the shirt fit within the parameters of the school dress code. It was a daring thing to do in a community with one Republican for every six Democrats. However, Pawlucy had no idea just how traumatic the response to her attire would be.

Pawlucy’s geometry teacher, Lynette Gaymon, called attention to Pawlucy’s shirt during class. According to a report in the Examiner, Gaymon told Pawlucy to remove the shirt. When Pawlucy refused, Gaymon compared the wearing of that shirt to Gaymon coming to school sporting a Ku Klux Klan t-shirt. She explained that Charles Carroll High School was a “democratic” school, and then told Pawlucy to leave her classroom.

In this video, an attorney comes down hard on the teacher who was accused of bullying Samantha.

A new report issued by the New York Civil Liberties Union indicates that the NYPD is making an average of around four arrests each day in New York City public schools. In addition, the police wrote around seven summons daily for students with less serious infractions. The report has been met with widespread concern, particularly in light of the fact that the large majority of students arrested were students of color. Is the NYPD exercising too much power in the public schools of the city, or are the police merely doing the job they were hired to do? The answer to that question appears to depend on who is asked.

Hundreds of Arrests on Record

The NYCLU recently released its report after conducting an analysis of police activity in the city’s public schools. The agency took advantage of a new city law to compile their report, which requires documentation and disclosure of school safety information, according to a report at SI Live. The report found that during the 2011-2012 school year, the police made a total of 882 arrests of students while the students were at school, with an additional 1,666 summonses issued.

Around 95 percent of the students arrested were black or Hispanic, despite the fact that students of color only make up around 71 percent of the total student population in the city. Of the minority students arrested, 63 percent were black students. Around 48 percent of the summonses issued were to students

School shootings are tragic occurrences that have become far too common in our culture today by many standards. In light of some of the most recent events involving school shootings in Philadelphia, New Mexico, and Colorado, as well as the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, some state legislators are considering a new approach to the problem: licenses that allow educators to carry concealed weapons onto campus. The first known school district to institute such a policy was the Harrold Independent School District in Harrold, Texas, but numerous other districts have followed suit in recent years, with other districts considering the possibility rather seriously. We'll take a closer look at the issue of guns in school and some of the districts that are thinking about taking matters into their own hands.

Current Laws

Laws vary from state to state regarding the criteria for purchasing and carrying a gun. Some states do not require a permit to purchase a handgun or long gun, nor do some states require gun owners to register their firearms. And while some states require a permit to carry a concealed weapon, others require no such permit for concealed or open carry weapons. A number of states including Massachusetts, Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey, and Connecticut have passed restrictive assault weapons laws in light of the use of such weapons in many of the most recent school