On Feb. 14, a young man entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where he shot and killed 17 students and faculty members. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, that was the fifth school shooting this year that resulted in physical injury.
In the past two decades, school shootings remain thankfully rare, but are becoming a more common reality for students and teachers across America. As the security measures have increased, so has the tension.
“Your eyes get more clear the day after something like that happens, you’re watching students and parents and everything they do,” Savanna Thompson, a junior early childhood education major said.
Thompson is currently in a field placement at a local elementary school. Her school requires student interns and parental guardians to now undergo background checks and all doors to the outside must be constantly locked from the inside.
In her classes at Winthrop, Thompson says she learns basic safety precautions of always keeping classroom doors locked and being mindful of all surroundings. For many educators, this is new territory to be learned.
“It was nothing more than traditional fire drills,” Winthrop assistant professor curriculumn and pedagogy, Crystal Glover Ph.D., said on her training as an undergrad.
Glover was an elementary teacher for many years, and witnessed the tone in schools shift first-hand. She cites the incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 26 people mostly under the age of seven, were shot and killed as her personal turning point.
“I was at home that day watching the news,”Glover said. “and I was just sobbing imagining what if it was my students?”
Glover noted how important it is to give students, both her past elementary-aged and current college-aged, the opportunity to discuss and reflect on their emotions. In her current field placement, Thompson has encountered the struggle of keeping the children informed yet unafraid.
“Students have questions, they hear about it on the news, from their parents, they hear teachers talking,” Thompson said. “I had to explain it in a way they understand that, ‘Yes something did happen and yes people did get hurt, but that you’re safe.’”
In her training at Winthrop, Thompson has been told to be truthful to the children about what happened, but not to make it “gory.” She was also told to keep the children out of the conversation when possible.
“You want students to be prepared, but you don’t want them to be fearful of school,” Glover said.
Thompson also noted how the heightened sense of awareness after an event such as this lasts for “a day or so and then just fades away.”
“You can’t do your job if you’re constantly living in fear that something’s going to happen to your kids,” Thompson said.
Jessie Hamm, a math professor at Winthrop, can’t quite imagine what she would do in such a “surreal situation.”
“Even though this happens so much, we still feel like ‘oh this won’t ever happen to me,’” Hamm said.
With the steady incline of school shootings in recent decades, safety measures had to increase. Schools have had to change many parts of their daily routine. Chief Ken Scoggins of Winthrop’s police explained how over time their security has gone up.
“Whenever we get more money we get more protection.” Scoggins said.
Over 15 years at Winthrop, Scoggins has seen the officers become more heavily armed and given better communication systems. On campus, the growth of cell phones and the possibility of multiple emergency alerts have helped this.
Outside campus, there is now a radio communication between all first responders in York country and many surrounding ones. If there was ever a threat, Winthrop’s police has the arsenal to respond first and deal with the situation from there.
“[Safety] is an ongoing conversation for us, we’re always training and finding ways to improve,” Scoggins said. “This is a very safe campus.”
For one Rock Hill middle school teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, her relationship with guns in schools has been quite different. While she was teaching high school in 1990, one student brought a gun to school that he used to committed suicide. Years later, after hearing the news of the Columbine High School shooting, where 15 people were shot and killed, she was “very nervous” about being in public for “a very long time.”
“I think the response of schools in this district have just been more gradual, no one event dramatically changed things,” she said.
The difference of being in one school building rather than an open campus results in a different way of handling things. All doors must be opened with an ID card of a member of faculty or staff. Windows are made small and to be avoided. The school is fenced in. Cameras watch every inch of the grounds. A valid drivers license must be presented to enter the building. Background checks are run on even field trip chaperones.
With so many safety measures already in place, the response directly after an event like the one in Florida is different. The faculty meeting held at the Rock Hill middle school focused on being more aware of students behavior. Many who knew the man involved in the Florida shooting expressed fear and concern over him for years. The meeting advocated for teachers to be aware of their students actions and report anything that stands out to them.
In the wake of the shooting, President Trump supported an NRA backed plan to arm more school teachers. As he stated in a tweet from Feb. 22, he wants to look at giving “concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience.” In another tweet, he stated that if a “potential ‘sicko shooter’ knows that a school has a large number of very weapons talented teachers…the sicko will NEVER attack that school.”
South Carolina’s senior senator Lindsey Graham supported this plan as well. In an interview with Greenville media outlets on Feb. 26, Graham advocated for “defense in depth.” He explained how armed teachers would provide more security in case of any incident.
Glover said she is “not a fan of the idea” and this would never be her “first idea.”
“A lot of people react differently to stress,” she said, “some people just freeze, who knows if that’s going to be the teacher?”
For Hamm the idea of being armed is a hard no.
“I really don’t like guns and I don’t want to be armed.” Hamm said. “And I don’t want my own child to be in a classroom where there is a gun.”
Scoggins, who is a self proclaimed “gun guy,” is not convinced adding more guns is the solution.
“When we respond to a situation, we don’t know who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy,” Scoggins said, “we just see people holding guns.”
But for one Rock Hill teacher, she’s not sure where she stands on the matter.
“I wish we didn’t have to do these things,” she said, “but I wish we didn’t have violence in our schools either.”
One element of the Florida shooting that has not been seen before is the incredibly vocal survivors. Many of the student who survived the shooting have made a loud call for stricter gun laws. Their social media interactions with policy makers have gone viral. CNN even held a town hall forum between some of the students and Florida legislators to bring light to the issue.
“I’ve been so impressed with their determination and lack of fear,” Glover said.
Many have noted how this incident feels different, the survivors will not be forgotten. Scoggins believes these students could bring about real change.
The survivors have organized what they are calling the “March For Our Lives.” Like the Women’s March and the March for Science, a primary march in Washington D.C. with other marches all over the country are being planned to show solidarity and support for the survivors.
As it is put in their mission statement, they intend to “demand that their lives and safety become a priority.” A Rock Hill middle school is already planning for how to allow students to join the protest if they wish, while keeping them as safe as possible.
The March For Our Lives is set for March 24. For more information and to find or organize a local march, go to marchforourlives.com.
