EdCircuit Staff 
Table of Contents
By Franklin Schargel
Mass school shootings never stopped during the pandemic. Despite the fact that most schools were closed to in-person learning, school shootings continued to take place. Education Week Tracker reported (March 2, 2021) that there were 10 school shootings in 2020, resulting in:
• 12 people killed or injured in a school shooting
• 3 people killed
• 9 people injured
• 2 students or other children killed
• 1 school employee or other adult killed.
The fall in numbers is probably due to the shift to remote, distance learning for nearly all schools for part or all of 2020. The pace of school shootings has escalated. Education Week reported (January 13, 2020) that in 2018 there were 24 school shootings and in 2019, there were 25. In 2020, the Covid-19 virus interrupted the trend line because remote learning shifted students from schools to homes. The lull in public school shootings during 2020 brought on by the pandemic response ended on April 12, 2011, in Knoxville, Tennessee, when a student was killed and a School Resource Officer was shot.
Since the first mass shooting in Columbine, CO, there have been over 80 copycat attacks.
While schools look for a school shooter profile, the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Agency reports that there isn’t a profile.
On March 28, 2020, the NY Times reported that more than 240,000 students had experienced gun violence in school since the 1999 Columbine massacre. A disproportionate number of these students were Black students or those in socioeconomic underserved communities. Black boys and young men ages 15 t0 34 are more than 20 times more likely to die of gun homicide than their white counterparts.
In his new book, Children Under Fire: An American Crisis, John Woodrow Cox writes, “On average, one child is shot every hour; over the past decade roughly 30,000 children and teenagers have been killed by gunfire – recently eclipsing cancer as their second leading cause of death.”
Gun trauma has become part of the fabric of school society. While schools are seen as places of learning for many students, they are also seen as places of danger for others.
Preventing school violence has become a “big business.” According to the New York Times (4/11/2021), it is “now a nearly $3 billion market and vendors are offering among other things, ‘bleed control bags,’ bullet-resistant whiteboards, pepper ball guns, and bulletproof classroom doors.” This despite the recent National Threat Assessment Report that says that “91% of all school shootings are caused by students, former students or students from other schools – not intruders.”
The latest National Threat Assessment Report said that Active Shooter Drills are training potential school shooters because 91% of all school shooters are either students in schools, former students, or students in other schools. So hard wiring schools against shooters who enter schools is incorrect. Selling “bullet-proof’ book bags simply builds anxiety in students and staff and fear in parent’s eyes.
Yet schools continue to “hardwire” their buildings against intruders and practice “active shooter drills.” The reality is that since students and not intruders cause most school shootings, we are giving potential shooters the hiding spots of their potential victims. Schools have a responsibility to educate young children, but they also should ensure that the children have a safe learning environment. The problem of school violence is that it is multi-faceted, and therefore the schools have a difficult task trying to deal with all of the causes. The overwhelming number of schools were not designed with safety in mind. There are too many entrances and exits and not enough personnel to many them. In addition, there are hidden entrances where people can come into the building through side entrances. Students have learned to live in a world of fear – fear in their neighborhoods, in their homes, and fear in what should be a place that should be the safest, schools.
Where Do School Shooters Get Their Weapons?
Most guns used in school shootings have been obtained or purchased legally. 62% of the handgun shootings were acquired legally. Kip Kingel was given a 9mm Glock pistol by her father to help the youth develop an interest in something. Kinkel shot his parents and two schoolmates to death in May 1998. (Associated Press, January 18, 2000)
Most killers mostly use guns owned by a family member or friend or purchased on their own. Even though most school-aged children cannot buy a gun, obtaining one is as easy as opening a parent’s dresser drawer or an unlocked gun safe. The shooter in Parkland, Florida, was a 19-year-old legally bought guns that left 17 dead. According to a male 10th and 11th graders survey, those who carried a handgun outside of the home obtained it from a family member or friend.
The weapon of choice of school shooters is a handgun. Handguns are easily concealable and have increased firepower in terms of ammunition capacity and caliber. A handgun was used in 71% of the shootings. In 63% of the handgun shootings, handguns were acquired legally. In 71% of the long-gun shootings, the guns were acquired legally. About 42% of U.S. adults say they live in households with a gun, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2017. According to the National Center for Education Statistic, 5% of students ages 12 to 18 in rural areas and 4.4% in the suburbs reported having access to loaded guns without adult permission, compared with 3.4% in urban areas. The data shows 5.2% of white students in the age group reported having access, while 3.3% of black students and 2.8% of Hispanic students reported having access.
According to Nichole Hokley, a parent whose child died in the Sandy Hook school massacre, “Approximately 7 children die every day due to gun-related violence. School gun violence doesn’t discriminate by zip code or race, or religion. While there is greater gun violence in lower-income, minority, inner-city neighborhoods, there has been gun-related violence in rural, suburban, white, higher-income neighborhoods as well. Almost 20,000 students are shot each year.”
How do we stop violence from even starting?
In many school gun violence-related incidents, we have missed signs and signals along the way. Most incidents are not spur of the minute but have been planned for at least 6 months. At least 1 person knows about it in advance. Most of those in the know are children, friends of the perpetrator. – not an adult. Parents are not informed, nor in many cases, neither are educators. We need to recognize the signs, recognize them when they are in place, and act by, at the very least, having a safety assessment in place.
What are the causes of school violence?
• America’s gun culture
• Availability of weapons (including in their home). An article in the Wall Street Journal (April 5, 2018) indicated that “about 42% of U.S. adults live in households with a gun.”
• Availability of semi-automatic weapons (using large-capacity magazines)
• Lax gun laws in many states
• Legislatures and governors who respond to gun manufacturers and gun lobbies and not to educators, children, and parents. According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, “Republican Tennessee Governor, Bill Lee signed off on legislation the week before the violence in Knoxville that would make Tennessee the latest state to allow most adults 21 and older to carry handguns – openly or concealed- without first clearing a background check and training. Lee backed the legislation over objections from law enforcement groups who argued that the state’s existing permit system provided an important safeguard for knowing who should or shouldn’t be carrying a gun.”
Things Beyond the Control of Schools
• Schools not built or designed with safety in mind. In 1998, the average public school building in the United States was 42 years old. The mean age ranged from 46 years in the Northeast and Central states to 37 years in the Southeast. On average, schools located in the Northeast and Central regions of the country were older than those located in the Southeast and the West. Many of America’s schools may be at an age where frequent repairs are necessary.
• There are too many entrances. Many entrances permit someone to enter the building and go to the upper floors without being seen. Putting metal detectors in the building requires a huge investment in obtaining and staffing them.
• Schools have been underfunded for a long time. As the pandemic has shown, they lack “basic necessities” like air conditioning for hot climates. Many still have “temporary buildings” that are over 20 years old. I have been in “portable school buildings” which lack restrooms for Kindergarten students who are forced to run to the permanent building to use the facilities.
• Classroom educator salaries are below those of comparison trained individuals in other fields resulting in shortages in science, math, special education, and other fields.
• Schools must accept everyone who applies.
• Overcome the community attitude “It can’t happen here.” The names Hendersonville, NC, Newtown, Conn., Oxnard, CA, Leland, NC, Weston, Fl, Littleton, CO, were unfamiliar to most Americans prior to the school shootings in schools there. School violence has taken place in rural, urban, suburban, affluent, minority, private schools.
Things Schools Can Control
• In many gun violence-related incidents, schools have missed signs and signals along the way. Most incidents are not spur of the minute but have been planned for at least 6 months. At least 1 person knows about it in advance.
• Schools should designate someone who has had training (possibly supplied by local or state police) to look for and identify the signs of potential violence and possible perpetrators.
• The emphasis should be on prevention, not reaction.
• They should have a safety assessment in place. Schools and districts need to have a school-community emergency plan of action in place for students, staff, and parents. It should be practiced and proactive.
• There needs to be a Threat Assessment Team in every school composed of multi-disciplinary educators, counselors, parents, and lawmakers.
• Schools need to create a positive school culture, open to students who wish to report a possible incident.
• Districts need to designate, in each school, a student-friendly person who students trust to serve as a “third-ear.”
• Schools need to proactively develop open lines of communication via social media, newsletters, and emails with parents, and they should be used regularly.
• Lawmakers must be accountable to the public for the firearms industry’s lack of health and safety regulation. Today, the gun industry is virtually free of any government oversight regarding the design, manufacture, and distribution of firearms. This has resulted in the ready availability of assault weapons, which are ultra-concealable, high capacity, high caliber, and small enough to be concealed and fired by a six-year-old.
School violence can be prevented. If we can prevent heart attacks, choking, and drownings, then we can prevent school violence.
If we proactively recognize the signs, take positive steps, and involve all those who may be affected.
About the author
Franklin P. Schargel is a former classroom teacher, school counselor and school administrator who successfully designed, developed and helped implement a process that: dramatically increased parental engagement, increased post-secondary school attendance and significantly lowered his Title 1 high school’s dropout rate. The U.S. Department of Education, Business Week, Fortune Magazine, National Public Radio (NPR), the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and The New York Times have recognized his work. In addition, Schargel served as the Education Division Chair of the American Society for Quality and helped develop the National Quality Award, the Malcolm Baldridge Award for Education.
Schargel is an internationally recognized speaker, trainer and author of thirteen best-selling books. His last published book: Creating Safe Schools: A Guide for School Leaders, Classroom Teachers, Counselors and Parents, has been published internationally by Francis and Taylor, LLC. In addition, he has written over 100 published articles dealing with school reform.
Further Reading
- CBS Denver – Learning From School Shootings And Their Common Threads
- Wall Street Journal – Recent Spate of Mass Shootings Is Among Worst in U.S. History
- The 74 – New Study: After School Shootings, Well-Off Families Flee and Enrollment Drops. Low-Income Kids are Left to Confront the Aftermath
