More than 50 incidents have been attributed to escalations of disputes so far in , compared to 23 for the pandemic-disrupted calendar year and 49 in Where school shootings are often thought of in terms of planned attacks, such as the Columbine High School massacre or the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting, in which gunmen went through several locations indiscriminately targeting victims, the recent uptick in on-campus shootings has been fueled in large part by random acts of violence.
A week prior, on Sept. The victim in that shooting, also 13, suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen and is expected to recover. The suspect, meanwhile, fled school grounds and later turned himself in after a police search.
That shooting followed one on Sept. Two students were wounded: a year-old boy who was shot in the face and a year-old girl struck in the leg.
In addition to instances where students suddenly pulled firearms during fights, some of these shooting incidents have also been tied to gangs, Riedman said. Share article Remove Save to favorites Save to favorites. Latest Situation On Oct. See Also. Thank you for subscribing. Nov 15 Mon. This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff. Help every student belong in school with these practices for school climate.
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Given what is known about the source of guns in school gun violence, evidence suggests these laws can help prevent underage shooters from accessing unsecured guns in homes and prevent mass shootings and other violent incidents. Enforcement and public awareness are essential components in making sure that these laws work to create a culture of secure gun storage.
To facilitate effective enforcement, state legislatures need to make sure their laws are precisely written to cover access by anyone under Local officials also need to ensure that they are enforcing these laws in appropriate situations.
In addition to enacting secure storage laws, policymakers should encourage a culture of secure gun storage by increasing awareness of secure storage practices. This program focuses on fostering conversations about secure storage among parents and children to help facilitate behavior change and address the hundreds of unintentional shootings committed and experienced by children every year.
State legislatures, non-profit organizations, and local officials should also work together to develop and fund programs that increase awareness of the need to store firearms securely in order to prevent unauthorized access.
Schools should distribute information to parents about the importance of secure storage, as is being done by school officials in Los Angeles, Denver, and throughout Tennessee. Passing secure storage laws, enforcing them, and encouraging secure storage practices will help reduce gun violence in schools and directly intervene to address the most common source of firearms used in school gun violence incidents.
Despite research that suggests most active shooters are school-age and have a connection to the school, and data that show that toyear-olds commit gun homicides at a rate four times higher than adults 21 and older do, 51 Everytown for Gun Safety analysis; Uniform Crime Reporting Program: Supplementary Homicide Reports SHR , People aged 18 to 20 made up 4 percent of the US population and represented 18 percent of all offenders in gun homicides. Adults aged 21 and over made up 73 percent of the population and 74 percent of all offenders in gun homicides.
Analysis includes all offenders in single and multiple offender incidents. Everytown, AFT, and NEA believe states and the federal government should raise the minimum age to purchase or possess handguns and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns to 21 in order to prevent school-age shooters from easily obtaining firearms.
Under federal law, to purchase a handgun from a licensed gun dealer, a person must be Yet, to purchase that same handgun in an unlicensed sale, or to purchase a rifle or shotgun from a licensed dealer, a person only has to be Only a few states have acted to close these gaps.
Minimum age laws can work in tandem with secure storage and Extreme Risk laws to restrict access to firearms. These deficiencies in the law leave an easy path for active shooters to obtain firearms. Because he was under 21, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter could not have gone into a gun store and bought a handgun, but he was able to legally buy the AR assault-style rifle he used in the shooting.
Following the shooting, Florida changed its law to raise the age to purchase all firearms to Minimum age laws can work in tandem with secure storage and Extreme Risk laws to cut off an easy way for shooters to obtain firearms.
Background checks are the key to enforcing our gun laws and are an effective tool for keeping guns out of the hands of people with dangerous histories. As part of a comprehensive plan to prevent gun violence in schools, Everytown, AFT, and NEA recommend that states and the federal government act to pass laws that require background checks on all gun sales so that shooters cannot easily purchase firearms.
Current federal law requires that background checks be conducted whenever a person attempts to purchase a firearm from a licensed gun dealer, to ensure that the prospective buyer is not legally prohibited from possessing guns. For example, when a person becomes subject to an extreme risk protection order, that record is entered into the federal background check database, and a background check at the point of sale prevents that person from buying a firearm at a gun store.
However, current federal law does not require background checks on sales between unlicensed parties, including those at gun shows or online. This means that people with dangerous histories can easily circumvent the background check system simply by purchasing their firearm online or at a gun show. A recent Everytown investigation showed that as many as 1 in 9 people looking to buy a firearm on Armslist.
And the unlicensed-sales marketplace is large: The same investigation found that in there were 1. Nearly 1 in 9 people looking to buy a firearm on Armslist. Everytown for Safety. Without background checks, guns are easily accessible in the online and gun show markets without any questions asked, making it difficult for law enforcement to detect violations of the law and undermining other strategies to keep guns out of the hands of shooters.
Background checks are proven to reduce gun violence. Twenty-one states and DC already require a background check on all handgun sales. Fleegler et al. After Connecticut passed a law requiring background checks for a handgun purchase permit and at the point of sale, its firearm homicide rate decreased by 40 percent, 61 Kara E.
Rudolph et al. Crifasi et al. Background checks reduce gun violence and are a crucial backbone for any school gun violence prevention strategy. The most important thing that schools can do to prevent active shooter incidents—and gun violence overall—is to intervene before a person commits an act of violence.
Early intervention is key to addressing potential violent behavior and to providing students with appropriate treatment. To do this, Everytown, AFT, and NEA recommend that schools, concurrent with other site-based interventions, create evidence-based threat assessment programs and establish threat assessment teams in their schools. State legislatures should also make funding available for schools to establish threat assessment programs.
Threat assessment programs help schools identify students who are at risk of committing violence and resolve student threat incidents by getting the students the help they need. The programs generally consist of multidisciplinary teams that are specifically trained to intervene at the earliest warning signs of potential violence and divert those who would do harm to themselves or others to appropriate treatment.
These evidence-based programs are not designed to rely on discipline or the criminal justice system, and proper implementation is key to prevent undue harm to students of color or students with disabilities. Schools should ensure that sufficient professionals are available to provide all students, especially those who are identified to be in crisis, with mental health services.
Threat assessment teams are unanimously recommended by school safety experts. Bryan Vossekuil et al. Defined as any incident where i a current or recent former student attacked someone at his or her school with lethal means including weapons other than a firearm ; and ii where the student attacker purposefully chose his or her school as the location of the attack.
In addition, reports from federal agencies under the Bush and Trump administrations, including the recent Federal Commission on School Safety report, recommend that schools implement school threat assessment programs. Fein et al. Dewey Cornell at the University of Virginia, are a model program. CSTAG is a national leader in school-based threat assessment. The program is also listed on the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices, an evidence-based repository and review system designed to provide the public with reliable information on mental health and substance use interventions.
Several studies have found that schools that have used threat assessment programs see as few as 0. Schools with CSTAG threat assessment programs also see fewer expulsions, suspensions and arrests, and improved school climate. Jessika Bottiani, School Psychology Review 47, no.
V ; Dewey G. Nekvasil and Dewey G. This is critically important because suspension or expulsion has been cited as the crisis that set off some school shooters. Peterson and James A. Importantly, studies have shown that CSTAG threat assessment programs generally do not have a disproportionate impact on students of color. There are several keys to establishing a successful threat assessment program that schools should consider when they establish these programs.
Effective threat assessment programs must have a mechanism to identify and collect information about threats of violence, including a means to anonymously report threats. The US Secret Service recommends schools establish tip lines to promote the sharing and collection of information about threats.
Where appropriate, and with due care, social media monitoring software can be used to scan social media sites for threats and potential warning signs. Having a mechanism to identify threats is key to ensuring that those threats can be successfully addressed by a threat assessment team. Since the most common sources of guns used in school gun violence are the home or the homes of family or friends, threat assessment teams must work to identify whether students at risk of violence have access to firearms.
This practice is recommended by the US Secret Service. There are several non-intrusive ways that this information can be gathered, including talking to parents and students and examining social media. In states with an Extreme Risk law, the school can work with family or law enforcement and consider whether utilizing an extreme risk protection order is appropriate to ensure the student does not have access to guns in his house. As part of an effective threat assessment and management strategy, and to promote successful student outcomes and violence reduction overall, schools need to ensure that students have sufficient access to professionals who can provide mental health services, including school psychologists, school social workers, school nurses, and school counselors.
School-employed mental health professionals serve as a critical resource for them as students navigate the education system and the challenges of emotional and social development. These professionals may also be among the first to know when students are experiencing problems or when they are at a risk for violence. They can guide students through emotional or behavioral problems and can serve as a key point of intervention and information gathering for threat assessment programs.
Most importantly, these professionals foster positive school climates and student wellness, which is essential to preventing violence. Yet data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics shows that the national student-to-counselor ratio is much higher than best practices dictate. Currently, on average, each counselor handles about students.
The American School Counselor Association best practice recommendation is that each counselor be responsible for no more than students. The National Association of School Psychologists similarly found the student-to-psychologist ratio to be 1, students to 1 school psychologist—2 to 3 times higher than the recommended students. To protect our schools and ensure that threat assessment programs are effective, legislatures need to fund—and schools need to prioritize hiring—an appropriate number of mental health professionals in schools.
In , as the sound of gunshots echoed across campus, school administrators at Rancho Tehama Elementary School in Rancho Tehama Reserve located in Tehama County, California, made a critical decision. They immediately put their campus on lockdown, ushering students and teachers inside, locking internal doors, and locking out anyone who would try to enter. As a shooter approached, crashing through an external gate, he was unable to access the school building. Frustrated, he gave up and left school grounds before ultimately being stopped by law enforcement.
Physical security is a critical intervention point to keep guns out of schools. The most effective physical security measures—the ones that are agreed on by most experts—are access control measures that keep shooters out of schools in the first place. As a secondary measure, internal door locks, which enable teachers to lock doors from the inside, can work to deter active shooters who do achieve access, protecting students and allowing law enforcement time to neutralize any potential threat.
Of course, one of the biggest challenges with security upgrades is maintaining a welcoming school environment. Schools cannot become prisons. Everytown, AFT, and NEA endorse basic security measures universally recommended by school safety experts, like access control and internal door locks, while recommending that schools also consider other expert-endorsed security measures based on local conditions.
In , as the shooter arrived on the campus of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, several critical access control failures gave him easy access to the school. He was dropped off outside of a perimeter fence.
This fence had a gate that was open and left unstaffed. The shooter took advantage of this and entered the school campus. As he entered Building 12, where the shooting happened, he exploited another critical safety failure, as the door was left unlocked and accessible to all. Preventing unauthorized access to schools through fencing, single access points, and by simply ensuring doors are locked can keep shooters out of schools.
State legislatures should provide funding for access control measures for schools to make sure that would-be shooters cannot have easy access. In the shootings at both Sandy Hook Elementary School and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, teachers had to step outside of their classrooms while the shooting was underway in order to lock their doors.
This exposed the educators and students to danger. Doors that were left unlocked were unsecured and vulnerable. That is why school safety experts, like the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, agree that schools should make sure that classroom doors lock from the inside as well as the outside. Everytown, AFT, and NEA recommend that all schools equip doors with interior door locks to help prevent shooters from gaining access to classrooms. Planning and preparation are key to ensuring an effective response if an incident of gun violence does occur on school grounds.
Everytown, AFT, and NEA recommend that schools, in collaboration with law enforcement, plan for the unlikely event of a gun violence emergency or active shooter incident. Security experts universally agree that schools need to have an effective emergency plan in place. Emergency plans can serve as an additional point of intervention by enabling law enforcement, students, and staff to respond quickly to and neutralize any threat. The Federal Emergency Management Agency maintains a six-point guide for developing high-quality emergency response plans for schools.
This guide stresses collaboration and advance planning to help mitigate emergency incidents. In the —06 school year, 40 percent of American public schools drilled students on lockdown procedures in the event of a shooting; by the —16 school year, 95 percent did. Nolle K. US Department of Education. Musu-Gillette L. Doing so can help save lives. Drills to prepare students and staff to respond in the unlikely event of a shooting have become a near-universal practice in American schools today, starting in preschool and continuing through high school.
Beginning largely after the shooting at Columbine High School in , schools began implementing drills in an effort to protect students from active shooters, and the practice has steadily increased since. Lockdown drills refer to procedures in which students and staff in a school building are directed to remain confined to an area, with specific procedures to follow.
Active shooter drills are a type of lockdown drill tailored specifically to address active shootings. Though there is scant evidence that they are effective at preventing deaths in school shooting situations, school-based drills are required in at least 40 states. But state statutes on this type of drill are often vague and leave the nature, content, and identification of who participates in these drills up to school administrators.
Everytown, AFT, and NEA support trauma-informed training for school staff on how to respond to active shooter situations. This might include training on lockout procedures, evacuation procedures, and emergency medical training.
Parents, students, educators, and medical professionals have raised many concerns about the possible impact that active shooter drills can have on student development, including the risk for depression and anxiety and the risk for lasting symptoms. Therefore, our organizations do not recommend training for students as a preventative measure. We firmly believe that schools must be very mindful of the impact of active shooter drills that involve students and take that into consideration when designing such programs and determining whether to include students.
Creating safe schools also requires that schools foster healthy schools and communities. This requires schools to look externally and internally to build strong partnerships inside of schools and in the community as a whole.
As schools implement school-based intervention strategies, including the ones outlined above, they need to make sure they are helping students resolve problems, rather than overly relying on punishment or using methods meant for intervention as punishment. It will also be critically important for schools and school districts to monitor and evaluate how threat assessment implementation is impacting school discipline practices. Zero-tolerance policies are an attempt to make schools safe and orderly, but that approach has not worked and has had an acute negative effect on students of color.
In that connection, schools need to review their discipline policies to make sure they are not unduly punishing students and that staff are trained on appropriate ways to manage their classrooms and implicit biases.
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