In light of all of the recent school shootings our country has come to be familiar with, I asked a simple question to the security guards. "What do you think would be the most common injuries if a shooting would take place at your school?" I was expecting to hear the obvious: gun shot wounds, blood loss, shock, etc. But it seemed that question opened Pandora's box from some very concerned and angry security guards, who are charged with the safety and well being of the students. Replies were not in answer to my question, but generalized statements of anger about the state of school security in their school district, as well as a few others.
1. A recent cut in the school budget has reduced the security staff by HALF. At this particular school district, that's 4 security guards to be responsible for 64 school doors. WOW!!!
2. These particular guards make $14 per hour and during a recent training session they were asked to find the "fake bomb". When asked this question, the guards replied, "I make $14 per hour, call the police or the bomb squad to find the bomb."
3. During another recent training session they had a local police chief come into the school to fire a .45 filled with blanks (obviously on an in service day) so that the guards understood exactly what a gun shot might sound like from various parts of the building. Great idea, however the guards stated again what they were being paid and due to not having enough guards, they would not be interested in wrestling a gun out of a shooters hand and would have no problem heading for the door to be the first out of the building.
4. Families in the district are being lied to by school administration. They stated to me that letters have been sent to the families indicating that all doors are monitored by security cameras. The guards tell a different story. Not all doors are monitored by cameras and certain hallways within the school have blind spots. When one of the guards questioned school administration about this problem, he was suspended.
So having said that, I walked away from the training session shaking my head in disbelief. In this day and age, we live in a country where potentially the safety and security of children is a line item in the school's budget that is up for negotiating. In this district's case, it was severely cut, thus affecting the well being of children campus wide.
The message that needs to be delivered is that THE SAFETY AND SECURITY OF CHILDREN CAN NEVER BE NEGOTIATED. I am quite sure that those tasked with the financial well being of a school district can make cuts somewhere else. To learn this has made me feel an anger I have not known in a very long time. No school district anywhere should have to suffer a financial impact when it coms to safeguarding the well being of children of any age. Ok, end of rant.....
