The Federal Commission on School Safety, which was set up after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, issued a report earlier this week offering guidance that included opening the door to arming school staff. Why would this be suggested? Can it help?
Parents, students, educators, local leaders, and other stakeholders have been rightfully concerned about school shootings. They want to see definitive action to minimize the chances of experiencing similar horrific events. Unfortunately, leaders often feel a need to make it appear as if they are taking appropriate action, offering appealing sounding solutions, when in fact, what they are doing may not be the best approach.
Researchers and scientists that have weighed in about the best approaches have largely been ignored. One example of this is to place most of the emphasis on hardening schools. Following the Parkland shooting, a group of experts disseminated Call for Action to Prevent Gun Violence in the United States of America. The plan was endorsed by most major professional groups across education, psychology, counseling, social work, and allied fields, representing over 5 million professionals working in and with schools. The call for action stressed eight key points for immediate action. The recent Federal Commission report ignored most of the important points about avoiding zero tolerance and hardening.
Softening Schools
While school security is critically important, it is part of a larger set of concerns that must be considered. Paramount among those concerns are longer term, public-health approaches that address multiple types of prevention. We need to prevent the school shooter from ever making it to the schoolhouse door.
Measures such as armed guards, security cameras, and metal detectors can offer some risk reduction in some instances, but if they are the main approach, it is unlikely that serious school violence, including shootings, will be prevented. In fact, a large body of research shows harmful effects that increase the school to prison pipeline, suspension, expulsion, and poor school climate. Making schools feel like prisons impacts students’ attendance, academic performance, relationships, and connectedness to their schools.
So, while in the short run we may make some members in our communities feel that something is being done to prevent shootings, in the long run, we are likely to cause damage with greater dropout, turning our schools into maximum security settings. Is this the society we want to be and create? None of us wants to live in prison-like neighborhoods or attend such schools. Ironically, research suggests that softening schools and providing supports make schools feel safer and improves both academics and the school climate.
Hence, the real work is much harder, on a day in and day out basis over years, improving school climates, offering support to students and families in need, and building trust and connectedness between school and students and their families.
Consider that in the vast majority of school shooting incidents, one or more other people knew of the danger in advance and could have alerted responsible adults in the school or local law enforcement. It is essential that schools and communities work hard to close that trust and connectedness gap with students and families. That will likely do more to reduce future school shootings than a hardening schools approach would, or worse, arming teachers.
Arming School Staff is Problematic
So why is the idea of arming teachers or other school staff problematic?
To arm teachers in schools is to invite greater problems and increase the likelihood of the emergence of a new type of horrific school shooting incident, where armed teachers may become the vehicles of unintended consequences involving serious injury and loss of life. A massive body of research literature shows that with more guns in a setting, more injuries and accidental loss of life are likely to occur.
Accidental death and injury may not grab media headlines but will affect far more students, teachers, and their loved ones. These are just a few reasons why almost all major national educational organizations oppose arming teachers and school staff.
Some argue that armed teachers would enable schools to neutralize a school shooter quickly, but the likelihood of such an approach being effective is low. Data on firearms suggest potentially dire unanticipated consequences to this policy.
In a fluid and chaotic situation, an armed teacher will not likely be maintaining a cool, clear-headed demeanor that is required to effectively mitigate the threat. Police cultivate the ability to remain calm and logical even under the most stressful circumstances after years of work in dangerous situations.
Teachers who receive a few days of minimal and very basic training would not be able to perform as well and could increase the danger of accidental injuries to bystander students and staff. A teacher with a weapon could easily be mistaken for a school shooter by police entering a fluid and evolving shooting event, thus becoming another victim.
Racial Bias
Given evidence from recent police shootings and zero tolerance research we should be concerned about teachers who may be subject to subtle forms of racial bias, and who may pull their gun in a situation with a minority youth where they feel threatened regardless of the presence of any actual threat.
The deterrent effect of having armed teachers, school resource officers, and security guards is questionable given the history of school shooters entering buildings with armed officers. Columbine, Parkland, and other school were shootings occurred had armed personnel. This is often ignored in the discussions about arming school personnel.
Bottom line: research suggests that, if we as a nation want to make schools safer, we need the will to commit to the long-term, multi-faceted, hard work that such change requires. There are no quick or magic fixes. We need to have a safety policy based on research, and that reflects the type of society we want to create.