Schools are a place for children to be educated and prepare for their future careers. While the main goal for teachers is to educate, nowadays they are also charged with the safety of their students - protecting them against gun violence. Students, whose worries used to be about making friends, fitting in, learning and making the grade, now need to worry about gun violence. If we look back at the beginning of school shootings, news reports indicate that the gunmen are former students with unstable mental health. Times have changed, but for the better? After many school shootings in the past decade or so, there seems to be an uproar for change in the school systems. In 2016, “the CDC found nearly 90 percent of public schools had a written plan for responding to school shootings and 70 percent of those schools conduct drills for students to practice the plan,” (Zack Winn, www.campussecuritymagazine.com). Even though these statistics indicate that schools …show more content…
“A public health approach to disease means instead of waiting for people to be rushed to emergency rooms with heart attacks or the flu, you go into the community with: vaccinations, screenings, fruits and vegetables. You screen and regulate environmental hazards, like a nearby polluting factory. You keep watch on reported cases of illness, to stop a new outbreak in its tracks. A public health approach to school shootings, would be much along the same lines” (Anya Kamenetz, NPRadio.org). Instead of waiting for children at the schools to be severely wounded, we arm the community with resources to prevent K-12 shootings. Teachers and staff look into and help students that are being bullied and discriminated against as they track the data and perform “threat assessments” on potential risks. If the people who are risks are being looked at more carefully, then we don't need to depend on weapons being