Safety In Schools

Imagine what it would be like if the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas hadn’t happened. Seventeen students and teachers would have returned home on the night of Valentine’s Day. Sadly, they didn’t. The police in Parkland, Florida would have carried on with a normal work day. Sadly, they didn’t. The news on the night of Valentine’s Day would have been weather forecasts and small burglaries. Sadly, it wasn’t. These tragedies will continue to affect our country if nothing is done to strengthen the safety of our schools. We’re not asking for an international difference, we’re asking for a difference right here in Tennessee. A team of psychologists that works for the school system and examines the behavior of suspicious students with counseling

According to Gallup News, one in 10 U.S parents say their student has voiced concern over their safety at school. 29% (3 out of 10) of U.S parents with school-aged children have said that they fear their child’s safety at school. These statistics don't even include the anxiety students may face from standardized testing, situations at home, bullying, and even just being accepted for who they are. The fear over safety can be prevented if a team of psychologists is set up to monitor students and counsel the students who are found to be bullied, involved in fights, or seem insecure about their appearance. An article from The Atlantic states that anxiety in students has been on the rise since the 1950s and has not only affected the suffering student, but the administrators trying to help the student. If students can feel more secure in one area of their anxiety, such as the safety of their surroundings, less pressure will be put on the administrators and students

An ongoing study by Washington Post has found that more than 150,000 students in at least 170 elementary and middle schools have experienced a shooting on their school’s campus since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. With plans set in place for potential shooters, the overall safety of schools will be greatly improved. After solving problems having to do with people and their actions, the other safety problems will be mainly related to natural events such as tornadoes, fires, and earthquakes, which can´t be controlled. We need plans in place for the events that can be prevented! From PsychLaw Journal, the odds of a shooting happening at a high school are 1 in 21,000. This means that these odds will only become greater as time goes on if nothing is done to prevent such events. Many may think that decreasing these odds with psychologists will be too expensive, but there is a possibility that low-budget schools can use these professionals as needed on a contract, for world peace doesn’t happen overnight. This is why we need to start with smaller plans such as monitoring the behavior of students in the classroom and on social media with a team of psychologists and move on to greater plans if