By the end, though, I wish it had been called An Adolescent.

I’m sure its title was intentional. My alternative isn’t catchy and theirs resonates with parent’s and society’s deep fears and default mindsets about terrifying teens. These include:

• ��Our kids, especially boys, are on the edge of falling into the dangerous trap of social media.
• They are unruly and often clash with detached, emotional dads.��
• ��They lack respect for adults and struggle in chaotic schools where teachers resort to shouting to maintain control.

Many discussions about youth in TV shows, movies, research, and everyday conversations , despite social science suggesting a more positive approach. Cultural narratives about “kids these days” often focus on deficits, especially regarding youth from groups that have been the targets of discrimination and oppression. They are among the most maligned, creating harmful stereotypes that leave many feeling undervalued.

Ages 10 to 25 are crucial for the development of youth and young adults — for their identity formation, decision-making, and personal growth, and also to learn from mistakes. While some young people do get caught up in dangerous content online, . While some do struggle, their experiences should not define or overshadow the dynamic potential of this developmental stage like Adolescence does. 

Many of the poignant moments in Adolescence are between boys and their dads. These scenes show both generations struggling awkwardly to connect, to understand each other, and to express affection. The series’ co-creator and co-writer, that Jamie’s father, Eddie Miller, isn’t “overly tender and doesn’t tell his boy he loves him constantly…. [But he] brings in as much love as he can. He does to the best of his ability.” As viewers, it seems just fine, since that’s just the way it is.

The myth of the inevitable conflict between teenagers and parents, though persistent, is overblown. , and everyday bickering is normal as young people become more independent. But only 5% to 15%  of teenagers have serious, ongoing conflicts with their parents. Perceptions of the level of conflict vary between mothers, fathers, and teenagers within the same family, and . None of that means that families are a war zone or that teens live in a different world from their parents.

consistently shows that, on average, teenagers from all backgrounds view their families positively. In a study of over 27,000 young people grades 4 to 12, the vast majority said they have strong relationships with their parents, with 85% reporting that their families consistently provide love and support. It’s not okay that 14% of these youth say their family gives them love and support only sometimes or not at all. Those families need targeted support and healing. But they are not the norm that you might assume by what is portrayed in Adolescence and public discourse.

Teenagers and adults inhabit separate worlds in Adolescence. Teenagers use a secret language of emojis that adults struggle to understand, leading to communication breakdowns and frustration. Psychologist Briony Ariston works hard to build rapport with Jamie, so much so that he asks her if she likes him “just as a person.” It’s evident she has developed a bond with him when she breaks down after he leaves, though she doesn’t show him. 

Jamie’s deepest longing is to know that despite committing a terrible act, he has inherent value as a person and he is loved. Mutual relationships are essential for building trust, but some people who work with youth have conflated the importance of maintaining professional boundaries with not expressing responsible, genuine care. This is essential for effective practice and for recognizing the humanity of even those .

the justice system would be more effective if those in the system could be seen as, in Jamie’s words, “just as a person” while they are serving their sentence. Unfortunately, youth of color and others who have been marginalized are less likely to be liked “just as a person” when the adults around them are mainly from the majority culture.

About 75% of young people report feeling supported by adults outside their families. While surveys indicate variability in support from specific groups like teachers or youth workers, adults generally view their more positively than the youth themselves do. This highlights the opportunity for improvement, showing that current realities differ from common perceptions about adolescence.

Finally, Adolescence portrayed secondary schools as hellholes where teachers scream at students in a futile effort to gain a modicum of control. Yes, that verbal threats and violent behaviors have increased since before the pandemic. Yet despite facing challenges, our research found 68% of students grades 4 to 12 often feel safe at school, and 67% believe rules are enforced fairly. 

Creating safer, relationship-centered schools requires significant effort. Many students, teachers, and families are bullied or overlooked, especially in lower-resourced communities that struggle to meet daily needs. However, across diverse schools, administrators, educators, and families are collaborating to foster respectful and engaging environments where every student feels welcomed and safe. It’s challenging, but it is achievable.

Adolescence is a compelling series that raises questions about families, adolescence, youth culture, and society, which merits far more attention than they usually get. I worry that the vast majority of compelling stories that shape our culture’s thoughts about kids reinforce narrow, problematic, and deficit-focused views. I want to hear diverse stories of teens from various places, cultures, and backgrounds, showcasing their sparks, struggles, and solutions. I seek narratives of young people, with the support of adults, becoming positive forces in their communities and the world as they transition into adulthood.

Similar actions swept the country: Dozens of districts cut ties with the police, satisfying advocates who argued the officers did more harm than good. But the decision in this suburban Washington, D.C., school system was short lived. A year later, in April 2022, the district and the police department to bring back the officers.

The reversal, which followed multiple campus safety incidents including , came amid a national shift in the sentiment around school safety. As students returned to classrooms following pandemic-induced campus closures, educators reported that children brought with them that put teachers and other youth at risk.  

, however, complicate that narrative: In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, the latest figures from 2022 show, campus violence continued a decades-long plunge.��

In a national survey of youth ages 12 to 18, students reported that they were the victims of campus violence — including rape, robbery and assault — at a rate of 15.6 incidents per 1,000 students in 2022, the first year that students nationwide returned to in-person learning. That’s a decline from pre-pandemic levels: In 2018, for example, students reported a campus violence victimization rate of 24 incidents per 1,000. A decade ago, the rate was nearly double that.

The data, which reflect as well, were detailed in a new report by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice, which includes information on a host of indicators related to campus safety and security. In total, the figures suggest that campus violence has decreased since the pandemic with one notable exception. School shootings, while statistically rare compared to other forms of campus disorder, were once again at an all-time high.

School safety expert Deborah Temkin Cahill, the chief research officer at the nonprofit , said the data are part of a larger, promising trajectory. In the last decade, school violence has declined precipitously, she said, as schools “double down on their efforts to improve school climate and to implement social-emotional learning.” During the pandemic, student well-being became a key focus for educators nationally. 

“That emphasis was not necessarily a priority for schools in the previous days when much of the focus was on improving reading and math scores,” she said while adding that the latest figures should be interpreted with caution. With just one year of data from when students were back in classrooms full scale, she said it’s too early to reach definitive conclusions about the pandemic’s effects. 

“We don’t know if those trends are an anomaly or if they are going to continue over time,” she told ����Ӱ��. “So we are really going to want to keep track of what those look like in future data collections.”

These 10 charts show how violence in schools — with a few important caveats — has continued a decade-long decline, one that counters widely held perceptions about a post-COVID bump in campus disorder. 

Violence against students has plummeted 

In the last decade, schools nationally have seen marked declines in campus violence — according to students themselves. In 2022, students ages 12 to 18 reported that they were the victims of violence at school at a rate of 15.6 incidents per 1,000 students.

In fact, the federal data suggest that 2022 was the safest year for students in the last decade. Leading up to the pandemic, in 2018, the nation’s students were the victims of violence at school at a rate of 24 per 1,000 students.

The data suggest that the decline in school violence can be attributed in large part to a drop in simple assaults, which include campus fights and account for the majority of student victimizations. Excluding simple assault, students were the victims of violent incidents at a rate of 3.3 per 1,000 in 2022, relatively unchanged from a decade ago and a slight drop from pre-pandemic levels.

Data from 2016 were excluded from the charts above because the methodology used that year wasn’t directly comparable to that used in other studies. 

Temkin Cahill noted a new youth survey administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that students’ mental health challenges that surged since the pandemic have begun to wane but remain elevated from pre-pandemic levels. 

She said there’s an important distinction between “behaviors that may be the result of heightened emotional needs and ones that are truly violent or school safety related.”&�Բ�����;

“A kid acting out in school may not rise to the level that one would perceive as violence but it may still be causing a disruption in school,” she said. “I think that’s where we’re getting these anecdotal narratives of kids being much more on edge, in part because they have heightened emotional needs.”&�Բ�����;

Student bullying has grown less frequent — with a caveat 

In the years leading up to the pandemic, and immediately after school closures ended, reported rates of school bullying have remained relatively consistent. In 2018-19, 20% of students ages 12 to 18 reported being bullied at school, similar to the 19.2% of young people who reported the abuse in the 2021-22 academic year.

Compared to a decade ago, bullying is down significantly: 27.8% of students said they were victims in 2010-11. 

Computers have taken on a bigger role in the way students learn — and how they harass their peers. While bullying has declined overall, the prevalence of cyberbullying has grown, the data show. 

Among the students who reported experiencing bullying in 2021-22, three-quarters of those incidents took place inside classrooms or in school hallways while about a fifth occurred online or via text messaging. That’s of cyberbullying incidents reported in 2014-15. 

Temkin Cahill said the shift highlights how the pandemic, which forced students to spend more time online than ever before, “has fundamentally changed the ways that our youth are interacting with one another.”

School-based thefts are down

Thefts reported in schools have also been on the decline over the last decade. Such incidents were — perhaps predictably — at a low point during COVID-era school closures. Still, in 2024 after students returned in person, student thefts were below those in the years leading up to the pandemic. 

In 2022, students reported thefts at school at a rate of 6.1 incidents per 1,000 students — a slight decline from 9.4 in 2019 and 8.9 in 2018. 

The data show a marked shift from a decade ago, when 23.6 students per 1,000 reported that they had been the victims of theft on campus in 2012. 

The reduction in reported student criminality, Temkin Cahill theorized, could be influenced at least in part by another lingering pandemic byproduct: The heightened number of parents who work from home. 

“There is a link between delinquency and youth engaging in violent behavior and the presence of an adult at home when they return home from school,” she told ����Ӱ��. “That has been a significant preventative factor for engaging in gang behaviors, etc.”

Indeed, gangs have lost steam

The federal data suggest an ongoing decline in student-reported gang activity inside schools over the last decade, a trend that has continued since the pandemic. 

During the 2021-22 school year, 5.5% of students said they observed the presence of gangs in their schools, a slight drop from 2018-19 when 9% of students observed gang activity at school. Since 2000, student gang reports peaked in 2004-05, when nearly a quarter of young people said the crews had a presence in their schools. 

Violent teacher injuries were way down last year

In the pandemic’s wake, teachers for their physical safety. Although the latest federal data don’t offer new data on the number of teachers who were injured on the job, privately collected data on educator insurance claims offer new insight.

During the 2023-24 school year, the number of educators who filed health insurance claims after getting injured by a student behaving violently fell significantly. 

That year, the company identified 868 insurance claims from educators who reported injuries on the job after getting assaulted by one of their students. The data were collected from about 2,000 schools nationally that serve some 1.25 million students, according to the company. Compared to a year earlier, such insurance claims were down 39%. 

In the two years immediately after the pandemic, the number of insurance claims was relatively consistent with those prior to the public health emergency, according to the data, which Gallagher Bassett provided to ����Ӱ��. 

In the two years preceding the pandemic, however, the incurred costs of student-on-teacher injuries surged, from about $6 million during the 2018-19 academic year to $9.7 million in 2022-23. 

Greg McKenna, the national practice leader focused on the public sector for Gallagher Bassett, told ����Ӱ�� the data suggest that violent incidents were more severe immediately after the pandemic than those in previous years. During the 2023-24 school year, the incurred costs tanked, dropping below pre-pandemic levels to about $4.9 million.

“We’re happy to report that we’re seeing a downturn,” McKenna said about the most recent decline. “Perhaps we did reach a bit of a high water mark in ’22-23 and we’re hoping that this is a continued downward trend as we go in through ’24 and beyond.”&�Բ�����;

Campus weapons possession is down

The latest federal data suggest that fewer kids are bringing guns, knives and other weapons to class. In a 2021 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey, 3.1% of students reported bringing a weapon to school at least once in the previous 30 days, a slight decline from a decade earlier: In 2011, 5.4% of students said they came to school with a weapon. The latest figures represent a slight increase from 2019, when 2.8% reported bringing a weapon to school. 

Students’ access to a loaded gun without adult permission has similarly waned — dropping from 6.7% in 2007 to 2.7% in 2021. 

David Riedman, the founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, said the latest figures should be taken with a degree of caution. For starters, the survey was released in 2021 when some campuses remained closed from the pandemic. He also questioned the accuracy and methodology of the survey. 

Still, even if just a small percentage of high schoolers report bringing guns to school, the tally suggests that hundreds of thousands of kids nationally who are regularly coming to school armed. 

“It’s not nothing,” he told ����Ӱ��, adding that his own analysis of available datasets on campus weapons possessions — including news reports — suggest the number has shot up in recent years. 

“I think that kids are carrying guns in school more frequently than they have at any other time in recent history” under a fear that they could become victims of violence at school, he said. During the pandemic, the country saw record and . “It’s a way to feel that they can protect themselves which, interestingly, is the same way that guns are marketed to adults.”&�Բ�����;

Despite all the progress, student gun deaths and injuries at school remain at record highs.

In recent years, the number of students who have been killed or wounded by school shootings has surged, reaching all-time highs that persisted once COVID-era campus closures came to an end. In 2022, 23 students were wounded and 29 were killed in active shootings, where gunmen fire indiscriminately at people on a large scale. 

Active shooting injuries and deaths in 2022 were the second highest on record, trailing only 2018, the year of high-profile school shootings in Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe, Texas. That year, 52 students and adults were injured and 29 were killed. 

Research by the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety show that reported campus gunfire incidents — a far broader range than the active shootings tracked in the federal data — peaked in the immediate aftermath of COVID, reaching a record high of 192 incident since the group began to track them in 2013. Though the numbers have come down since then, 2023-24 had the second-highest number of reported K-12 gunfire incidents on record at 144. 

Reidman, who was one of the authors of the Everytown report, said the spike in gunfire incidents is being driven primarily by “fights that are escalating into shootings.”&�Բ�����;

“For somebody to fire shots during a fight, it means that they need to be carrying a gun with them all day,” he said. “The chances that the kid is carrying a gun for the first time on the day that a fight happens seems pretty low to me, which must mean that there are a lot of kids who are habitually carrying guns in schools every day.”&�Բ�����;

Students’ perception of safety has remained consistent. 

Despite the progress in recent years — including the decline in student victimization rates, reports of campus gang activity and bullying — students’ perception of safety has hardly budged over the last decade. The number of students who said they skipped school due to fears of violence has also held relatively consistent. 

During the 2021-22 school year, fewer than 5% of students said they were afraid of being attacked at school or avoided educational activities outright due to fears that someone might harm them. That rate is similar to the number from a decade ago, and a slight decline from academic years leading up to – and during — COVID. 

“The COVID years really were an anomaly and understanding the trends over that full course of time is really important,” Temkin Cahill said of the latest school safety data. “We see that the 2022 data really are a continuation of the trend we saw in prior years. We will really only understand the effects of the pandemic once we collect a couple more years of data.”&�Բ�����;

In 2023, two in ten teens were bullied at school and one in ten did not attend due to safety concerns, 4% increases since 2021. Two percent more were injured or threatened at school. About one in ten experienced sexual violence, roughly the same amount as two years ago, according to 20,000 high schoolers surveyed nationwide for the latest iteration of the CDC’s Youth Risk and Behavior survey.

For the first time, the CDC’s 2023 survey prompted teens to reflect on racism, unfair discipline and social media use. Nearly one third of students reported being “treated badly or unfairly at school because of their race or ethnicity” by educators or peers.

Some key indicators show “progress” in combatting the youth mental health crisis: About 10% of Black students reported attempting suicide in 2023, down from 14% in 2021. At the same time, fewer female and Hispanic students seriously considered suicide or experienced persistent sadness or hopelessness in 2023 than in 2021. But roughly half of both groups still experience depressive symptoms, and at rates higher than national averages. 

“The data released today show improvements to a number of metrics that measure young people’s mental well-being – progress we can build on. However, this work is far from complete,” said Debra Houry, chief medical officer with the agency, in a press release last week. “Every child should feel safe and supported, and CDC will continue its work to turn this data into action until we reach that goal.” 

Only about half of teens felt close to people in their school, with key demographic groups reporting being especially vulnerable: Girls, LGBTQ and Native youth were forced into or experienced risky behavior more than their peers across nearly all metrics, including substance use, physical and sexual violence, depression, and suicidality. 

The general rise in aggressive behavior, while concerning, is not particularly surprising to experts.

“We are still seeing a long-tail of effect from the height of the pandemic with kids having been isolated… The ninth grader of today is still a bit less mature, not as good at problem solving, not as clear in their communication with peers, especially when it comes to conflict,” said child psychologist and Boston-area schools consultant Deborah Offner.

Students’ sexual activity and drug use overall mirrored rates from 2021, significantly declining over the last decade. Fewer teens have ever had sex, from about half to one in three. But those that have engaged in more risky behavior: fewer used condoms or were tested for STIs. 

While overall declines in depressive symptoms and suicidality are not “giant,” said Offner, “as we emerge from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, kids in my orbit are overall doing better on average than they were a few years ago. Most of that is [thanks to] the reentry into the social environment of school and activities.”

Recommending stronger health education and opportunities for young people to build relationships, belonging at school, the CDC urged schools to . Some ideas for schools include facilitating mentorship or advisory opportunities for older students to be role models for younger students, who may be feeling lost in their first years in high school, and training all school staff to be strong listeners, “because you never know who a kid is going to tap into,” Offner said. 

Below are five key findings from the report: 

1. Violence and bullying increased 2% and 4%, respectively, from 2021 to 2023, with about one in ten avoiding school for safety concerns and two in ten being bullied. 

Sexual violence was as prevalent in 2023 as it was in 2021: roughly one in ten teens. Girls and LGBTQ youth were more likely than their peers to experience sexual and physical violence. 

The frequency of bullying at school, students report, increased 4% since 2021, bumping back up to pre-pandemic levels. LGBTQ students experienced bullying the most of any subgroup, with three in ten having been bullied and two in ten missing school because of safety fears.

2. 2023 saw a 2% decline in the share of kids persistently sad, hopeless or making suicide plans, but significantly more experience depression symptoms than did in 2013.

Four in ten teens on average reported consistent depression symptoms, up from three in ten just a decade ago. While 4% fewer girls experienced such symptoms than and 3% less seriously considered suicide than in 2021, the proportion of girls experiencing depressive symptoms is much higher than their peers: over five in ten, 53%.

Among LGBTQ youth, six in ten felt persistently sad or hopeless, and two in ten attempted suicide.

Offner said while social media is often scapegoated as the core driver of depressive symptoms, the most common reasons youth cite as causes of internal conflicts are family or friend-related, like witnessing parents’ economic uncertainty or emotional instability, and working through friendship disagreements. 

Many, she added, are also feeling climate anxiety and worried about material needs more than other generations – their parents placing intense pressure to succeed academically and go onto lucrative careers. 

However social media does serve as a “social comparison accelerator,” she said, where teens may compare themselves to others or feel bad about being excluded from activities. 

Native teens – the subgroup spending least amount of time on social media according to the CDC, with about half using it several times a day – are still the subgroup experiencing highest rates of poor mental health and persistent depressive symptoms. 

3. One third of teens experienced racism, and nearly two in ten reported being unfairly disciplined. 

With the CDC asking for the first time, 32% of high school students reported being “treated badly or unfairly in school because of their race.” Asian, multiracial, and Black students reported this more often than peers, at 57%, 49%, and 46% respectively.

On average, 19% of teens were “unfairly disciplined” at school in 2023, with male, Native, Black and multiracial students reporting at a rate 3-13% above average. One in three Native youth reported being unfairly disciplined, more than any other race or ethnicity.

4. No significant changes in teens’ sexual behavior since 2021. Overall, students are having less sex than in 2013. 

While three in ten teens reported having had sex, down from about five in ten a decade ago; only a third used some form of oral birth control, and half used condoms. 

Six percent of teens polled had four or more sexual partners in 2023, compared to 15% the decade prior. 

Some reasons for the decline may be increased immaturity, said Offner, which is impacting kids’ relationship experience. She has also witnessed more young people express ownership of their bodies and wanting to go slowly in their sexual experiences, “I think they’re learning from the mistakes of previous generations, too.”&�Բ�����;

5. Alcohol, marijuana, and illicit drug consumption is declining. But vulnerable student populations — LGBTQ, Native youth, and girls – used more than their peers. 

In 2023, about 22% of teens reported drinking alcohol, a significant decrease from 35% ten years prior. The number is slightly higher for girls, with about one in four drinking. While the proportion of Black kids drinking increased from 2021 to 2023, their rate is still under average, at 17%. 

Roughly the same amount used marijuana as did two years ago, about 17%, down from 23% in 2013.

Only about one in ten used illicit drugs, like psychedelics and stimulants, or misused prescription opioids. Teens’ illicit drug use has declined 6% overall in the last decade. 

Offner observed teens today are a little more health cautious, and have witnessed more siblings and peers practice sobriety intentionally. “It’s much more acceptable to say that you don’t use them or aren’t interested in using them,” she added. 

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Additional resources are available at . For LGBTQ mental health support, you can contact toll-free support line at 866-488-7386.

There were more weapons brought into Washington’s schools during the last school year than the year before.

That’s according to a from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, which found an 11.6% increase in weapons on school grounds in the 2022-2023 school year compared to 2021-2022.

During the 2022-2023 school year, 2,275 weapon incidents were reported by Washington’s public and private schools. Of those, 316 involved possession of a firearm. All of the gun incidents were reported at public schools. Most other reports involved knives, daggers or “other weapons.”

However, the presence of guns specifically increased, 236 incidents involving firearms during the 2021-2022 school year, according to last year’s report from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

“I wish I could say I was really shocked by this increase, but sadly I’m not that shocked,” said Johnny Lupinacci, an associate professor at Washington State University who studies the intersection of schools and social justice.

While national data on the 2022-2023 school year is not yet available, show that, among states, Washington had the 11th highest rate of students bringing firearms to school.

Nationwide, the number of guns showing up in schools is soaring. found 1 in 47 school-age children, or about 1.1 million students, attended a school where at least one gun was found and reported on by the media in the 2022-2023 school year — and the actual number of guns in schools may be much higher.

Washington has enacted some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country and

Lupinacci praised the state’s strict gun laws and said his “gut reaction” to seeing increasing numbers of guns in schools is to make it even harder to obtain a firearm. He said getting a gun remains just “far too easy,” even in some of the most restrictive jurisdictions.

possession of firearms and other dangerous weapons on school grounds, except for security and law enforcement. The law also requires the expulsion of students found in possession of a firearm anywhere on school grounds, although superintendents can modify expulsions on a case-by-case basis.

Lupinacci said students primarily bring weapons into schools because they feel unsafe and believe “the only way they could be safe is to somehow arm themselves.”

for American children and teens, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data for 2022, analyzed by Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that advocates for stricter gun laws.

Despite the increase in weapons in Washington’s schools, expulsions due to weapon incidents were down 49%. Schools chose to suspend students instead: Compared to the 2021-2022 school year, there was a 12% increase in suspensions in 2022-2023.

Lupinacci said “zero tolerance” policies around weapons in schools are important, particularly with firearms, and praised Washington’s schools for reducing expulsions and increasing suspensions, calling the schools’ response empathetic but firm.

He also said the solution to reducing weapons in schools involves a “larger discussion” about reducing child poverty, increasing school funding and dealing with rising mental health issues among America’s youth.

“Our public school systems can and ought to be that safety net in our communities,” Lupinacci said. “What we see is when we don’t take care of our community, kids experience school in a way where it feels dangerous or unsafe.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on and .

“I stopped maybe a couple of weeks ago,” Juarez said last month. “I see the stuff that’s happening. I do see the news and I see what happens on the bus and then around here as well. So I don’t feel it’s safe for them to go by themselves, walking or on the bus.”

Before the increasing reports of violence and drug abuse on LAUSD campuses, she would allow her two older children in 9th and 10th grade to regularly ride the bus to and from the 32nd Street School near University Park in East Los Angeles.

Juarez’s concerns were not out of the ordinary. In February, shootings occurred overnight near a LA school campus, resulting in the deaths of two teenagers. Last month were arrested for bringing guns to school.

An LA Unified spokesperson declined to be interviewed, instead referring a reporter to  from the recent school board meeting where the issue was discussed during the Safe School Task Force annual update.

The presentation, delivered by Andres Chait, LAUSD Chief of School Operations, outlined 14 recommendations, including installing vape and weapons detection systems, developing and implementing peer counseling, and installing gates and security cameras in all schools. 

The increasing violence around the district has made some parents question whether LA Unified schools are safe — and if the school board made the right decision to after the murder of George Floyd. 

“They cut it without really thinking through who it was going to impact and without inclusion of the parent voice,” said Evelyn Aleman, Founder of a parents group.” They had activists, because activists are able to mobilize and come to the school board meetings and ways that Latino and indigenous immigrant parents cannot…that’s a significant voice, which is 74% of the student population was left out of that conversation.”&�Բ�����;

The funding was reallocated towards programs in schools with the highest number of Black students, including the hiring of more social workers, and counselors, targeting schools with high rates of suspension, chronic absenteeism and low academic student achievement.  ����Ӱ�� previously did a story on the impact of the programs.

Pedro Noguera, Dean of the USC Rossier School of Educations said while police presence can deter some incidents, more cops are not a long term solution. 

“Campus Police are most effective at deterring individuals who don’t belong on campus from coming on campus. If that’s an issue…, they should consider deploying police to schools,” said Noguera. “But if the issue is preventing fights, they need trusted adults who kids will talk to…  you just have to be really careful because once you bring the police into the picture you significantly increase the likelihood of arrest.”&�Բ�����; 

LAUSD school police carry guns and handcuffs and have the authority to make arrests, a district spokesman said.

LAUSD district 7 board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin, an advocate for restorative measures, believes the best way to keep students safe starts by  teaching young children social-emotional skills to navigate conflict and  de-escalating potentially violent situations.

“I know that… (there is a) sort of myth or misconception that we swing from punitive to permissive.” Franklin said. “I’m not going to let kids run all over the place…we still have to keep our hands to ourselves, we still have to be safe and use our words. But I’m going to show you how to do that, teach you and give you a second chance.”

For Aleman and other parents the progress is too slow. According to an LAUSD published in September 2023, incidents of fighting and physical aggression increased by over 40% between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years. More  than  600 fights and other physical aggression incidents were reported just 30 days into the 2023-24 school year. 

“I think it’s wishful thinking, and it doesn’t address the urgency of the situation, which is safety,” Aleman said in response to the district’s restorative plan to ensure safe schools. “This requires an immediate response, and it’s not just the school police…—But from LAUSD, everybody has to step up…. This is unacceptable. outside the school. That shouldn’t be happening.”

Pew Research Associate Luona Lin called the findings released Thursday “jarring”: Nearly a quarter of educators said they experienced a lockdown due to a gun — or fears of one — on their campus last school year.

Teachers who work in high schools, and those located in urban areas, were far more likely to experience lockdowns. Among high school educators, 34% reported at least one gun-related lockdown during the 2022-23 school year, as did 31% of those who teach in urban areas.

“One of the most striking findings is just the sheer number of teachers who say they have experienced a lockdown,” Lin told ����Ӱ��. Pew sought to probe educators’ perspectives of school gun violence after researchers conducted interviews to understand their “day-to-day lives and their perspectives” on hot-button issues, she said. Gun violence came up again and again. 

“A lot of teachers definitely talked about worrying about school shootings happening in their school,” she said. “One of the teachers we talked about it with actually said, ‘I think about it every day.’”

Though the Pew data don’t offer insight into the frequency that firearms are ultimately found, tallies on campus attacks have shown a staggering upward trend, with record numbers over the last three years.

Just this week, James and Jennifer Crumbley to 10-15 years in prison after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for their role in failing to prevent a 2021 school shooting that was carried out by their then-15-year-old son. The shooting at his Oxford, Michigan, high school led to the death of four students. The Crumbleys are the first parents in U.S. history to be sentenced to prison in response to an active shooting perpetrated by their child. More than two-thirds of active shootings at K-12 campuses were carried out by perpetrators between the ages of 12 and 18, . 

For some teachers who participated in the Pew poll — 59% of whom say they worry about a school shooting unfolding at their schools — gun-related lockdowns are frequent. While 15% said they experienced one lockdown last school year, 8% said they were forced to take cover at least twice. 

The new data on the opinions of K-12 teachers comes roughly 25 years after the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in suburban Denver, which became a national flashpoint on school violence after two student gunmen killed 13 of their classmates before taking their own lives. Since then, national spending on school security has surged — and so, too, have the number of campus attacks.

Though school shootings are politically fraught and carry devastating consequences for communities, they remain statistically rare. Between 2000 and 2021, there have been 46 “active shooter incidents” at K-12 campuses, which resulted in 108 deaths and 168 injuries, according to . Active shootings are defined as those where a gunman fires indiscriminately at people in a public place like a school. 

Beyond active shootings like those at Oxford and Columbine, federal data on campus gun incidents indicate 188 shootings that resulted in casualties during the 2021-22 school year— more than twice as many as the year earlier, which at the time was a record high.

While a majority of educators fear school shootings, 39% said their school has done a fair or poor job preparing for one while 30% — particularly those with school-based police officers — said their district has done an excellent or very good job. 

In preventing future attacks, 69% of educators endorsed efforts to improve mental health screenings and treatments for children, 49% supported campus cops and 33% favored metal detectors. 

Just 13% of teachers who participated in the Pew survey said arming educators would be an extremely or very effective approach to prevent the tragedies. 

Teachers’ responses were often similar to those offered by parents and students in previous Pew surveys on school shooting fears and preparation — with all parties being swayed, at least in part, by partisan politics. 

Republican-leaning educators were more likely than their Democratic colleagues to support campus police, metal detectors and arming teachers. Democratic teachers were more likely than GOP educators to support efforts to improve students’ mental health. 

In , two-thirds of parents said they were at least somewhat worried about a shooting unfolding at their child’s school, and 63% endorsed improvements in mental health for students as a way to prevent shootings, a rate higher than any other intervention. 

In , from 2018, 57% of teens said they were somewhat or very worried about a school shooting occurring on their campus. 

Pew’s educator survey included responses from 2,531 public K-12 teachers in October and November who are members of , a nationally representative sample of U.S. educators. 

“Gun violence and all of these gun policy issues, they are definitely partisan,” Lin said. “The views of teachers, the views of parents, are reflective of the overall population’s views on this, and definitely the partisan differences as well.”

Every now and then, an elected official will suggest bringing in the National Guard to deal with violence that seems out of control.

A city council member in Washington suggested doing so in 2023 to . So did a Pennsylvania representative concerned about .

In February 2024, officials in Massachusetts be deployed to a more unexpected location – .

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Brockton High School has been struggling with . One school staffer said she was rushing to see a fight. Many teachers , leaving the school understaffed.

As a , I know Brockton’s situation is part of a who have been struggling to deal with perceived in since the pandemic.

A review of how the National Guard has been deployed to schools in the past shows the guard can provide service to schools in cases of exceptional need. Yet, doing so does not always end well.

How have schools used the National Guard before?

In 1957, the National Guard . While the governor claimed this was for safety, the National Guard effectively delayed desegregation of the school – as did the mobs of white individuals outside. Ironically, weeks later, the National Guard and the U.S. Army would enforce integration and the safety of the “Little Rock Nine” on .

One of the most tragic cases of the National Guard in an educational setting came in 1970 at Kent State University. The to respond to protests over American involvement in the Vietnam War. The guardsmen fatally shot four students.

In 2012, then-Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from California, to use the National Guard to provide school security in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting. The bill .

More recently, the National Guard in New Mexico’s K-12 schools during the quarantines and sickness of the pandemic. While the idea did not catch on nationally, teachers and school personnel in New Mexico generally reported positive experiences.

Can the National Guard address school discipline?

The includes responding to domestic emergencies. Members of the guard are part-time service members who maintain civilian lives. Some are students themselves in colleges and universities. Does this mission and training position the National Guard to respond to incidents of student misbehavior and school violence?

On the one hand, New Mexico’s pandemic experience shows the . Similarly, the guards’ eventual role in ensuring student safety in Arkansas demonstrates their potential to address exceptional cases in schools, such as racially motivated mob violence. And, of course, many schools have had military personnel teaching and mentoring through for years.

Those seeking to bring the National Guard to Brockton High School . They note that staffing shortages have contributed to behavior problems.

One school : “I know that the first thought that comes to mind when you hear ‘National Guard’ is uniform and arms, and that’s not the case. They’re people like us. They’re educated. They’re trained, and we just need their assistance right now. … We need more staff to support our staff and help the students learn (and) have a safe environment.”

Yet, there are reasons to question whether calls for the National Guard are the best way to address school misconduct and behavior. First, the National Guard is a temporary measure that does little to address the .

Research has shown that students , meaningful and sustained and . Such educative and supportive environments have been . National Guard members are not trained as educators or counselors and, as a temporary measure, would not remain in the school to establish durable relationships with students.

What is more, a military presence – particularly if uniformed or armed – may make students feel less welcome at school or escalate situations.

Schools have already seen an increase in militarization. For example, school police departments have gone so far as to acquire .

Research has found that school police make students more likely to and to be . Similarly, while a National Guard presence may address misbehavior temporarily, their presence could similarly result in students experiencing punitive or exclusionary responses to behavior.

Students deserve a solution other than the guard

School violence and disruptions are serious problems . Unfortunately, schools and educators have increasingly to be dealt with through suspensions and police involvement.

A number of people – from the NAACP to the local mayor and other members of the school board – Brockton’s request for the National Guard. Governor Maura Healey has said she will to the school.

However, the case of Brockton High School points to real needs. Educators there, like in other schools nationally, are and resources.

Many schools need more teachers and staff. Students need access to mentors and counselors. With these resources, schools can better ensure educators are able to do their jobs without military intervention.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

A study by researchers from Ohio State University found that the likelihood of violence against teachers could be greater in schools that focus primarily on grades and test scores.

The study, which was published in the , surveyed 9,000 teachers in the nation, particularly before and amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did researchers find that violence against teachers was more likely in elementary schools than in other schools, but also that female teachers “experienced more violence than others pre-COVID-19,” according to the study.

“Female teachers were more likely to report experiences of violence from all types of perpetrators pre-COVID-19, whereas females only experienced more violence perpetrated by parents during COVID,” the study stated.

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There was a difference in region as well, with rural and suburban schools reporting less violence than teachers in urban schools before and during the pandemic.

But overall, the “performance goal structure” was what the study found connected teachers with levels of violence, no matter who perpetrated the violence.

“Our results indicate that an instructional climate that emphasizes performance and test scores may set the stage for negative teacher and student interactions that may lead to violence against educators,” the study stated.

Of the teachers surveyed, 65% reported at least one verbal threat or property damage incident by a student before the pandemic. In the 2020-2021 school year, incidents dropped 32% verbal threats and 26% property damage, but the lower rates don’t mean the likelihood of violence was less common overall, according to the lead author, OSU educational psychology professor Eric Anderman.

“People say no one was in schools then. That’s not true,” Anderman said in a statement. “A lot of times teachers were in the building, but the students were at home. And some of the violence occurred over Zoom.”

Anderman said the research didn’t show an emphasis on mastering skills, so much as the focus on placing a grade or test score at the forefront of education, that created violent situations.

“What was really striking was this performance culture predicted all kinds of increased violence by students, whether it be physical violence, verbal threatening, or property violence,” Anderman said in a release announcing the study.

Solutions posed in the study involved changing the performance-focused methods in schools and creating channels for students to release stress without pushing grade-based success.

“This is about changing the way we talk to kids about what learning is about and what is really important,” Anderman stated in the release.

The study comes after a conducted during the pandemic showed nearly half of all teachers who participated wanted to quit or transfer.

Anderman was a part of that 2022 study as well, as part of the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Violence Against Educators and School Personnel,  and the anecdotes and information from the study showed him there was “a crisis in the teaching profession,” according to a release when the survey was published.

That survey showed 33% of the teachers participating reported “verbal attacks or threats of violence,” 29% of those threats received from parents.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on and .

Publicly traded Evolv Technology acknowledged that the Federal Trade Commission had “requested information about certain aspects of its marketing practices” in last week, of its technology in promotions that could give customers, including schools, a false sense of security. 

Citing two anonymous sources, is the subject of an FTC investigation into whether its scanners — essentially next-generation metal detectors with a — employ artificial intelligence to identify weapons in the ways that it claims.

It’s unclear whether Massachusetts-based Evolv’s sales pitches to the education sector are part of the federal probe. An FTC spokesperson declined to comment Tuesday. In its Oct. 12 disclosure form with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and in a statement this week to ����Ӱ��, Evolv said the company was “pleased to answer” regulators’ questions. 

“When Evolv receives inquiries from regulators, our approach is to be cooperative and educate them about our company,” the statement continued. “The company stands behind its technology’s capabilities and performance track record.”

The company has that it uses AI to scan for the unique “signatures” of tens of thousands of weapons, allowing it to distinguish “all the guns, all the bombs and all the large tactical knives” out there from everyday items like keys and laptops. 

Yet the — including its — has faced pushback for several years, particularly by IPVM, an independent security and surveillance industry research group that tests and evaluates products. Conor Healy, the group’s director of government research, said that false and misleading marketing claims have been “a pattern with the company” for years. Among the inaccurate assertions, he said, is that the tool “eliminates the friction” that students experience when they pass through security everyday. 

“That has been shown to be just simply not true at all,” Healy told ����Ӱ�� this week. “There’s quite a lot of friction. The schools that we’ve looked at have .”&�Բ�����;

Districts have increasingly turned to “weapons detection” systems from Evolv and competing security vendors in response to fears of school shootings — anxiety that the company says “keeps both students and staff from doing their best work.”

Evolv “combines powerful sensor technology with proven artificial intelligence” to identify threats like guns in hundreds of U.S. schools. Capable of scanning more than 4,000 people an hour, Evolv says its devices are “10X faster than metal detectors,” and “help reduce opportunities for bias” by decreasing secondary screenings by humans.

Evolv extols the benefits of its scanners well beyond schools’ physical safety. While frequent false alarms by traditional metal detectors lead to “security anxiety” and “inconvenient delays,” according to the company’s website, Evolv scanners offer “a more effective and dignified solution, fostering a safer, more inclusive environment that bolsters academic achievement and staff retention.”&�Բ�����;

IPVM has accused the company of is 10 times faster than traditional metal detectors, and found the scanners . Meanwhile, IPVM has documented instances where false alarms were by water bottles, binders and laptops.

In a statement to Pennsylvania-based IPVM last month, Evolv said “we understand if any of our past statements appeared to generalize our capabilities,” which may violate an FTC rule that requires company claims to be evidence-backed. 

With AI a constant, if little understood, buzzword across many sectors right now, the FTC in February the capabilities of their artificial intelligence offerings, adding that “false or unsubstantiated claims about a product’s efficacy are our bread and butter.”&�Բ�����;

“The minute you hear the word AI in marketing, alarm bells should go off in your head,” said Healy, whose group has also done and the routinely installed in schools. 

“As far as [Evolv’s] artificial intelligence goes, it does not appear to be very intelligent,” he said, because it routinely fails to differentiate everyday school supplies like Chromebooks from weapons like guns. “What AI is actually in the system? That is something that Evolv has not told us very much about.”&�Բ�����;

Evolv has resisted calls to disclose additional information about the ways its scanners function. While scanners’ sensitivity settings can alter their performance, a company spokesperson previously told ����Ӱ�� that publicly sharing information about those settings “is irresponsible and puts people at greater risk.”&�Բ�����;

“We must assume any published information regarding details of a physical screening system will be studied and leveraged by a bad actor seeking to do harm,” the statement continued. The company declined to comment on the false alarm rates reported by its customer districts, which include ,, and

 “Our systems are designed to detect many types of weapons and components of weapons, but there is no perfect solution that will stop 100% of threats, including ours, which is why security must include a layered approach that involves people, process and technology.”&�Բ�����;

Knives became a point of conflict last year after the school district in Utica, New York, spent nearly $4 million to install Evolv scanners across 13 of its campuses. The scanners were ultimately removed after a student was stabbed multiple times with a knife during a fight in a high school hallway. The knife-wielding student had passed through an Evolv scanner with the blade in his backpack, a later investigation revealed. 

While the detectors had false alarms, including on a student’s lunch box, an Evolv scanner failed to alarm when an off-duty police officer accidentally brought a service revolver to a Utica district open house.

Meanwhile, in Buffalo, New York, Evolv scanners were credited for keeping a high school safe. Earlier this month, an to a criminal weapons possession charge after he was caught trying to bring a handgun into a high school. A school security officer reportedly found the disassembled “ghost gun” in the teenager’s backpack as he passed through a weapons detector. Buffalo schools earlier this year. A Buffalo schools spokesperson declined to comment.

As companies increasingly market products with artificial intelligence capabilities to schools, school security consultant Kenneth Trump predicts — or at least hopes — that regulation is imminent. He pointed to new rules in . The ban was adopted after an upstate school district’s decision to install surveillance cameras with facial recognition capabilities prompted an outcry. 

“The marketing claims are so off the charts by many vendors that there’s really no chance for the average school administrator to know what’s true, what’s false and really the gaps and the limitations that these products have,” said Trump, president of Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services. Though he expects regulators to soon reign in security companies, “up until that happens, how many school districts are going to fall victim to questionable marketing and grandiose ideas that don’t come to fruition?”

Michigan’s school violence prevention reporting system received 7,415 tips in 2022, annual numbers from Michigan State Police said, a 19% increase from the year before.

The reporting system, OK2SAY, allows students to report if they hear or see something that poses a threat or could pose a threat to students. The categories with the most tips are, bullying, suicide threats and drugs.

It’s not altogether clear why the number of possible threats is increasing within Michigan, Justin Heinze, director of the National Center for School Safety (NCSS), said. 

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“Is that because the true incidence of violence or concerning behavior is going up, or are we just doing a better job at getting students and parents and whomever else to recognize some of these concerns and make those reports? That’s a difficult thing to kind of distinguish,” Heinze said.

After the Oxford High School shooting in Oakland County in November 2021 where four students were killed, OK2SAY tracked a 2,709% increase in tips for December than in December of 2020.

The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office noted a significant uptick in school threats within the county after the Oxford shooting, and again after the shooter pleaded guilty to the killings last November, said the office’s Chief of Administration Betsey A. Hage.

Although more than half of states have some form of anonymous reporting for students, OK2SAY is feeding information to study what the outcomes of the tips are, Heinze said.

“Trying to help those who are going to be using these systems or responding to these tips prepare for the kind of tips that will be coming in is a big thing that we’re interested in learning more about,” Heinze said. “A vast majority of students now have a system like this that they can use, but we don’t understand really well, I think from at least a research perspective, how students use these systems.”

Sometimes dozens of tips can come in for the same “incident,” as OK2SAY refers to singular events. OK2SAY not only tracked what agency or organizations incidents were referred to, but also what happened after it was referred.

In 2022, technicians sent information about 3,066 incidents to school officials and 787 incidents to law enforcement, with other groups being alerted at smaller numbers, according to the 2022 report.

In outcome reports from schools and local law enforcement, OK2SAY shows tips filed that led to school operations being disrupted 20 times across the state, from school closures to lockdowns, to evacuations.

OK2SAY’s report says 26 tips involved the seizure of weapons and 42 involved the seizure of alcohol or drugs.

In looking at the rise of tips,  Michigan School Counselor Association Executive Director Sarah Dickman points at the compounding hurdles students have been navigating over the last few years: The global COVID-19 pandemic and a national rise in gun violence within schools.

“We see students still struggling with the learning loss due to COVID, but also, they lost a lot of social emotional support during that time, as well,” Dickman said. “We’re seeing students that are struggling in that area and I think that’s reflected in some of the data that we’re seeing with the OK2SAY program.”

When it comes to violence within schools, whether it’s bullying or a school threat, if students don’t feel safe in their environment, it affects their ability to learn, to have appropriate relationships and manage their own emotions, Dickman said.

The conversation surrounding mental health for students has come to the forefront of lots of peoples’ minds as the pandemic exacerbated existing holes in how students are supported to succeed, Dickman said. Organizations like the Michigan School Counselor Association hope to see more student support staff roles being funded within schools.

Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald announced in September her office had assembled a team of national experts to investigate preventive measures to combat gun violence to then recommend solutions for communities.

McDonald, in a written statement to the Michigan Advance, said her office commends all of the brave individuals who spoke up when they felt something was not right by submitting tips to OK2SAY and she looks forward to protocols from  the Commission to Address Gun Violence being released to the public.

“I formed the Commission to Address Gun Violence to work diligently towards producing  a meaningful protocol to reduce gun violence, which includes effective and trusted reporting systems,” McDonald said in the statement. “The final protocol will include recommendations to strengthen and expand Michigan’s confidential reporting system OK2SAY to avert attacks because locking kids up and bringing them into the criminal justice system is not the answer to preventing the next shooting.”

Hage, who also vice chairs the commission, said it’s the group’s intention to release final protocols for the public’s viewing in the fall.

The National Center for School Safety, which operates out of the University of Michigan, launched a new Michigan School Safety Initiative this summer which is working create online tools for schools to connect with violence prevention programming and allow schools to get connected to specialists that could visit schools throughout the state to create tailored safety strategies, Heinze said.

Some solutions that have been implemented in the wake of school violence are subject to debate like active shooter drills, metal detectors or the presence of law enforcement within schools, and will be examined by members of the initiative, looking into how solutions actually impact the school community, Heinze said.

“There are all these sorts of downstream effects that can happen when students are forced to think about, ‘well, is my building a safe place or not?” Heinze said. “If you look at the data broadly, most schools are very safe places relative to other environments. So we try to talk about schools in that way. … Violence does occur, sometimes heinous violence occurs, and we’re trying to reduce that number down to zero, but generally speaking, schools can be safe and productive.”

Dickman echoed that interest in understanding how solutions to the problems of violence impact students, but added that there may be benefits to more palpable preventative efforts like active shooter drills.

“I think that sometimes the adults worry about doing [active shooter] drills because we worry about the effects that it has on students psychologically, but what we actually hear from students is, they want to feel prepared because they feel that it’s something that could … happen at their school, so it brings a sense of calm to them knowing that their school is well prepared with a plan,” Dickman said.

And conversations about what actually will give kids the confidence they need to speak up when they see something and explain why some safety measures are in place so the students can understand why they’re there will ultimately include students in the conversation that allows them a bit of autonomy in solving the problems of school-based violence.

“There does seem to be solid evidence now to suggest that they are in good positions to speak up and say something when they have the opportunity and when they have the means to do so and that can prevent violence,” Heinze said.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on and .

South by Southwest Edu returns next week to Austin, Texas, running March 6–9. As always, the event offers hundreds of panels, discussions, film screenings and workshops on education policy, politics, innovation, and of course, this being 2023, the rise of artificial intelligence.

One keynote session will feature the renowned architect Frank Gehry chatting with his younger sister, educator Doreen Gehry Nelson, about creativity, critical thinking and collaboration in education. In another, pollster John Della Volpe will share new data from the November 2022 midterm elections and discuss how to engage with rising Gen Z leaders. 

In yet another, filmmakers will screen a new documentary featuring Oakland-based activist Kareem Weaver, who, fed up with bleak reading scores in his home city, filed a petition with the NAACP demanding change in early reading instruction. 

There’s actually too much to see and hear in the span of just four days, so ����Ӱ�� has streamlined the selection process. We’ve scoured the schedule to highlight a few of the most significant presenters, topics and panels that might be worth your time. 

Here’s a highly subjective list of 23 sessions you shouldn’t miss in 2023:

Monday, March 6:

: In this session by two educators and a psychologist who treats addiction, panelists will share the neuroscience behind teen brains’ unique susceptibility to tech — and how adults can help students fight it via a science-based digital media curriculum and resources designed to empower teens to develop healthy relationships with their devices. .

: The LEGO Foundation’s Bo Stjerne Thomsen joins experts in early childhood education, critical thinking, and game-based learning to discuss how educators can chart student progress in hard-to-measure areas while kids play. This discussion will explore new ways to engage kids in creative play in a way that develops essential skills and new methods for assessing growth. .

: The lab director of Community & Implementation at Stanford d.school joins two leading philanthropic leaders to explore opportunities for change that happen when we treat our schools as “vital pieces of community infrastructure.” Panelists will discuss what we unlock when educators draw on what students are capable of across physical space, tech innovation and social connection. .

: The pandemic exposed millions of students to the opportunities and limitations of virtual learning. Three years after the most significant disruption to schooling in recent memory, a panel of educators and advocates ask how virtual learning can reshape how we recruit, train, hire, and deploy teachers and how a virtual education workforce could provide new solutions to ongoing staffing problems. This session is moderated by ����Ӱ��’s Greg Toppo. .

: The pandemic accelerated a looming teacher shortage, with a twist: Just 20% of teachers are people of color, even as non-white students comprise the majority of U.S students, according to the Education Trust. Yet 40% of public schools do not have a single non-white teacher on record. How can we rethink teacher recruitment and training to ensure that teachers represent the students they serve? This panel explores a national initiative to recruit 1 million teachers of color over the next decade. .

: Polarization in education policy threatens to erode the broad support that schools have long enjoyed. The Aspen Institute and a bipartisan group of state policymakers developed Opportunity to Learn principles to undergird a new, positive bipartisan agenda for improving public education. The panel features Aspen’s Ross Wiener as well as two state lawmakers (one Democrat and one Republican) to explore how this approach can help rebuild support for public education. .

: Mesa Public Schools, Arizona’s largest school district, has committed to building team-based staffing models in half of its schools. It now has 30 schools with innovative staffing models, and early results are promising. This panel features a representative of Mesa schools as well as two scholars from Arizona State University, which is partnering with the district on new ways to address teacher shortages and workforce design. .

Tuesday, March 7:

(keynote, livestreamed): In this keynote session, renowned architect Frank Gehry chats with his younger sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson, about their respective careers, sharing their perspectives on the roles that “creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration” play in education. Gehry Nelson created a well-known method of design-based learning, a teaching methodology that has been applied in K-12 classrooms worldwide since 1969. .

: In this session, the National Association for Media Literacy Education will discuss implementing “train-the-trainer” models for scaling media literacy education and instruction in schools, districts and communities. This session is led by Donnell Probst, a NAMLE associate director and former college reference librarian. .

: Adequate school funding is a key to educational attainment, but the benefits don’t stop there. It affects earnings, crime and poverty, research shows. Join a panel of experts from the Learning Policy Institute, the Public Policy Institute of California and the Tennessee Department of Education to hear how funding becomes more equitable to ensure better outcomes, especially as schools tap federal pandemic relief funds. This session is led by The Dallas Morning News’ Eva-Marie Ayala. .

: Emerging approaches to demonstrating mastery, as well as advanced computational methods, hold the power to improve assessment while reducing time and administrative costs. Hear leaders across research, government and philanthropy talk about how innovation is creating the assessments of the future. .

: This new documentary film features Oakland-based NAACP activist Kareem Weaver, who was fed up with bleak reading scores in his own community and filed a petition with the NAACP demanding change in early reading instruction. The session also features American Public Media’s Emily Hanford, whose breakout podcast “Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong” is shining a light on the Science of Reading. .

: For the first time, Arizona State University is offering its courses for credit through YouTube. The partnership, called Study Hall, aims to help potential college-goers navigate higher education by earning credit for their first year of college online. The session features Study Hall’s Hank Green, a popular YouTuber who has been called “one of America’s most popular science teachers.” His videos have been viewed more than two billion times on YouTube. .

: About 15 million students in the U.S. live with unstable internet access — or no access at all. A $65 billion broadband-for-all plan is in place, but the effort isn’t expected to reach the last mile for all students until 2030. In the meantime, what are low-barrier options for students without internet access to access carefully curated resources of digital content on their devices? Hear Endless OS Foundation’s talk about alternatives. .

Wednesday, March 8:

: John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, has been called one of the world’s leading authorities on global sentiment, opinion, and influence, especially among youth in the age of digital and social media. In this discussion hosted by the Walton Family Foundation, he’ll share new data from the November 2022 midterm elections and the panel will explore how to engage with rising Gen Z leaders to bring their unique vision for unity and collaboration to fruition. . 

: In this 90-minute interactive workshop led by Stanford d.school educators, participants will engage in the fundamental concepts underpinning Artificial Intelligence through symbolic play and hands-on design work. Participants will learn how AI can be used to address societal challenges, explore classroom applications, identify ethical implications and prototype different outcomes for social justice and the education system. .

: Experts say K-12 schools must increasingly offer education that’s personalized, skill-based, and interdisciplinary. But traditional school transcripts are ill-suited to capture the richness of these approaches. This panel discussion by representatives of the Mastery Transcript Consortium, the XQ Institute, the Aurora Institute and Big Picture Learning will explore insights and lessons learned from their credential design efforts. .

: Pandemic learning loss has engendered countless tutoring initiatives nationwide. Could tutoring be not just a short-term fix but an enduring feature of the U.S. education system? And what does research show about the benefits of online and hybrid models? This session, featuring former Tennessee Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman and current Tennessee Chief Academic Officer Lisa Coons, will look at new research and on-the-ground implementation of evidence-based tutoring programs that improve outcomes for all students, particularly those historically excluded from such services. .

: As the pandemic recedes across the U.S., K-12 superintendents are retiring in droves. Top executive-search firms say business is brisk, with departures as high as any in recent memory. The American Association of School Administrators last fall found that about one in four superintendents had left their jobs in the past year, a marked increase from previous years. In their wake they leave a shallower recruiting pool. So is it time to rethink the superintendent pipeline? Should districts be more engaged in succession planning and growing future superintendents from within? This panel explores Texas school districts that were intentional about developing leaders and whose boards picked high-performing successors from within, allowing the district to keep raising the bar without losing momentum. .

: Educators should be intentionally designing the learning experience, say two experiential learning experts from the Minerva Project, an innovative college program that has made waves in higher education. This workshop will show how they design integrated online and offline immersive experiences that connect the curriculum to the real world “using awe and wonder as pedagogically useful tools.” .

: As drag queen story hours come under fire from conservatives nationwide, advocates say it’s more important than ever to understand their aim: Using drag as a traditional art form to promote literacy, teach about LGBTQ lives and activate children’s imaginations. This session, featuring three drag queens, will discuss the importance of LGBTQ family programming. .

Thursday, March 9

: This session features of Sandy Hook Promise, who will discuss the group’s “Know the Signs” school shooting and violence prevention programs. The session will bring together leaders who are equipping students with social and emotional skills to spot warning signs in their peers and intervene safely.

: In this session, two educators from the Groundswell Project UK will talk about young people and extremism, and how we can best challenge hate narratives in our schools and communities. Groundswell has been working in schools to counter hate narratives from the far-right to Islamism to misogynist extremism and other forms of violence. This session will offer best practices to educate youth on these issues. The session will also include personal testimony and examples of how young people can be misguided into extremist thinking — and how to help support vulnerable young people. .

Disclosure: The Walton Family Foundation and XQ Institute provide financial support to ����Ӱ��.

Just two days before students returned to classes at the coastal district east of Orlando, Ivey plans to equip his team of school-based deputies with collapsible rifles strapped to their chests. The move was a direct response to the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which resulted in the deaths of 19 children and two teachers and brought a tragic end to the last school year. Now, as students file back into classrooms across the country, this back-to-school season has come with a heightened focus on school security, with districts increasing the presence of police, installing new and, in one district, bringing in a gun-detecting dog. 

Ivey took the back-to-school security rush further than most, arguing in the video that “if you do not meet violence with violence, you will be violently killed.”&�Բ�����;

To help campus cops fight back against any would-be gunmen, Ivey announced that his department with collapsible stocks. Kel-Tec, a Brevard County-based firearm manufacturer, says semi-automatic 9mm rifle “picks up where handguns leave off,” utilizing a folding carbine with “more pistol magazine options than a cat has lives.”&�Բ�����; The weapons retail for about $600 each. 

“Sun Tzu says in The Art of War that every battle is won or lost before it is ever fought,” said Ivey, a group of extremist law enforcement officers with . “What Sun Tzu meant was that you must outsmart, out strategize, outtrain and out prepare your opponent long before the battle is ever fought.”&�Բ�����;

Mass school shootings have long motivated efforts to bolster the ranks of campus cops and school security, yet as the tragedies continue unabated, there’s little evidence to suggest the strategies are effective in mitigating or preventing bloodshed. Ben Fisher, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin whose research focuses on the intersection of education and criminal justice, questioned the efficacy of rifle-toting school resource officers and other school-hardening measures.

“It seems to me like yet another overreaction to the issue of gun violence in schools, one that feels like putting a Band-Aid on a problem that keeps happening rather than addressing the source,” Fisher said. 

In Uvalde, a close-knit, predominantly Hispanic town still reeling from the May rampage, to buildings with 8-foot “non-scalable” perimeter fences, new surveillance cameras and upgraded doors and locks after the security apparatus at Robb Elementary School was criticized for a fatal collapse at multiple levels. Meanwhile, the state Department of Public Safety in Uvalde schools at the district’s request.

The changes come after a into the Uvalde shooting found “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making,” including a culture where doors were routinely left unlocked and a disorganized, chaotic police response. In total, 376 law enforcement officers from the local, state and federal levels — many of them heavily armed — descended on the campus but failed to subdue the gunman for more than an hour, a delay that may have cost lives. Last month, the Uvalde school , the disgraced chief of the district’s tiny police force, and officials “intruder detection audits” at every district across Texas. Last week, state officials announced an investigation into the actions of five Texas Department of Public Safety officers who responded to the shooting, two of whom have been suspended. 

The school security rush this summer stretched across every corner of the country. In Ohio, lawmakers passed a policy that allows teachers to carry guns in class after just 24 hours of training. In Marion County, Florida, the sheriff’s office — a German short-haired pointer that was trained to sniff out firearms and ammunition on campuses. At America’s largest school district, in New York City, officials last week and training of additional unarmed school safety agents and enhance emergency preparedness training for school leaders. It also conducted audits of 1,400 campuses, identifying some 1,300 issues with security features like door locks, panic buttons and public address systems, pledging all would be fixed when schools opened Sept. 8. 

In late June, President Joe Biden signed into law the nation’s first new gun control measures in 30 years, which include an additional $300 million in federal grants for campus security while also allocating more money for student mental health services. 

Meanwhile, Ivey said the in-your-face weaponry being deployed in Brevard County Schools was meant to send a message, offering a “tactical appearance that clearly signifies that we mean business.”&�Բ�����;

Yet, the rifles were nowhere to be found on students’ first day of school on Aug. 10. Activists with the local group Families for Safe Schools surveyed parents from across the county about whether they’d seen school-based officers with the new rifles and “so far it’s been a resounding no,” said Jabari Hosey, the group’s president and a father of three elementary school-aged children in the district. 

“It’s just a joke,” said Hosey, who favors armed police in schools but believes the move to equip them with rifles is a step too far. “He put the cart before the horse. Apparently they don’t have all of the equipment they need.”

In an interview, sheriff’s office spokesperson Tod Goodyear acknowledged the rifles hadn’t yet been implemented but will “probably roll out in stages.”&�Բ�����;

“It may have been announced out a little bit before everything was really ready,” said Goodyear, who blamed the delay partly on the need to train deputies on how to use the weapons. “All of the rifles weren’t produced and all of that, so that may be a little bit of the holdup.”

‘Do something’

The rush to harden schools post-Uvalde is, in many ways, the continuation of a decades-long trend. Mass school shootings — which are devastating but statistically rare — have consistently prompted increases in school-based police and security infrastructure. 

School security and policing measures generally see widespread support from the public. A recent poll by the education nonprofit PDK International found a resounding 80% of adults favor the presence of armed police in schools, including 94% of Republicans and 70% of Democrats. 

Whether such efforts make kids safer, however, remains a contentious debate. Existing research “does not, as a whole, yield support for school policing as an effective strategy to improve safety and security,” the National Institute of Justice, the Department of Justice’s research arm, . Similarly, there’s a dearth of research to suggest that school hardening efforts have made schools safer, of security technology by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. As the tragedies generate headlines and fierce political debates, local education officials often face significant pressure to act — often on quick timelines. 

“If horrific enough, these incidents can lead to increases in funding with a short spending window,” the Johns Hopkins report notes. “This curbs the ability of districts to conduct even limited evaluation and frequently results in the purchase of technology to demonstrate a strong commitment to ‘doing something.’” 

The school security industry was with business growth largely dependent on the frequency and severity of mass school shootings, according to a recent report by the market research firm .

While armed police have become a regular presence in U.S. schools, officers are generally equipped with pistols, a reality their proponents argue leaves campus cops at a tactical disadvantage during active shootings. That has led to a push, in Brevard County and elsewhere, to fight firepower with firepower. Leading supporters of school-based police say the development is necessary to ensure officers aren’t out-gunned, but critics say it’s the latest escalation of school militarization and could put students at greater risk of harm. 

The collapsible stock on the rifles being deployed in Brevard County schools puts the deputies “on par with what we’re facing,” without being overly cumbersome, sheriff spokesperson Goodyear said. Goodyear went a step further in contemplating the everyday drawbacks to arming school police with heavy weaponry, including AR-15s, the assault-style rifle favored by many mass shooters. 

“Unless you go down to a submachine gun, maybe you could carry that, but then now you’re talking about putting an automatic rifle into somebody’s hands,” Goodyear said. “But with an AR-15 or along those lines of that type of weapon, it’s a fairly large weapon and the only way you can carry it is on a sling over your shoulder. It’s not practical, your hands aren’t free, it’s going to get in the way.”

In Madison County, North Carolina, the sheriff found a compromise, AR-15 rifles in safes at each of the county’s six campuses — a move that gun control advocates “absolute insanity.” But Sheriff Buddy Harwood said the semi-automatic rifles were critical to keep kids safe. 

“Having just a deputy armed with a handgun isn’t enough to stop these animals,” Harwood said in . With the AR-15s, “my school resource officers will not have to wait, retreat or have to leave the situation to get the weaponry to deal with the threat.”

The approaches in Brevard and Madison counties each have pros and cons, said Mo Canady, executive director of the Alabama-based National Association of School Resource Officers. 

“I’m not sure that, as a society, we’re generally ready to see law enforcement officers on a consistent basis walking around with a long gun strapped onto one shoulder” while patrolling school hallways, he said. Storing rifles in safes gives school-based police additional weaponry during an active shooting — but only if they have a chance to retrieve them. While he opposes giving school-based officers an “overly militaristic look,” he said a collapsible rifle like the Kel-Tec could be a “happy medium” if it’s “not something that’s sticking out there obvious all of the time.”&�Բ�����;

But he said that rifles, which are generally more accurate than pistols, could grow more common as schools continue to be confronted by heavily armed gunmen. 

“If you have to take a shot in a school environment,” he said, “you’d darn well better hit your target.”&�Բ�����;

‘A militarized vibe’

Kel-Tec markets its collapsible SUB2000 rifle for its convenience, noting on the company website that “it tucks away nicely in situations where space is limited, but it’s quick to deploy in situations where time is of the essence.”&�Բ�����;

But the same features that could make it an attractive option for school-based police could be exploited by mass shooters. In fact, the weapon has already made an appearance at . After a gunman opened fire on an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois with an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle, authorities found the suspect also had . Last year, a student at Daytona’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University — just 60 miles north of the Kel-Tec headquarters in Cocoa —  was to “enact a Columbine” on campus. When police stopped the suspect outside his apartment, he reportedly had a SUB2000 concealed in his backpack that he’d recently purchased on Facebook Marketplace. 

Kel-Tec executives didn’t respond to requests for comment. 

Hosey, of the Brevard Families for Safe Schools group, said he generally supports school-based police, but he and other parents were caught off guard when the sheriff announced the new Kel-Tecs. 

“It gave us a militarized vibe,” he said, and could lead students to fear their school resource officers because people often associate heavily armed police officers with active-shooter situations. “What we don’t want is kids to see this and assume that they’re in danger and that there’s an imminent threat.”&�Բ�����;

When asked about the presence of rifles in Brevard County schools, district spokesperson Russell Bruhn said in an email that “the sheriff’s office is our security expert,” and declined to comment further. 

School-based police have long been positioned as members of school communities who foster positive relationships with students. But having a rifle so visibly present on deputies’ chests sends “messages about aggression and the potential for violence when we know that violence in schools, especially with guns, is exceedingly rare,” said Fisher of the University of Wisconsin.  

In fact, there’s a lack of research to suggest that a school shooting was particularly fatal because campus police lacked “military weaponry,” said attorney Miriam Rollin, a director at the National Center for Youth Law. Despite the police failures in Uvalde, she said the push to arm school-based officers with rifles is just the latest escalation in campus hardening and isn’t a far leap from “tanks going down school hallways.”&�Բ�����;

“Generally with an arms race, nobody wins,” Rollin said. “I have to say, this is no exception.”

Ten percent. That’s the portion of K-12 teachers in the United States who say they’ve been physically attacked by a student, a .

Various have what has been described as a “” since students returned from remote learning to in-person instruction. The purported surge in student misconduct is part of an upward trend in student assaults on teachers. The percentage of teachers who have been attacked by students has over the past decade, federal data shows.

As school districts across the country report critical in teaching staff, some people worry that the attacks on teachers . Such concerns are well founded.

In my , I learned from teachers firsthand that these assaults and .

As I point out in my book “,” attacks are leaving teachers traumatized. In some cases, educators told me they started illegally carrying guns to school after they were attacked.

Teachers also told me they feel as if principals don’t have their backs. In fact, several teachers who have been attacked by students expressed .

Why would a principal not support a teacher for reporting being attacked? Teachers informed me the principals were worried about their schools getting a bad reputation, which could make it harder to recruit new teachers and students. At least one school in my study could not recruit substitute teachers because the school had a reputation for violence between students and staff.

When teachers reported to principals they had been victimized by students, the principals would minimize their concerns, according to the teachers. The principals would also shift the focus to what the teacher did or didn’t do leading up to the attack.

Call for tougher laws

Over the past decade, teachers have urged policymakers to create legislation that addresses violent student behavior. Teachers have about how being attacked by students hampered their ability to teach effectively.

Lawmakers have tried to come up with tougher laws to deter violence against teachers. However, many bills fail because of concerns that the bills would erode students’ right to due process. In turn, as I found in my book, many teachers feel powerless because violent students are being allowed to stay in their classes.

For example, in Connecticut, would have allowed teachers to have students removed from their classroom if those students engage in violent acts. It would have also allowed teachers to set the standards for the student’s return to the classroom.

Although this proposal received substantial support in the Connecticut House and Senate, then-Gov. Dannel Malloy , arguing that it .

The in Minnesota would have compelled public schools to expel students who assaulted teachers. But the legislation because of fierce opposition from – a nonprofit organization that represents educators. This particular organization wanted to that seek to keep students in school to make amends rather than have students be suspended or expelled.

Thus, the challenge for policymakers and administrators is to find a way to protect teachers without jeopardizing students’ right to due process. The well-being and stability of America’s teaching force depends on finding the right balance.

Charles Bell is an assistant professor of criminal justice sciences at Illinois State University.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license.

“He called me up and said, ‘Frank, you don’t even know what you need, but here’s my number,’” DeAngelis said during an event Monday at the Columbine Memorial in Littleton, Colorado. The road to recovery, DeAngelis would soon learn, isn’t a sprint but a marathon. Help from others who had lived through similar tragedies was instrumental.

DeAngelis hoped he’d never have to make a similar phone call, but in the decades since Columbine, the retired principal has reached out to traumatized educators across the country who similarly became part of “a club in which no one wants to be a member.”&�Բ�����;

“Unfortunately, that membership continues to grow,” DeAngelis said. “But we can’t give up hope.”

On Monday, DeAngelis and nearly two dozen school leaders before their schools became crime scenes. While campus shootings remain statistically rare — and no two tragedies are identical — the guide aims to provide practical tips for principals as they begin to lead their communities to recovery. 

The guide was produced by the Principal Recovery Network, a group of current and former school leaders who have experienced school gun violence. “I wish, when that horrific event happened, that we had that recovery guide,” DeAngelis said. “When those events happen, your mind is spinning, and this guide, hopefully, will provide that strength.”

The recovery network was formed by the National Association of Secondary School Principals in 2019, a year after the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, reignited a national conversation on the effects of gun violence. Though the guide was years in the making, its release took on new urgency after the May school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 elementary school students and two teachers were killed. 

Following such tragedies, network members reach out to the affected school leaders to offer advice and a place to vent. After all, nobody knows what’s needed in the aftermath of a campus shooting better than school leaders who’ve survived one, said Ronn Nozoe, the association’s CEO.

“This is something that nobody wants to go through, and there is no step-by-step manual on how to handle it,” said recovery network member Michelle Keford, principal of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. But, “Having their advice, having their input and having their shared experiences really helps me as a leader, and I hope to pass that along.”

The 16-page guide spells out things to consider before reopening a school, the importance of attending to students’ and staff mental health, how to include student input in district plans and practical advice on managing offers of help from outside groups. 

In the immediate aftermath of a tragedy, the guide recommends that school leaders meet with faculty at the school to explain what happened and assess their needs. Principals should quickly provide mental health supports, from trauma-informed counselors to therapy dogs. And they should consider keeping school closed until all funerals have taken place and all physical damage to the building is repaired. 

Among the network’s members is Michael Bennett, superintendent of Greenville Central School District in upstate New York, who was shot in 2004 as an assistant principal wrestled a gun-wielding 16-year-old student to the ground. Shotgun pellets remain lodged in Bennett’s calf. 

“That’s going to be a permanent part of who I am,” Bennett, who was a teacher at Columbia High School at the time, told ����Ӱ��. “One of the things you start to learn as you go through this process of recovery is that it’s an ongoing process. It will ebb and flow based on some of your own experiences and how you’re dealing with those.”&�Բ�����;

Bennett said he recently offered support to a high school band director in Highland Park, Illinois, who reached out after seven died in a mass shooting at an Independence Day parade. The high school band had marched in the parade, and their teacher was concerned that students’ return to classrooms this fall and their performances at football games could be traumatizing. After getting shot, Bennett said, the sound of fireworks at a homecoming game was alarming. 

In his contributions to the guide, Bennett noted the importance of meeting with staff after a shooting to ensure that everyone is up to speed about what happened and has a chance to ask questions. This is a lesson he learned from personal experience: When Bennett returned to work weeks after the 2004 shooting, some colleagues approached him unsure about what had happened.

“The challenge there for me is that it was reliving the moment again,” he said. “It became a bit of a confusing time for me, and it slowed my process of healing down quite a bit.”&�Բ�����;

Following the Uvalde shooting, President Joe Biden signed the most substantive gun-control law in decades. But if history tells us anything, the shootings will continue, the group warned. That’s why it’s so important, DeAngelis said, that educators have each others’ backs. 

“I’ve been doing this for 23 years, and sometimes my wife says, ‘Why do you continue?’ ” he said. “But I made a promise that I was going to do it in memory of our beloved 13.”

With Ohio passing legislation that will make it easier for teachers to carry guns in school, educators and youth are sounding the alarm that the bill could make classrooms less safe — particularly for Black and Hispanic students.

“I have no doubt in my mind, it increases the likelihood of school violence,” said Julie Holderbaum, a high school English teacher in Minerva, Ohio. “I have no doubt it would lead to more tragedies.”

The law could raise the stakes on disciplinary policies that already target youth of color at rates disproportionate to white students, said Deborah Temkin, a school safety expert at .

“There is very much a possibility for disproportionate use of force in the event that the decision to use a gun has to be made,” she told ����Ӱ��. “Making a decision in a split second relies inherently on your biases.”

Gov. Mike DeWine the bill into law June 13. It does not require districts to arm teachers, but gives school boards the option to do so while slashing the required training hours from over 700 to 24.

Ohio joins at least nine other states in explicitly allowing non-security school personnel to carry firearms on school grounds, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some of those states set no minimum training requirement for armed teachers, but of those that do, Ohio ties Wyoming for the lowest requirement at 24 total hours. Florida, where in 2017 a teen gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School killed 17 students and staff, requires the most initial training, at 144 hours.

The Florida also mandates that armed teachers must first undergo at least 12 hours of diversity training, a nod to the possibility that educators carrying weapons could be prone to racial bias.

���󾱴�’s includes no such requirement. 

In the legislation’s , constituents submitted over 380 written comments; 360 opposed the measure while just 20 favored it. Among the voices urging lawmakers to reject was Kavita Parikh, co-founder of Students Demand Action Toledo. She emphasized that it could harm Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and Asian-American students.

“Arming teachers could lead to a negative culture of fear for students, especially students of color. As students of color are disproportionately disciplined, the notion of arming teachers has also been connected to decreasing high school graduation and college enrollment for these students,” she wrote.

‘You don’t pick threats based upon color’

Nationwide, GOP efforts to “harden” schools in response to the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, have over the negative impact of disciplinary policies and school security staff on students of color. Even in preschool, a disproportionate share of Black students face suspensions, starting a chain of events known as the that increases their risk of entering the juvenile justice system later in life.

Several state legislators who backed the Ohio bill told ����Ӱ�� either they do not believe racial disparities to be a possible outcome of arming teachers or that they did not consider the issue in the first place.

“It’s not anything that I’ve thought about whatsoever,” state Rep. Tom Young, who co-sponsored the bill. Like Young, the overwhelming majority of GOP legislators who backed the bill are white. 

“No matter who, a threat is a threat. … You don’t pick threats based upon color,” he said.

Ohio, however, is the site of at least two police killings infamous for alleged racial bias. White officers shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014 and 13-year-old Tyre King in 2016, both Black boys who were holding toy guns.

At the time, DeWine, then attorney general, called for an of police training on how to correctly identify an active shooter. 

Now as governor, his support for the new measure rolls back the preparation required for teachers to arm themselves on campus and respond to threats. 

“My office worked with the General Assembly to remove hundreds of hours of curriculum irrelevant to school safety and to ensure training requirements were specific to a school environment and contained significant scenario-based training. House Bill 99 accomplishes these goals, and I thank the General Assembly for passing this bill to protect Ohio children and teachers,” DeWine said in a statement to ����Ӱ��.

The specified 24 hours of training are “ideal” for school staff, said DeWine’s Press Secretary Dan Tierney. He did not comment on whether the omission of anti-bias requirements was an oversight, nor on what changed the governor’s mind since calling for increased police training in 2014.

The legislation comes after a June 2021 Ohio Supreme Court decision interpreted an already existing state law on arming teachers to mean school staff were required first to complete over 700 hours of training before carrying guns. While the new bill drops that number to 24, school districts can set a higher bar if they choose. Districts that adopt the policies will have to inform community members that an adult on campus is armed.

Among those opposed to the bill are the Ohio Federation of Teachers, the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio and numerous other groups.

The state did not have any known incidents of gun misuse, nor of teachers unfairly targeting students of color before the 2021 court ruling, Rep. Thomas Hall, the bill’s sponsor, pointed out in a message to ����Ӱ��.

‘Almost instant accessibility’

With a having gone into effect statewide June 13, teachers in districts that allow them to be armed could come to school with their gun tucked into a pocket, waistband or holster.

“What we don’t want, in my personal opinion, is for [teachers] to have to run down the hall to a locker and grab a weapon. That kind of defeats the purpose. … I would want to have [guns] in the classroom, if it’s the case of a teacher, so that they have access if somebody were to attack an individual classroom,” state Sen. Jerry Cirino, a co-sponsor of the bill, told ����Ӱ��.

“We’re going to have to find the right methods so that we have almost instant accessibility, because that’s how [school shootings] happen,” he continued, “but also not make it possible for a weapon to be grabbed by the wrong person in school, even accidentally.”

Firearms getting into the wrong hands is a concern held by many of the bill’s opponents. In other states, guns brought to school by teachers have ended up . In one case, a loaded gun fell out of the waistband of a Florida substitute teacher while he was on the playground.

Districts may adopt their own individual protocols for gun safety and storage under the guidance of a statewide advisory team, explained Hall.

He emphasized that the legislation includes mandated de-escalation training to avoid gun use as a means for resolving issues like school fights. 

Cirino, however, said he thinks there could be some circumstances where trained personnel would use firearms not on outside intruders, but on students — including when youth bring knives or guns to school.

When a student is wielding “any weapon that would be capable of threatening somebody’s life or serious injury, I think there could be a justification for an administrator or teacher to use a weapon,” he said.

He expects large buildings to have 10-12 staff carrying guns and smaller ones to have “not more than a half dozen” in districts that adopt the policies. Other legislators, like Rep. Young, stressed that he only expects smaller rural districts who do not have school resource officers on staff to move forward with arming educators.

Holderbaum, the Minerva English teacher, has been thinking about the potential real-world implications of the legislation in her 1,800-student district. 

A few years ago, her school did a police demonstration with live gunshots in the gym so staff could recognize the sound. From her classroom, she said, the noise seemed like bleachers being pulled out. It troubled her that the sound didn’t seem out of the ordinary. If teachers were wielding guns, she wondered, how would they differentiate between everyday noises from the gym or cafeteria and gunshots? Would they have to step into the hallway with their finger on the trigger every time they heard something loud? 

Doing so, she thinks, would create a culture of fear at school that undermines learning and student well-being.

“If I’m in the middle of teaching Emily Dickinson poetry and I hear this noise and I decide to draw a loaded gun and go into the hallway, that’s going to traumatize my kids,” she said. 

“I don’t want that to become commonplace where they’re used to seeing a teacher pull a gun out.”

The tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, which resulted in the deaths of at least 19 children and two teachers, unfolded just 10 days after the nation was shocked by a mass shooting that left 10 people dead at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. 

It could be more than a coincidence: A growing body of research suggests these assaults have a tendency to spread like a viral disease. A research theory called the contagion effect suggests that mass shootings often happen in clusters, with intense media coverage playing a significant role in subsequent attacks. About a dozen studies, dating to the 1970s, suggest this is the case.

The U.S. has experienced 16 mass shootings in just 10 days, including the carnage in Buffalo and Uvalde. That’s according to , which tracks shootings that result in at least four injuries or deaths. So far this year, the U.S. has endured 212 mass shootings in which four or more people were shot or killed, according to the archive. 

The tragedy in Texas has reignited the country’s divisive and cyclical debate over gun laws, with President Joe Biden asking in an emotional White House address Tuesday night, “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?”

Jaclyn Schildkraut, an associate professor of criminal justice at the State University of New York Oswego, said shooters are often motivated by a desire for fame. She’s a proponent of the “, which urges media outlets to limit the frequency with which they publish a shooting suspect’s name and photograph.

Attackers “want people to know who they are, they want their name recognition, and so when we remove that incentive and we don’t report their names, we aren’t rewarding people for killing other people by making them celebrities,” Schildkraut said. “It’s also removing the incentive for other like-minded individuals who may be seeing the amount of coverage that a case is getting and want similar attention.”

A day after the May 14 Buffalo supermarket assault, four people were killed and 23 were injured in five mass shootings: two in Texas, two in North Carolina and one in California. In one incident, a at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods, California, resulting in one death and five injuries. In another, two people were killed and three injured after in Houston. More recently, on Monday, in a shooting at a club in North Charleston, South Carolina. 

While the Buffalo and Uvalde suspects are both 18-year-old men, a motive for the Texas school shooting remains unknown, as does the degree to which the perpetrator studied or was inspired by the incident in upstate New York or elsewhere. But Adam Lankford, a criminology professor at the University of Alabama, noted that the Texas suspect was active on social media and reportedly outlined plans on Facebook prior to the attack. The suspect and communicated with a stranger online before the shooting, offering a cryptic message about what would soon unfold. Lankford said the suspect appeared to portray himself “as a mysterious, dangerous man who might do something like this.”&�Բ�����;

“He was dancing around the possibility that seemed likely that he would do something dramatic, perhaps dangerous, and perhaps a mass shooting,” Lankford said. “You can only dance around or imply that in a culture in which people are aware that young men with firearms too often do that.”

The Uvalde shooting was the deadliest attack on a school since the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 children and six educators. 

In one 2015 study on the contagion effect, researchers at Arizona State University found a in the immediate aftermath of a similar attack with four or more victims. A second incident was statistically more likely to occur within 13 days, on average, researchers found.

Yet a similar contagion effect doesn’t appear to exist in the wake of attacks with just a few victims, “possibly indicating that the much higher frequency of such events compared with mass killings and school shootings reduces their relative sensationalism, and thus reduces their contagiousness,” according to the researchers.  

So far this year, 27 shootings at K-12 schools have resulted in 67 injuries or deaths, according to , which has tracked such attacks since 2018. Prior to the shooting in Uvalde, the most recent campus attack unfolded just last week in Kentwood, Michigan. In that May 19 tragedy, after a Crossroads Alternative High School graduation ceremony.

In recent years, mass shootings in the U.S. have become “substantially more deadly over time,” by Lankford. Shooters often take inspiration from previous attacks and apply the lessons learned to their own. In fact, the number of mass shootings where eight or more people were killed since 2010, compared with the previous four decades.

The number of shooters who were inspired by previous attackers has also doubled, Lankford found. Between 1966 and 2009, a quarter of the deadliest shootings were perpetrated by someone who directly cited, referenced or studied a previous mass killer. Such direct influence was observed in half of the deadliest shootings between 2010 and 2019. 

Older attacks seem to have a stronger direct influence than more recent events, Lankford said. The Buffalo suspect, for example, reportedly referenced the 2019 mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in writing. Lankford noted that mass shooters often conduct extensive research and planning before carrying out their attacks and are unlikely to act impulsively after learning about the most recent shooting on the news. Rather, at-risk individuals who have already been considering violence could see the latest headline and decide that now is the time to act. 

The rise of social media, Lankford said, has helped researchers understand how transmission occurs. 

“We’re increasingly able to study the social media and internet searches of the perpetrators themselves, so what was in previous decades mere speculation about transmission can now be confirmed,” he said. “So, as just one example, we know what the Parkland shooter was googling and that he was looking up both things like the Virginia Tech shooting or the Columbine shooters, but then also a shooting that had just occurred several weeks earlier.”

While many questions about the Texas shooter remain unanswered, Schildkraut said it’s important to focus attention on the victims and their needs. 

“There are so many people in years past who can tell you the names of shooters and not one of their victims, let alone all of their victims,” she said. “We just really need to refocus the attention on who matters in this, and it’s not the person who did the killing.”&�Բ�����;

The gunman in Tuesday’s deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, was a lonely 18-year old who had all but , authorities said. Identified as Salvador Rolando Ramos, the gunman had a difficult home life, had been bullied since childhood over a speech impediment, and seemed obsessed with guns, classmates told The Washington Post.

Had he been on track to graduate, Ramos might have been one of many seniors from Uvalde High School to visit Robb Elementary School on Monday as part of senior week. Instead, authorities said, he barricaded himself into a classroom there on Tuesday and killed at least 19 children and two teachers before police shot him dead.

A suggests that a community-based violence prevention method has the potential to prevent mass shootings like the one in Uvalde.

In Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America, journalist Mark Follman dives into emerging research on threat assessment, which brings together what he calls “a collaborative team of experts” in mental health, law enforcement, and, in school settings, education, to evaluate cases in which threats are made or in which witnesses become concerned that someone may commit “targeted violence.” The group intervenes to steer subjects away from violence and reintegrate them into the school’s social fabric. 

����Ӱ��’s Greg Toppo spoke with Follman, who is national affairs editor at Mother Jones. The conversation, which took place just prior to Tuesday’s shooting in Uvalde, has been edited for length and clarity. Following Monday’s interview, the author responded with reactions to the carnage in Texas.

����Ӱ��: The details from Uvalde are still emerging and incomplete, but it’s clearly a horrible scene. Do you have any thoughts you’d like to share?

Mark Follman: It’s devastating to see this latest school massacre, not just as a journalist deeply invested in studying this problem but as a father of two myself. I grieve for these families in Texas along with the rest of America. I think it’s important to recognize that we can and must do better — including doing more in our communities to prevent planned violence of this kind. Early evidence in this case already indicates a trail of behavioral warning signs that may have presented opportunities to intervene. 

Speaking of warning signs, your book focuses a lot on threat assessment. How is that different from profiling?

It’s really the opposite of profiling. Experts in this field of work learned long ago through research that there is no way to predict who will commit a mass shooting. There’s no such thing as a character profile of a mass shooter based on who they are or what their personal characteristics are: their background, race, ethnicity. What threat assessment does is study a behavioral process. It looks at the behaviors and circumstances leading up to school shootings or mass shootings, because these are planned attacks. 

Like others in the threat assessment world, you say mass shooters “don’t just suddenly snap.” As you write, “They decide. They develop violent ideas, arm, and ready themselves, and then choose where and when to strike.” Can you say more?

That’s one of the big myths we have about this problem, that it’s impulsive. The idea that all shooters are crazy, that this can all be blamed on mental illness — that’s all wrong. In a basic sense, no mass shooter is mentally healthy. But the way that these attacks occur is through a process of planning, involving a complex set of factors, and there’s often a lot of rational thought involved. Extensive case research shows that mental illness is not fundamentally a cause of these attacks.

You write about “impulsive vs. predatory” violence. School shootings/shooters are the latter, right?

These are people who are planning over time. It is very much a process of behavior that builds, that escalates. The term that the field uses for this is “the pathway to violence,” and it describes that behavioral process. And that also is the opportunity for intervention, because it’s a period of time that is, in most cases, marked by observable warning behaviors. 

About those behaviors: How can schools and communities get access to people’s intentions without attacking privacy and civil liberties? How can they prevent a school shooting without becoming the “pre-crime” unit described in Phillip K. Dick’s ?

A really important principle of this work is that it seeks to be constructive, not punitive. This isn’t trying to be a solution to this problem by criminalizing it, because in many cases, you’re talking about individuals who are raising concerns but haven’t committed any crime. And there’s no way to predict whether a person is going to commit a crime. That’s the stuff of dystopian science fiction: “Minority Report” and the like. Instead, what this is about really is looking at what, in many cases, especially in an education setting, are cries for help — young individuals who are in crisis, who may be suicidal, filled with rage, despairing, and they’ve developed an idea that they don’t have any other solution to their problems, and that this form of violence is the solution. It isn’t a matter of trying to criminalize that. It’s a matter of trying to step in and figure out what the root problems are and get them the help and support they need. 

A lot of people might read that and say, “You can’t just offer a potential school shooter counseling and support and then march them back into third-period Algebra class.” The idea is that something else has to happen. It can’t just be reintegration — this is someone who might have shot up the school! 

That’s a key point. Case management is an ongoing process, often over a longer period of time. And so a threat assessment team, in cases of serious concern, will continue to monitor and track closely an individual that is raising concern, not just to give them the help that they may need, but also, of course, to keep the school safe. 

Where has this approach been successful and how?

The in Oregon built one of the first programs of this kind after Columbine, and they’ve continued to develop this work over the past two decades. They have a lot of institutional knowledge, and I was able to observe their team work cases for a lengthy period in 2019. 

What does it look like? 

I’m talking about a roomful of experts who meet once a week to go over their caseload — these are both new and ongoing cases. There is a lead school psychologist, security experts, social services, youth social services, and local law enforcement representation. And they’re all meeting and talking over these cases together. The team would spend a period of time discussing all of what they knew about the circumstances of a troubled kid, and continue to evaluate and update their plans for how to manage each case through constructive interventions. The cases evolve over time. 

In the book, you write about a high school junior you call “Brandon.” Tell us about him.

He had made multiple threatening comments about bringing a gun and shooting up the school. And the latest comment prompted the team to take a serious look at his situation — because he was now getting more specific about what he planned to do, and that is often a red flag to threat assessment teams, as it suggests concrete action. It suggests a movement from conceptual thinking about violence toward actual plans to carry it out.

The team quickly gathered information by interviewing people around Brandon and learned some other things that were concerning, that he was starting to fail out of classes, and that he had quit drama club, which he had been very engaged with. Those are signs of personal deterioration that are concerning. There was a counselor on the team who was worried that Brandon was becoming suicidal, because of some things he was now saying that reflected very low self-esteem. Suicide risk is also an important factor in threat cases. There is a lot of case evidence showing a strong connection between suicidal and homicidal thinking. Many school shooters and mass shooters are suicidal. So with all of that taken together, the team had significant concern. 

What did the team do with all this information? 

They put together a plan to intervene intensively and quickly, extending Brandon support through counseling, through independent educational support, and by working to create stronger social connections for him within the school, specifically with two teachers that he was known to like, who could help try to improve his mood, to make him feel cared for and also help the team keep a close watch.  

They also paid a visit to his home, right?

The Threat Assessment Team sent a school resource officer to Brandon’s home the day he made the threatening comments, which were reported by another student to faculty. So the SRO [School Resource Officer] goes out to his home to interview Brandon and his mom to determine whether or not he actually has access to a gun. Could he follow through on his threat to come back to the school two days later and commit a school shooting?

The SRO was able to determine that he did not have access to a weapon in the home. So that was important information in terms of imminent risk. And then the team continued to collect information about his case and develop a longer term management strategy. By fall 2019, with these measures to help him — through individual educational support, counseling, and other resources, including working with his mother to keep close tabs on his mood and his behavior as well — he improved and started doing better in school and he went on to graduate. 

Speaking of guns: the reactions to Sandy Hook and Parkland in particular have shown that national gun control measures aren’t likely anytime soon. Do you see this failure as having an effect on how schools can combat the next shooter?

I decided to write a book about threat assessment because I came to see that it was a way forward on this problem that got past the gun debate. I came to see this method as an additional solution that’s potentially very powerful for addressing this problem, because gun violence of this nature — targeted, planned attacks — is very complex. And it requires, I think, a broader way of thinking about dealing with it. The debate over gun laws is vitally important and will continue to go on. But we also know that it’s very challenging territory in which to make progress. And I think community-based prevention, using the threat assessment model, is an additional way that we can contend with this problem. For the book, I was able to look inside a whole range of cases where it has been used successfully to thwart potential violence.

During the pandemic, we’ve seen a rise in mental health and discipline problems among young people. How might this affect schools’ risks and how can they respond? Do you expect targeted violence to rise short-term? 

I think the good news here is that this approach is ultimately about early intervention. And as I was saying earlier, it relates very strongly to suicide risk assessment in kids. Suicide has also been a growing problem over the past decade. While the mental health crisis can be a very important factor in preventing potential planned violence, the work of threat assessment has broader potential benefits: because if you’re talking about trying to help kids in crisis, whether or not they’re planning violence, you’re still going to be extending that help. 

The intensive team approach seems expensive. How can school districts afford it?

The method fundamentally is a community-based approach, meaning there are multiple stakeholders that share responsibility. It’s families, it’s the school system, it’s local law enforcement, it’s local mental health and social service agencies working together. So it’s not up to the school to do this themselves. But the school, of course, is a fundamentally important part of it. As to the question of resources, I asked a lot in my reporting for the book: “How do you scale this?” School systems are notoriously strapped for resources and time, and educators are overworked. And I think one of the more persuasive answers I’ve gotten is that this model seeks to use infrastructure that is already largely in place. The people who are going to participate on a threat assessment team in a school system already have these kinds of responsibilities and roles: the counselors, the administrators. And it’s a matter of getting them the training to do this work. It is still going to require some time and focus, but it’s not a matter of building this whole separate entity to do threat assessment. 

What would you say to those who feel that a prevention model like this is simply too intrusive?

This work has to be done with respect to privacy and civil liberties. There needs to be oversight, and the leading teams I studied prioritize the need to build community engagement and trust in good outcomes, which can be a high bar. But what about the opposite: What happens when a school system doesn’t take a proactive approach like this? Look at cases where it was missing, that are tragic to the greatest possible degree. We saw this recently with the shooting last fall. That was a case where, in my view, in studying this work, there could have been prevention strategies that could have stopped that case from happening. There was a very long trail of glaring warning signs about the student that committed that attack, and that’s an avoidable event with this type of approach. ��

UVALDE — Dozens of families in this South Texas town, roiled by the deadliest school shooting in modern Texas history, waited for hours on the lawn of a civic center Tuesday for unthinkable news that took hours to deliver.

The building served as the reunification center for families of students evacuated from Robb Elementary School after a shooter opened fire, killing at least .

As the sun fell Tuesday, parents huddled close to their children on the lawn of the SSGT Willie de Leon Civic Center, sitting on the stone edging or in the grass, waiting to be called by officials. Some arrived as early as 3 p.m. and waited well past 10 p.m. to learn whether their child had died.

Young children — the siblings and cousins of those who were evacuated — played quietly under the trees for much of the afternoon that waned into the late night. Adults cried or simply sat in silence, embracing each other.

“It’s the waiting [that’s hard],” said Manny Gonzalez, 51, who has lived in Uvalde for three decades.

He stopped by the civic center to support his extended family, who is related to one of the children at the school.

“This is a very strong community,” he said. “It’s a good place to live and raise a family. … Now, our little town will be all over the world.”

Uvalde is a relatively small city about 85 miles west of San Antonio. Its population of roughly 15,200 is predominantly Hispanic. Robb Elementary teaches second, third and fourth grade students. The school had 535 students in the 2020-2021 school year, most of them Hispanic and considered economically disadvantaged.

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Mary Fowler, 64, worked in Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District for more than three decades as a physical therapist and knows many of the teachers and kids in the school district. Her grandson was at the school when the shooter opened fire.

“It’s just a really good, small community,” said Fowler, whose son-in-law works for the school district. He was running an errand at the school when the shooter entered. “I can’t believe this has happened here. I just can’t.”

She said before the shooting, it felt like the town was turning a corner after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted jobs and school for the last two years.

“We aren’t the richest town,” she said. “Everybody is struggling, and it was just starting to feel like we were getting back on our feet. It’s going to be tough.”

The students were scheduled to celebrate their last day of the school year on Thursday.

Tuesday’s shooting was the in 13 years in Texas, a state where the Republican-dominated leadership has . Top state officials again quickly signaled that the deaths in Uvalde and instead pushed for arming more teachers and adding police to school campuses.

Inside the city’s civic center Tuesday, law enforcement, crisis counselors and local officials awaited parents, swarming about in hushed tones. Officials took DNA samples of the parents inside, used to confirm whether or not their child had died in the shooting, family members of the parents said. Once taken, the parents were sent back out to the setting sun.

Late into the evening, a few families still did not have answers and cried quietly outside. Some formed prayer circles outside as they left with unbearable news. Then, just before midnight, between 30 and 40 people who remained were informed about their loved ones, and were escorted out by officials.

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A few blocks away, Joe Perez, a 66-year-old minister of Getty Street Church of Christ, said he spent the evening praying with members of the church for the families who lost children.

“My heart hurts for them,” said Perez, a member of the church for almost two decades.

He said friends, relatives and members of other churches came from all over the state — San Antonio, Austin, Laredo and more — to grieve.

“We are all in mourning. We are family because we are a small community,” he said.

Irene Richards, an aunt of a student at Robb Elementary, went to the school for an awards ceremony with her niece earlier in the day. She said her family left the school just before the shooting occurred and her niece was later reunited with her family.

“I praise God that we weren’t there and I got another opportunity to see her again,” Richards said. The image of the awards ceremony, she said — little kids, happy and proud to receive recognition for their attendance and honor roll awards — is forever emblazoned in her mind.

At Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Uvalde, mourning residents lined the church’s 24 rows of pews for an evening mass by the archbishop of San Antonio Gustavo García-Siller. García-Siller, speaking to the predominantly Catholic community, called the congregation to action: God wants his people to live, he said.

“We cannot just say this is going to happen again,” García-Siller said. “Something has to be done.”

Lupe Villasana, 34, grew up in Uvalde. Her nephews, in the fourth grade, attend Robb Elementary. She said they’re safe, but the massacre has changed their lives — and the town — forever.

“I don’t know what happened,” Villasana said. “People shooting people, kids shooting kids. I don’t know if it’s going to be the same community now.”

This article originally appeared in .

is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

“Where in God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with and stand up to the lobbies?”

The president asked the nation to pray for the families directly impacted by the shooting, calling on his own experience of losing his son Beau to brain cancer in saying that losing a child is like “having a piece of your soul ripped away.”&�Բ�����;

Watch his full address:

“We have to act,” Biden said, calling for the passage of common sense gun laws. “Don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage.”

Nineteen children and two adults were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde County on Tuesday, making the massacre the deadliest school shooting in Texas’ history.

State Sen. , D-San Antonio, told CNN there might be another fatality but authorities have not confirmed it.

“My heart is broken today,” Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell said while holding back tears during a press conference Tuesday evening. “We’re a small community and we need your prayers to get through this.”

Gov. said the shooter was killed. The shooter is believed to have acted alone, said Pete Arredondo, Uvalde CISD chief of police.

“What happened in Uvalde is a horrific tragedy that cannot be tolerated in the state of Texas,” Abbott said.

Three hospitals in the area are treating those injured in the shooting. Uvalde Memorial Hospital told The Texas Tribune it had received 13 children and one adult from ambulances and buses. Two patients arrived at the hospital dead. Two children have since been transferred to San Antonio for treatment, while a third is pending transfer.

had said it was providing care for two patients connected to the shooting. The 66-year-old woman and the 10-year-old girl were in critical condition when they arrived; their current condition is unknown. The in San Antonio said it had taken in two adults from Uvalde.

Abbott identified the shooter as Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old Uvalde resident. The man abandoned his vehicle and entered Robb Elementary with a handgun and possibly a rifle, the governor said. The shooting started around 11:32 a.m., Arredondo said.

A Border Patrol agent who was close to the school shot the gunman before waiting for backup, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press.

The gunman shot his grandmother before the shooting at the school, . The grandmother was airlifted to San Antonio and was “still holding on” Tuesday evening, according to information given to Gutierrez by the Texas Rangers.

Robb Elementary teaches second, third and fourth grade students. The school had 535 students in the , most of them Hispanic and considered economically disadvantaged. Uvalde is a relatively small city about 85 miles west of San Antonio. Its population of roughly 15,200 is predominantly Hispanic.

Earlier Tuesday, the Uvalde CISD had placed all campuses under lockdown after gunshots were fired in the area. Harrell said the school will be closed for the remainder of the academic year, though grief counseling will be offered to students.

U.S. Rep. , a Republican whose district includes Robb Elementary School, wrote on Twitter, “My heart breaks for the city of Uvalde. Pray for our families.” and cited a Bible verse.

The Uvalde shooting is the deadliest at a U.S. grade school since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, . The massacre in Uvalde is the eighth mass shooting in a Texas public space since an Army psychiatrist opened fire at Fort Hood Army base in November 2009, killing 13 people in what was later determined to be an act of religious extremism. Five years later in April 2014, another Fort Hood soldier killed three people and wounded a dozen more on the base before he killed himself during a firefight with military police.

Since then, the pace of mass shootings in Texas has increased, along with the list of the dead:

• In July 2016, five Dallas police officers were slain by a 25-year-old who targeted officers at a Black Lives Matter protest; the gunman wounded nine other police officers and two civilians before he was killed by a remote-controlled bomb following a standoff with police.
• In November 2017, a 26-year-old man opened fire during Sunday morning services at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, killing 26 people and wounding 20 others. The gunman fled the area when a local man began shooting at him, then fatally shot himself after a vehicle pursuit.
• Six months later, in May 2018, a 17-year-old student shot eight students and two teachers to death and injured 13 at Santa Fe High School near Houston. He was arrested about 25 minutes after the shooting began.
• In August 2019, a 21-year-old man drove from suburban Dallas to El Paso, posted a racist manifesto, then began shooting people at a Walmart, targeting Latinos. He killed 23 people and injured 25 before leaving the store and surrendering to Texas Rangers nearby.
• Later that month, a 36-year-old man went on a shooting rampage in the Midland-Odessa area, leaving seven people dead and 25 wounded. The man, who had been fired from his job that morning, was shot to death by police officers outside an Odessa movie theater.

And over the past decade, state lawmakers have responded to mass shootings in Texas and elsewhere with a host of laws that have prioritized Second Amendment rights and increased Texans’ ability to carry firearms in places where they were previously prohibited.

The 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown spurred a new Texas law the following year that created a allowing certain employees to have firearms in Texas schools.

Four years later, lawmakers allowed Texans to openly carry firearms rather than having to conceal them and required public universities to let anyone with the proper license carry .

U.S. Sen. said in a statement Tuesday he was “lifting up in prayer the entire Uvalde community during this devastating time.” He also reporters that he does not see gun control measures as effective in preventing crime.

Abbott, along with Cruz and former President Donald Trump, is scheduled to talk Friday at the National Rifle Association’s 2022 annual meeting. Politico reported that a spokesperson for U.S. Sen. said he wouldn’t attend the meeting, citing an unexpected change in his schedule that occurred before the Uvalde shooting.

Alexa Ura contributed to this story.

Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin and Politico have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete .

This article originally appeared in . The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at .

The researchers who surveyed almost 15,000 school staff members on student behavior and toxic school environments plan to find out. 

This week, the American Psychological Association  a follow-up survey to keep tracking the extent of violence against school staff and its effect on educators’ decisions to stay in their jobs. 

“This will give us strong comparisons across time,” said Susan McMahon, chair of the task force behind the survey and an associate dean in the College of Science and Health at DePaul University. 

The current study showed 37 percent of administrators have been harassed or threatened with violence from a student, 42 percent have experienced similar treatment from a parent and 15 percent have been the victim of a violent incident involving a student. 

Those findings reflect responses collected during the 2020-21 school year, when many schools remained closed. Recent reports from and professional organizations suggest schools are now seeing even more defiant and aggressive acts from students and that teachers aren’t waiting until the year is over to walk away. 

“The fact that many schools were hybrid or online during the time of the survey makes these rates even more concerning,” McMahon said. “Not only are schools operating in person, the effects of the pandemic are extensive in terms of lost loved ones, lost learning, health issues and the stresses related to COVID-19.”

The results come weeks after President Joe Biden drew attention to student mental health as part of his State of the Union address and followed up by signing a federal budget that includes $111 million to increase the supply of school counselors, social workers and psychologists. The researchers point to that would further increase both staff training in mental health and positions for those professionals. But they also say school climate has deteriorated and adding more staff alone won’t fix the problem. The researchers analyzed over 7,000 written responses, in which staff expressed the need for more security personnel and said they’ve faced “belittling” comments from parents and the community.��

“We’re asking for more than just mental health money,” said Ron Astor, a public affairs and education professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a member of the task force. “This is a pressure cooker. We need clear guidelines around issues of civility.”

A from the National Association of Secondary School Principals also pointed to rising concerns over harassment, with 34 percent of principals reporting online threats from parents and 29 percent reporting in-person threats from parents.

Elliot Duchon, a former superintendent in the Jurupa Unified School District, near Los Angeles, said political strife and escalating fights and curriculum have contributed to a breakdown in school climate. In some districts, parents encouraged their children to go to school before districts dropped mandates.

“Parents are literally teaching their kids to disobey school rules,” said Duchon, now a consultant with F3Law, a California firm specializing in education.  

A look that ‘meant trouble’

Tracy Cooper, a veteran school bus driver in the Orange County Public Schools in Florida, who testified during a Thursday on the survey findings, said a parent threatened to have her fired because she enforced the district’s mask policy.

“Luckily for me, I’ve only had one student threaten to physically attack me,” she said. A boy “had this look on his face that meant trouble” and then tried to push her down as she walked through the aisle, she said..

Maggie Maples, a recreational therapist in the Mustang Public Schools, near Tulsa, said she’s arrived at schools this year to work with students only to find they’ve been suspended.

“Eighth-grade boys can get a little violent,” said Maples. “There are a couple kiddos who are really defiant when it comes to agreeing with teachers. They cuss them out or make threatening comments.”

The data shows some educators have had enough. Researchers found between 23 percent and 43 percent of respondents wanted or planned to quit the profession. The rates across regions were fairly similar, ranging from 35 percent in the Midwest and West to 38 percent in the South. State-level surveys, including those in and , point to similar results.

Now a year later, local reports show some followed through on those intentions. In the , 169 teachers left between December and mid-February, and the lost more than 50 teachers shortly after the school year began. Experts, however, say it’s too soon to conclude that teachers are quitting at higher rates than in a typical year. A number of factors, including more open positions fueled by federal relief funds, could contribute to staff vacancies.

“We really are in the middle of a crisis right now,” said Autumn Rivera, a sixth grade science teacher from Colorado and one of four current finalists for national Teacher of the Year. “It’s very rare for teachers to leave in the middle of the school year.”

Not all schools are experiencing the same uptick in violent outbursts. Michael Brown, principal of Winters Mill High School in Carroll County, Maryland, north of Baltimore, said he braced himself for a rash of discipline issues last fall.

While there were a few “rough patches” around the holidays, that’s no different than a typical year, he said, adding that students seem to be grateful for school experiences that they missed while schools were closed. When the school held an outdoor homecoming dance, students stayed until the end despite occasional rain. 

“It’s almost like a reintroduction to everything,” Brown said. “Just having the normal things that they had taken for granted has really helped to reduce some of those behaviors.”&�Բ�����;

Disclosure: Linda Jacobson co-authored several books with Ron Astor on and students facing .

In fact, . In addition to making it more likely that students will face exclusionary discipline, such as suspension and expulsion, students are chronically absent more when campuses are staffed by cops, with researchers identifying a marked spike in missed school days among youth with disabilities. 

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The results, researchers note, suggest that school-based police could hinder students’ academic outcomes, increase their long-term involvement with the criminal justice system and appear to “seriously exacerbate existing opportunity gaps in education.” The effects of school police on discipline and arrests were “consistently over two times larger for Black students” than their white classmates, the study found. 

“There might be these benefits in terms of reduced violence, but there are also these really large costs, and costs that unequally affect students,” said report co-author Lucy Sorensen, an assistant public administration and policy professor at the University of Albany, SUNY.

“At the end of the day, I have a hard time, as an education researcher, thinking this is what we should invest money in,” Sorensen added. 

The report, a working paper released by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University that has not yet been peer reviewed, is the first school-level examination of campus officers across every public school in the U.S. It is also one of the first pieces of in-depth research on the effects of school police to follow a nationwide movement to remove cops from schools that was prompted by the death of George Floyd and argued their presence was especially harmful to students of color.

School security consultant Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services in Cleveland, maintained that campus police can be a positive force so long as they’re including a clearly defined selection process for officers who receive specialized training. 

“If you have a properly designed and implemented, supervised and evaluated [school resource officer] program, there are many positive things about that,” he said. “That said, if you have an SRO on your campus, chances are you’re going to see some increase in arrests by the mere fact that the officers are going to identify crimes that school administrators may previously have not recognized and reported.”&�Բ�����;

The number of officers stationed in K-12 schools has grown exponentially in the last several decades, largely in response to school shootings, and the federal government has to facilitate that increase. In the 1970s, just 1 percent of schools had police stationed on campus. Today, that figure has jumped to roughly half. 

School shootings remain statistically rare and campuses have grown markedly safer in the last several decades. But the new report throws cold water on a common argument in favor of school policing: Officers failed to prevent school-shootings and other gun-related incidents. In fact, having an officer on campus “marginally increases the likelihood of a school shooting,” according to the report.

Future research should explore the factors that drive that increase, Sorensen said. Though shootings have long motivated police presence in schools, preventing such tragedies is “not what the job entails on a day-to-day basis,” she said, and instead officers “are getting involved in minor disciplinary matters.”

George Floyd’s murder in 2020 at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer ignited a heated national debate over the broader role of police in the U.S., and several districts ended their ties with the police or slashed their policing budgets. In Minneapolis, for example, the district terminated its police contract and replaced officers with non-sworn safety agents who lack arrest authority. Several dozen districts nationally made similar decisions as advocates highlighted racial disparities in school-based arrests that fed the school-to-prison pipeline and called on educators to replace cops with counselors and other student support services.

On Wednesday, the City Council in Alexandria, Virginia, its school resource officer program five months after it pulled police from hallways. The reversal followed parent outrage in the wake of . 

The latest research, however, further bolsters a body of evidence on the negative effects of placing police in schools. To reach their findings, researchers analyzed federal education data between 2014 and 2018 and data on law enforcement agencies that applied for federal grants between 2015 and 2017 for school-based policing. In a given year, officers led to a reduction of six non-firearm violent incidents per 100 students, according to the report. They also increased the out-of-school suspension rate by 10.9 students per 100. The increase in student punishments was starkest in middle and high schools where, per 100 students, 17.8 more received out-of-school suspensions, 1.7 more were expelled and 4.8 more were referred to police or arrested. Additionally, results suggest that school police increase chronic absenteeism by 12.2 students for every 100 kids enrolled, and an increase of 13.4 students per 100 among those with disabilities. Across disciplinary outcomes, the results were starker for Black students than their white classmates. 

Overall, the results suggest that stationing police in schools “intensifies the levels of punishment unevenly across different groups of students, and that Black students, male students and students with disabilities generally bear the brunt of this punishment,” according to the report. 

The new report follows a recent study on , which reached similar conclusions. In by the Center for Public Integrity, the nonprofit news outlet found that schools disproportionately referred Black students and those with disabilities to the police at a rate nearly double their share of the overall student population. 

“If you’re going to throw out your SRO program, then you should also throw your administrators out with it because they have been partners in those programs all along,” Trump, the security consultant, said. “It’s not just the police who must be screwing up.”

Ben Fisher, an assistant professor at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, noted the consistency of  the latest research with the North Carolina study, which found a “trade-off between some marginal decreases in school crime and some pretty serious increases in the exclusion of students through suspensions and arrests.” Fisher said it adds to a growing body of research highlighting that school resource officers have a detrimental effect on youth outcomes, while pointing out that other people could view the evidence through a different lens.

“I don’t think it’s good to exclude students from school or arrest them,” said Fisher, who has researched the efficacy of campus police for years but wasn’t involved in the latest report. “Other folks could read that same research and say, ‘There’s more arrests — good. They ought to be removed from schools if they’re doing bad things.’” 

When interacting with students, most school-based officers seek to avoid arrests, according to by the National Association of School Resource Officers, a trade group. About a third of campus arrests are based on observations from officers, according to the survey, and a similar share began with a referral from school staff. 

Ultimately, policymakers should weigh the decreases in campus violence against the other effects of school policing and decide whether other interventions could be more effective, the researchers concluded. 

“Interventions should not just be judged on a single outcome, but comprehensively on many outcomes,” the report states. “It also suggests that the comprehensive impact of using resources for school police should be compared with the comprehensive impact of using resources in other ways to improve school safety and climate,” including in schools, which researchers described as “a single intervention to both reduce suspensions and improve school climate.”&�Բ�����;

As school-based police continue to generate passionate debate and additional research emerges about their efficacy, Sorensen said she expects education leaders to increasingly explore alternatives like investing additional money in social workers and mental health services for students.

“I think we’ll see a lot of different experimentation in the coming years,” she said, “and I hope we can learn from that.”