School Safety Is An Enigma.....

School Safety Is An Enigma.....

School safety doesn’t necessarily translate into schools being safe….or as safe as they can be.

How is that an enigma, you ask?

Well, schools are supposed to be safe learning environments, but engaging in school safety activities often times can be like dragging a horse to water, but getting that horse to drink? Well, that's the school safety enigma. In other words, getting schools to do anything at all in school safety other than mandated drills including active shooter drills, ain't easy by any stretch of the imagination.

For example, listen to Ready As You'll Never Be, and you’ll see what I mean. If you'd like to read the transcript instead of listening to it, there's a link to same on the page.

This interview is with two Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) teachers who appear to believe they were as ready as possible for an active shooter in their school. 

But were they, really?

These teachers based their perceptions of readiness on training they’d received prior to the massacre at MSD. They also kind of gave the impression there’s nothing more that could have been done to prepare leading up to the massacre, hence the title of the interview.

The Sun Sentinel, a Florida media outlet, contradicted that perception by characterizing educator and police response to the MSD massacre as Unprepared and Overwhelmed.

Also from the Sun Sentinel:

Deputies who responded to Parkland tragedy hadn’t had active shooter training in years, investigators found

Those two headlines pretty much say it all in my opinion.

And one more from the same publication:

Sheriff Israel defends agency's performance in Parkland shooting

According to this article, Sheriff Israel’s stated agency policy is that deputies “may” rather than “shall” engage an active shooter. He indicated he inserted that language into agency policy himself.

Israel also blamed “bad communications” for problems that day.

As an emergency management specialist (retired), I truly don’t know if I should laugh hysterically, sob uncontrollably, or just bang my head against the wall…..repeatedly!

Following the Columbine massacre, then Colorado Governor Bill Owens signed an executive order creating the Columbine Review Commission to conduct an independent review of that massacre.

The final Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission Initial Report was published January 2, 2018. 

The MSD Report cited Columbine as one of several school shooting benchmarks for identifying and analyzing what went wrong at MSD. 

A comparison using school colors of the two schools to illustrate a few more notable (in my opinion) recommendations from each report:

The “should” recommendations made by the Columbine Review Commission changed to “shall” requirements in Colorado with the passage of two laws; Senate Bill 08-181 requiring emergency management programs in schools, and Senate Bill 11-173 requiring interoperable communications in schools.

The State of Florida created an  Office of Safe Schools in response to the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and to passage of SB 7026, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act. 

Does anyone besides me see what’s going on here? Confused yet?

Were Florida officials who were/are tasked with making schools safe in their state even aware of lessons learned from Columbine prior to the massacre at MSD? 

If they were aware and did nothing in the interim between the Columbine massacre and the massacre at MSD to address their own school safety planning deficiencies, might that not be a bit of a problem?

If they were only trying to address them after the fact, after their own massacre, something I call being reactively proactive, might that not be a bit of a problem? 

If being reactively proactive after the fact is the best we can do, then school safety is, in fact, an enigma….of extraordinary proportions.

My two cents.

* Comments on this blog are moderated.