Arm Teachers? Let's Make Them 'Emergency Management Specialists' Instead

DO SOMETHING!

A refrain used all too often following most mass school shootings.

Do something!

Simple.

Straightforward.

Succinct

Easily understood.

Because that refrain is used so often following most mass school shootings, it then must also logically follow that there’s an ongoing problem with school safety, right? Are our schools as safe as they can be?

It seems a whole lot of people think their schools are NOT safe and that nothing is being done to make them as safe as they need to be! But is that perception accurate? Well, yes and no.

Arguably, one of the bigger problems I see with school safety is that when a mass school shooting happens, it’s become ‘normal’ for these incidents to dominate the 24-hour news cycle for a much shorter time than they used to. Please don’t get me wrong. They still garner a whole lot of ‘thoughts and prayers’, but usually for a much shorter period of time. The reality is they simply don’t get the same level of ongoing attention they used to. I should know. My family’s experience with the Columbine massacre is a good example of that.

Why is a shorter news cycle regarding mass school shootings a problem, you ask? Well, it seems like whenever there’s a school mass shooting, people clamor for something to get done to prevent another one from happening again. That clamoring is usually as short lived as the amount of time the media chooses to pay attention to the mass school shooting that precipitated it. Then, when another mass school shooting does occur somewhere in this country, parents, once again, bemoan their anxiety in sending their children off to school because they believe their school isn’t safe or they naively think it can never actually happen to them….to their school and to their community. And then, when it does happen to them, to their school, to their community? Well, there we are….AGAIN! Only this time, other folks in other communities continue the same lament until it happens to them and their community. But does anyone actually DO SOMETHING? See where I’m going with this? Stay with me. It gets worse.

What it all boils down to is a very ILLogical cycle, be it for school mass shootings or something entirely different:

To be brutally honest, I’m of a mind that people have simply resigned themselves to the inevitability of school mass shootings. It’s a fatalistic attitude that should be, but doesn’t appear to be, anathema to everyone. That, in and of itself, is more of a problem, I think, than anything else because it gives people permission to be both reactive and passive toward school safety at the same time.

“People have no trouble identifying problems in school safety. The difficulty lies in being able to get those folks to DO SOMETHING, anything at all, to help resolve those identified problems.”

Ted & Katherine Zocco-Hochhalter

After many mass school shootings, individuals that I call ‘single incident experts’ emerge. Many of them are survivors. Many of them are parents of victims or survivors. Their school safety missions usually focus on efforts related to some kind of gun safety reform. Many of them go on to gain a modicum of success in their efforts at advocacy. Others? Not so much. Many of them are well respected for their advocacy. Others? Not so much. Regardless, they’ve chosen to DO SOMETHING no matter how they might be received or viewed by others, either positive or negative. I respect that. I respect that a LOT! The problem with their advocacy, as I see it though, is with their singular focus on guns, gun safety, and gun control as it applies to school safety. My advocacy takes a different approach.

I’m kind of in a gray area in between as both the parent of a survivor and the parent of a murder victim because my daughter was a Columbine massacre survivor who, almost 26 years later, succumbed to complications related to her injuries. The coroner’s report stated her death would be best classified as a homicide even though she survived being shot on April 20, 1999. Almost 26 years as a survivor only to have her death be classified as a homicide after all that time. I struggle with that.

I began my school safety advocacy a few years after the Columbine massacre. The reasons for the delay aren’t something I wish to go into in this post. Nor are they relevant to the subject at hand. I don’t, however, consider myself to be a ‘single incident expert’ simply because my professional career was in the field of emergency management. That’s what I brought to the school safety debate/discussion table following the Columbine massacre. While I do support some kind of gun safety reform, that is NOT the focus of my own advocacy! Emergency managers in schools is my primary focus when it comes to school safety. Have I been successful in my efforts at this type of advocacy? Not so much. My reach is very small. Add to that the fact there hasn’t been a whole lot of folks willing to support my advocacy for something that takes some work on their part to make schools safer, and here I am….a persistent, but pretty much ignored, voice spitting into an oncoming hurricane most of the time.

Social media abounds with people commenting on posts about mass school shootings, especially after they’ve happened. As I alluded to earlier, many of those comments lament that nothing is being done to help prevent the next school shooting from happening. Every time I see those comments, I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or pound my head against a wall. It’s the same virtually every single time!

So, I have to ask myself if any of those folks actually know what their schools do to assess risks, to prepare for, to plan for, or even to mitigate the possibility that a school shooting could occur in their children’s schools. I mean, they have a LOT of ideas and opinions, but based on my personal interaction(s) with many of them, I’d have to say they don’t know much, if anything at all about what needs to be done or what is actually being done, if anything.

In fact, I think it’s safe to say that many of them don’t even know who’s actually responsible for doing any of those things - the so-called "school safety leaders"! People usually assume it’s the school administration that does them. It’s probably right to assume it’s the responsibility of school administration to do those things. But, to assume the school administration actually does what they’re supposed to do to keep our kids as safe as they can be? That’s the million dollar question.

And here’s the kicker, has anyone actually checked to find out if school administrators are actually doing what they’re supposed to do? Is there any system/process in place that actually holds their feet to the fire, metaphorically speaking? Is there anyone anywhere that tracks what’s being done and whether it’s compliant with requirements that might be codified in law?

And, if school administrators are actually doing something, has anyone checked to find out exactly what they’re doing or if what they’re doing actually complies with commonly accepted practices and standards?

Active shooter/lockdown drills immediately come to my mind. You see, these kind of drills have no national standards to help guide the design, development, and implementation process. They’re supposed to help ensure their schools are the safe learning environments folks rightfully expect them to be. But do they really make things better the way they’re currently being used? From what I keep seeing, I’d have to say not so much. In fact, we often times get drills that can be, and sometimes are, more harmful to those they’re intended to protect than they are helpful. But I digress…..

If folks haven’t checked if anything is being done, or if what’s being done meets some kind of minimal standards, how can they realistically bitch, moan, or complain that nothing is being done or that nothing has been done? Seriously. How can they? If the only time they bitch, moan, or complain that nothing is being done happens AFTER a mass school shooting occurs instead of continually voicing those concerns in the interims between mass school shootings, shouldn’t we look at that as being a significant problem? A planning deficiency?

Sadly, whenever debates and discussions that relate specifically to school safety take place, those debates and discussions go into the weeds far too often, especially on social media platforms. There’s usually a singular focus on gun control, gun reform, gun safety, more guns, more guns in schools, gun free zones, eliminating gun free zones, arming school staff, SROs in schools, and on and on and on ad nauseum.

It might be safe to say most people rarely, if ever, get into the details of what might actually work to enhance school safety. They have their opinions, sure. Again, as I mentioned earlier, they have a LOT of opinions! But when they’re asked to provide factual and statistical data to support what they’re advocating for….crickets. And, whenever I’ve entered the debates/discussions to offer emergency managers in schools as a viable option, I’m confronted with strenuous objections, being attacked, dismissed, and ridiculed more often than not.

Frustrating, sometimes disgusting when one comes right down to it.

It seems no one wants to focus on the rather obvious way to help address all those issues and many others related specifically to school safety……emergency managers in schools. I’m not talking about emergency management agencies/departments being established within a district either. I’m advocating that emergency managers be in every school within a school district, large or small, sort of like what some advocate for having SROs in every single school.

Too expensive?

Considering that so many schools continue to be very ill-prepared to respond to some very real hazards/risks that could impact them, it would seem a small price for school districts to pay to be better prepared to handle those hazards/risks when they do occur. Also, some folks want to harden schools, but rarely consider the costs for doing so or the fact hardening schools isn’t the panacea so many of them think it is. Considering that many ‘hardening’ technologies cost in the tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, well, hiring trained part time paid emergency managers might just be more cost effective in the long run simply because many ‘hardening technologies’ haven’t even been tested to see if they’re all that effective or not.

Who could fill the emergency manager role?

School staff could. Especially if those school staff are offered pay on a part time extra-curricular basis, much like many coaches are paid on a part time extra-curricular basis to coach, to take on the responsibility that school administrators too often don’t pay as much attention to as they should. Heck, I know of quite a few emergency managers at the county government level whose duties include not only emergency management, but also veterans affairs or other types of duties. Why not something similar in schools? Dual duties. It’s not a new concept.

What do emergency managers do?

Well, here's the thing: emergency managers’ focus is multi-faceted. They’re not experts in any one field of expertise. They don’t have to be administrators. They don’t have to be accountants. They don’t have to be law enforcement. They don’t have to be SROs. They don’t have to be social workers or counselors. They don’t have to be medical personnel. They don’t have to be public works personnel. No, they don’t have to be any of those things. What emergency managers are is they are planners. They’re facilitators. They're managers. They're consensus builders. And, arguably most critical of all, they're teambuilders. Sometimes they’re even teachers. Get it? Teachers?

Emergency managers are not there to tell subject matter experts in their respective fields what they must do or how to do their jobs. No, they’re not. They’re there to facilitate bringing those subject matter experts together to the same table so their expertise in specific subject areas can be shared with other members of the team. That way, everyone can listen to other subject matter experts from their emergency management community to come up with the best approach they possibly can in order to actually DO SOMETHING to enhance school safety! Each and every one of those voices must be heard in order to help make their schools as safe a learning environment as they can possibly be. In other words, they’re all given the opportunity to collaborate and cooperate with each other. Are school administrators actually doing this? For the most part, and based on personal experience interacting with them, I’d have to say not so much. Emergency managers in schools can take that onus off school administrators and actually make what I’m talking about HAPPEN!

Look, I've been following what's been going on in school safety at a national level ever since the Columbine massacre, and I'm not seeing much, if any, progress in getting the right people together to solve any problems. There’s a lot of discord, a lot of turf issues, a lot of dissension, a lot of animus and anger instead of a willingness to work together to solve problems. That’s a problem in and of itself. Building consensus within a school safety program built on community support isn’t rocket science. Nobody is saying it’ll be a cakewalk. But it certainly isn’t something that can’t be done.

When I was an emergency management specialist for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, it was my job to bring together agency leaders/experts in a bunch of areas of expertise I didn't have clue one about. They were the experts in their respective fields. I respected that, but they didn’t know that. And that was also a huge part of the first obstacle I had to overcome….to convince them I wasn’t there to tell them what to do or how to do their jobs. I had to convince them to sit down with federal, state, local, and sometimes tribal agency personnel in various areas of expertise and discuss rational ideas, suggestions, and recommendations to address what each agency would do if a problem arose at one of our dams and how their individual responsibilities could/should ‘mesh’ with other agency’s responsibilities to keep their communities safe. THAT's what an emergency manager in each school in every school district would be tasked with doing. The only difference would be that that emergency manager would work their magic from a school safety perspective rather than a dam safety perspective. Again, it's not rocket science, but we need to get past a singular focus on mass school shootings/massacres. I say this because there's so much more to school safety than preventing some asshole from shooting up a school. A well trained emergency manager in every school can make that happen regardless of the size of the school district they happen to be in.

So, DO SOMETHING! Advocate for emergency managers in schools!

Rant over.

My two cents.

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