I told a story yesterday about my son in elementary school who has been put through multiple Level Three Lockdown drills in which he’s been told to get behind his coat and practice not moving in case a crazed murderer comes through his school. But is this event with a reasonable risk of actually occurring? Some responding to the post seemed to think so.
Fine. You need national statistics? Here are the national statistics:
From the most recent report of Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2006 (the 2007 report isn’t out yet, so this is as close as we can get):
In the 2004–05 school year, an estimated 54.9 million students were enrolled in prekindergarten through grade 12 (U.S. Department of Education forthcoming). Preliminary data on fatal victimizations show youth ages 5–18 were victims of 28 school associated violent deaths from July 1, 2004, through June 30, 2005 (21 homicides and 7 suicides).
21 homicides. 54.9 million students.
That’s a rate of 0.0000383 percent. Less than one in two million schoolkids were murdered in schools in the latest year for which data is available. And that’s not just elementary school, that’s elementary, middle school and high school combined.
As the report indicates, it is a LOWER rate than the rate of the 1990s. School shootings are NOT more common. What’s more common is that CNN and FOX News will interview weeping and wailing people, and their pharmacists, and their babysitters, and their piano teachers, for ten hours straight every time one of these incidents happens, giving you the IMPRESSION that it must be happening all the time. These media outlets, and the politicians who shape their campaigns around the media reports, are selling you a heady cocktail of fear.
Do not tell me that this is a major risk for my child. It is not even a minor risk for my child.
My child does, however, have a 100% chance as a public schoolkid of being told on multiple occasions during the year to go hide behind his coat to be prepared for the bogeyman that will, the stats tell me, not show up at my kid’s school until the day I get hit by an ebola-soaked asteroid on the way to collect my lottery winnings. My child is a victim of fearmongers, not a victim of would-be murderers. The fearmongers want him and his generation to get all freaked-out, too.
Don’t fall for the hype. Look up the actual numbers and get a grip. There are things in this world to be reasonably afraid of. But elementary school murder isn’t one of them.
21 child homicides is 21 child homicides too many. If it happened to your child it would be WAY too many.
Remember what happened in the Virginia Tech shootings? first they had this guy going around ready to go off. He was in the system and they never followed up. Then he shot some people and the administration thought someone else did it so they didn’t close the school. Then he shot some more people. Avoidable deaths. I think the word for that is “malfeasance”.
Why don’t you let the school do their job and protect your child. Or better yet, call them up and ask them about it. Maybe there was something going on they didn’t tell the kids about because they didn’t want them freaking out. Or maybe your son didn’t understand and got the story wrong. A lot of times kids aren’t capable of understanding what adults can understand. If you knew what was going on you would at least be able to explain things to the kid better. You’re freaking out and you don’t even have full information. Have you been to Sears lately?
I am aware that it is part of a district-wide policy. Don’t assume I haven’t looked it up; I have.
I have sympathy for any parent of a child who dies for whatever reason. But think about what you are saying. You are saying that a school is justified in freaking out 54,900,000,000 children on a regular basis in the hope that it might save 21.
I’ll agree with that when you agree (source):
That to prevent the 147 deaths of children by influenza every year, all children should wear masks when in school.
That to prevent the 2,618 deaths of children in unintentional accidents every year, all sports and playground equipment should be banned.
These actions would protect these children and undeniably save more than 21 lives. All deaths are tragic. All of us die. Postponing death for a very small number of children does not in my mind justify extreme and disturbing behavior. If you want do your part to save just that one child, lock yourself in a cage every morning. You don’t know: you COULD be a kid killer today…
Good lord, Jim, 54,900,000,000? That’s a lot of children for just one school to freak out. Are you sure?
In one of the elementary schools I am in frequently, there is a Dia De Los Muertos display in the hallway in memory of the 31 students in this city who lost their lives to gunfire this year. One of my neighbors who works in a school actually witnessed a drive-by shooting–they’re not that uncommon here. A few months ago I heard the parents of a murdered girl speak at a rally less than 24 hours after their child was gunned down. A boy was killed last summer two blocks from where I live. This kind of thing was totally unknown where I grew up. Do tell me how school authorities can just ignore it because of the numbers on a chart somewhere.
The argument you’re making is similar to the airlines that say they can’t spend more for safer plane seats because of the cost/benefit analysis.
Your examples are for prevention though, not for planning what to do in an emergency and practicing it ahead of time.
I grew up in tornado alley. Although we never had to go to the basement in a storm, we felt safer just because we had a plan for what we would do if that happened.
You’re not being very clear about what your actual school district policy is, how it’s implemented and what they say the purpose is. Where are the children’s coats theygo to for the drill? Do they have lockers? A little hallway inside the classroom with hooks on the wall? I’m having a hard time picturing whatever this “extreme and disturbing behavior” is and how the little darlings become irrevocably damaged. (BTW, we have gotten caught up in the schools’ fire drills, but never anything like you’re describing)
I know this is a political blog, so that’s your own focus, but maybe here you should focus on the child and the meaning of this for the child? Sometimes kids worry about stuff in illogical ways that don’t make any sense to us. Maybe he was just making conversation and wanted to see how you’d react.
I know I learned very quickly when my folks asked me how was school the answer was “fine” and if they asked what happened, the answer was “nothing.” Those are two excellent answers that have served me quite well over the years and continue to guide my communications with my own parents. Whenever I have deviated from those two answers I have always come to deeply regret it.
You may be able to find more info on this subject on something more geared towards education. “Edublogs”
http://edublogs.org/
has free blogs for teachers–you might have better luck finding some kind of forum there. I did a quick search for “terrorist drill” on their home page and came up with this adult discussion from an administrator’s page:
http://ghsprincipal.edublogs.org/2006/10/04/be-not-afraid/
and also this student current event assignment with at least half of the students writing about terrorism:
http://mclainde.edublogs.org/2007/10/18/current-events-for-5th-period-10-19-07/
The comment from last night is still in moderation? Or did the spam filters see three links and decide to eat the comment.