Students and residents mourn those who lost their lives near the scene of the mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.
Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images
hide legend
toggle caption
Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images
The violence at a Georgia high school on Wednesday and the arrest of a 14-year-old suspect are a continuation of previous school shootings. After each shooting, the question often arises: “How can we prevent the next one?”
For years, school security experts, and even the U.S. Secret Service, have rallied around very clear answers. Here’s what they say.
It is not a good idea to arm teachers
There is broad consensus that it is necessary to arm teachers. not A good policy, according to Matthew Mayer, a professor at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education. He has studied school violence since before Columbine and is part of a group of researchers who have published several position papers on why school shootings happen.
Mayer says arming teachers is a bad idea “because it leads to so many disasters and problems, and the chances of it actually helping are so slim.”
A 2018 Gallup poll also found that most teachers do not want to carry guns in school and overwhelmingly favor gun control measures over security measures to “harden” schools. When asked what specific measures would be “most effective” in preventing school shootings, 57% of teachers favored universal background checks, and the same number, 57%, also favored banning the sale of semi-automatic weapons like the one used in the Parkland shooting.
Raise the age limit for gun ownership
School safety researchers support raising the age limit for gun ownership from 18 to 21. They say 18 is too young to buy a gun; the teenage brain is simply too impulsive. And they point out that the perpetrators of the school shootings in Parkland, Santa Fe, Newtown, Columbine and Uvalde were all under 21.
School safety researchers also support universal background checks and bans on assault weapons. But it’s not just about how shooters legally acquire guns. A 2019 Secret Service report found that in half of the school shootings they studied, the weapon used was either easily accessible at home or poorly secured.
Of course, schools have no control over age limits and gun storage. But there is still a lot they can do.
Schools can meet students’ social and emotional needs
Much of the talk about securing schools has focused on hardening schools by adding police and metal detectors. But experts say schools should actually focus on softening to support the social and emotional needs of students.
“Our first preventative strategy should be to make sure that children are respected, that they feel connected and that they belong in schools,” says Odis Johnson Jr. of the Center for Safe and Healthy Schools at Johns Hopkins University.
This means developing children’s skills in conflict resolution, stress management and empathy towards their classmates – skills that can help reduce all sorts of unwanted behaviour, including fighting and bullying.
In their report, the secret service found that most of the school bullies studied had been victims of harassment.
Jackie Nowicki has led several investigations into school safety for the Government Accountability Office (GAO). She and her team have identified some steps schools can take to make their classrooms and hallways safer, including “anti-bullying training for staff and teachers, adult supervision, devices such as hallway monitors, and mechanisms to anonymously report hostile behavior.”
The Secret Service recommends that schools implement what it calls a threat assessment model, in which trained staff — including an administrator, a school counselor or psychologist, and a law enforcement representative — work together to identify and support students in crisis before they harm others.
Earlier this year, the National Association of Secondary School Principals released new guidelines to prevent school violence.
The organization stressed that access to mental health services for teachers, parents and students is a “critical element” in preventing violence and increasing safety in schools. The organization also called on Congress to take action to support these services.
This story has been updated from an earlier version published on May 26, 2022.
NPR News
