School (in)Safety is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.
The presidential election hasn’t focused much on education, but the country this week witnessed a deep debate over partisan responses to school shootings.
Democratic VP candidate Tim Walz, who said his 17-year-old son witnessed a shooting last year, focused on restricting weapons used to commit mass attacks. JD Vance highlighted how schools could better defend themselves against their bullets. Increased physical security, Vance said Tuesday night during the vice presidential debate on CBS, is the most important response to school shootings.
“We need to make the doors close better, we need to make the doors stronger, we need to make the windows stronger and of course we need to increase the number of school staff,” he said.
But while school shootings have reached record levels in recent years, so have the number of campuses using various forms of campus hardening, including locks, fencing and armed police.
The market for school hardening products is fast and growing: AI-based notification systems, panic buttons, bulletproof windows, bulletproof marker boards, bulletproof shields, bulletproof blankets, and even bulletproof hoodies with the guarantee: “If you get shot (God forbid) with our hoodies on, we will send you a replacement hoodie for FREE.”
I created this handy chart – based on data from the Federal Ministry of Education – to show how school safety measures have changed over the past two decades (1999-2000 and 2021-2022).
According to the latest data, 45% of campuses – and 63% of high schools – had sworn police officers. That number does not include non-sworn security personnel. Random contraband checks are carried out in more than half of secondary schools.
Nearly all schools (97%) control access to buildings with locks and monitors, and a similar number require visitors to sign in and wear a badge. Security cameras have been installed to monitor 93% of schools.
The FBI has since expanded the types of hardening measures they track. According to the most recent data, 76% of schools have locks on classroom doors and 43% have silent alarms directly linked to the police. Both were deployed during last month’s mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia.
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While there are a handful of cases in which school police and other security forces have prevented or limited mass shootings, research shows they are ineffective at preventing attacks overall and are failing to reduce fatalities. A quarter of school shootings over a thirty-year period involved armed guards stationed on campus.
Vance said during the debate that 90% of “gun violence in this country is committed with illegally obtained firearms,” likely referring to a study of federal prison inmates who owned guns during their offenses. Yet an overwhelming majority of mass shooters obtain their weapons legally. School shootings — the subject of Tuesday’s debate — are usually committed by disadvantaged students who receive guns from their parents.
Click here to watch the full exchange.
In the news
High schools have become a “cesspool of sexually explicit deepfakes” as AI-generated images of child sexual abuse flood the internet. | The Atlantic Ocean
Hoax threats of shootings and bombings have caused nationwide disruptions at schools, most of which have been spread by teens on TikTok and Instagram. | The Wall Street Journal
A new California law to standardize active-shooter drills bans simulated gunfire after the use of a masked man with a fake gun sparked controversy. | Los Angeles Times
Indicted New York Mayor Eric Adams has no shortage of controversy. Add this to the list: The school district controls school bus surveillance cameras from a company run by a former high-ranking government official. | Chalk stroke
While a ransomware group has taken credit for a cyberattack on the Providence, Rhode Island, school district, school officials have remained silent. | News from the United States
District leaders can assess their schools’ cybersecurity vulnerabilities with a new resource guide from the Department of Education and the Federal Communications Commission. | FCC
A Florida father has alerted police after his 10-year-old son threatened to shoot up a high school on Snapchat. | USA today
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