Shooting at Roswell, NM Middle School

[tdrollo]

You all make some very good points. I have taught at a large public high school for 17 years. When I read stories like this they terrify me. There is no easy or blanket solution to this problem, but believe me schools are feeling the pressure to look like they are doing something to make kids more safe. At best all schools can do is make it more difficult for someone to commit a crime like this. No solution is going to make schools (or any place...even home) 100% safe. All we can do is be as prepared and aware as we can be. Many parents are choosing to home school. Well that's great if you have a parent at home who doesn't need to work for a living. Online schools could be great if you have internet and a computer and the other resources needed. No one option is going to solve this multi faceted problem.

Now the frustrating part (for me) is that the bureaucracy of the public school system is set up so that the educators must take orders from people high above who have little to no actual teaching experience, and may have never even attended public school. They have NO CLUE what teachers deal with day to day in the classroom. They treat every school the same even though they have vastly different demographics. Most of the "training" we receive is useless, superfluous, and/or not backed up with appropriate resources or funds. We get trained so they can say they trained us and then they never follow through. When something goes awry they say "it's not OUR fault because WE trained you." Politicians in control of our schools care firstly about covering their own butts and making themselves look good. At the very least it would be nice for the state and national governments to give local control to public schools so people who actually live and work in the communities can make informed decisions about what will and will not work.

I would definitely carry my weapon daily at work if it were allowed. I would only want to carry it on my person versus lock it up in a cabinet. I do not feel comfortable with my CCW anywhere but on me. I don't even like locking it in the glove box of my car, but unfortunately that is unavoidable at times. I would feel so much safer and more prepared for the worst if I could carry everywhere, and I am sure I'm preaching to the choir on that note! I am glad we have 2 to 3 armed police on our campus daily, but even they admit 3 police officers are not enough for a student population of 3000, and the city police response can sometimes be slow.