Be prepared

School leaders get ready for the worst

The talk of the nation in recent weeks has been guns and what to do about their use in mass killings. If that worries you, just think about what it does to teachers, principals, school board members and superintendents. And, definitely, students.

The revived debate, if it can be called that, on talk radio and cable television has energized those wanting “common sense” gun laws and those demanding full application of their Second Amendment rights. Florida’s governor on Friday signed a new law, opposed by the National Rifle Association, that put significant new measures in place that could limit access to guns for younger (between 18 and 21) buyers and for those demonstrating dangerous behaviors.

For school leaders, however, the core issue cannot be guns, for they can do precious little about the national love affair with firearms, the interpretation of a constitutional right to bear arms, or the often ineffectual discussions about what needs to happen to end, or at least reduce, the bloodshed.

For them, it’s not about guns. It’s about security, something within their power to influence. School leaders, indeed, have been handed a bigger job to do as a result of society’s inability to deal with gun violence. They cannot wait for Congress or Americans in general to figure out ways to improve the situation outside school buildings. So they’re focused on measures they can take to protect students and staff. Sadly, the best interests of everyone within the educational environment is served by school leaders assuming society will fail, again, to figure out an appropriate response to gun violence.

In Fayetteville, Superintendent Matthew Wendt recently explained his district’s newly formed School Safety and Security Task Force. It will be made up of law enforcement officers and officials from the judicial system, along with security experts, elected officials and school district employees. Their focus will be evaluating the safety of buildings and campuses.

It’s the naval equivalent of battening down the hatches to prepare for rough weather. Sailors know they can do nothing about the weather, but they can prepare to deal with it before it comes their way.

School district leaders across the country walk a fine line: They want to assure parents, students and everyone else that their properties are safe, all while going through a process to identify and respond to weaknesses in their preparations. No plan is perfect; security experts who are brilliant in their profession still spend a lot of time worrying about what they might have overlooked.

Tim Helder, Washington County’s sheriff and a West Fork school board member for 15 years, is on Wendt’s task force as well as a statewide school safety commission just created by Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

If it’s predictable, Helder says, it can be preventable.

Wendt’s plan also includes more emphasis on counseling and mental health. Part of that is removing some duties, such as creating the master schedule of courses, from counselors so they can more effectively focus on students and their needs. We applaud such thinking. Trained counselors are underutilized when they’re weighed down by administrative tasks.

Other school districts in the area haven’t gone the task force route, but they’re evaluating safety issues with law enforcement. Bentonville is considering a plan to require all high school students to wear their student identification cards around their necks, in plain sight, each day so that an interloper can be more quickly spotted.

So much attention has been centered on President Trump’s interest in arming teachers, a horribly misguided notion that no doubt makes sense to the NRA. Think of it: A whole new market for gun sales. Look, we’ve designed this one to look like a stapler.

No, thanks. Let educators be educators. Yes, the truth is they are the last line of defense against an intruder. Several have given up their lives as they attempted to save their students. In such a still-unlikely moment, perhaps they might wish for some firepower, but almost every teacher will finish their careers without facing such a circumstance. There’s no reason to turn them into armed guards.

Being armed will distract teachers from the job we need them to do. We don’t dispute that more security — even armed security — is part of the safety solution in schools, but those involved should be intensely trained to focus on security, not on the challenging daily task of teaching young people what they need to know.

Let the professionals handle armed security. Creating a school militia is not a good idea.

Teachers already have to deal with a social whirlwind — poverty, hunger, students who get little educational support away from school, mental health issues, behavioral problems, etc. — in their classrooms. Adding a firearm to the mix is not an improvement to that situation.

We call on parents to encourage their superintendents, school boards and school leaders in their efforts to balance education with school safety. We applaud the commitment of local law enforcement, whose leaders say their men and women are trained to plunge themselves into deadly scenarios for a chance to take down a shooter in a school building. That didn’t happen in Parkland.

Bless those prepared to respond. It’s our fervent hope they are exceptionally prepared for that moment and that the training they go through will be wasted, for that will mean no attack ever takes place. Nobody can assume that will be the case.