Reading, writing and bulletproofing our kids
For parents, I used to believe, the saddest sight had to be watching their children climb on the bus for their very first day of school. But that was long ago, in a kinder, gentler time. Now the saddest sight may have been watching their children climb on the bus for their very first day of school wearing bulletproof backpacks.
Because this year the must-have school supplies aren’t just about learning. They’re about surviving.
More than a half-dozen manufacturers now make bulletproof backpacks for young people, ranging from elementary to high schoolers, with prices as high as $400. For the first time, major retailers, including Walmart, Office Depot and Home Depot, are selling bulletproof backpacks or bullet-resistant plates that fit backpacks. (Bulletproof, by the way, is a bit of a misnomer. They may protect your child from a bullet fired from a .44 magnum — the kind Dirty Harry used — but not from an AR-15, the kind the shooter at the Parkland school used.)
“We’ve probably seen around a 200 percent to 300 percent increase since the Parkland shooting this year,” said Joe Curran, founder of BulletBlocker, a Massachusetts-based bulletproof equipment maker
“Parents are grasping for any type of physical, tangible evidence of increased safety for their children,” said Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based firm.
Along with bulletproof backpacks, classrooms include teachers who no longer just give lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic. They teach run, hide, fight.
In Florida, kindergartners and first-graders have special songs to help them remember what to do if their classroom becomes a danger zone, USA Today reported this week. Their grandparents may have chanted, “No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks,” but today’s schoolkids are memorizing songs about what to do when a bad person bursts into their classroom spraying bullets from an assault weapon.
“These children are growing up so that they sing a little song and then they get into hiding places – it’s just terrifying to watch,” a grandmother at one Florida school related.
But what once was unimaginable now is unremarkable. Since the Columbine massacre in 1999, “more than 187,000 students have been exposed to gun violence” in schools, The Washington Post has reported.
Not all of the protective materials are being sold to parents. They’re also being bought by adults who need to venture into high crime areas, including lawyers, bill collectors and real estate agents. They’re even selling bullet-proof Bibles. That’s sad, too, of course.
But what could be sadder than watching your child go off to school wearing a bulletproof backpack?