According to The Washington Post, School shootings in the United States have been on the rise since the Columbine High School Massacre in 1999. Since the evil brutality at Columbine, there have been 435 school shootings and 398,000 students experiencing gun violence, which is completely unacceptable for a country like the United States.

Laws have been passed to help and try to prevent such tragic events. In Virginia, schools are required to have a safety audit done annually. In such circumstances, what are teachers in our school trained to do?  

Chelsea Tryon, principal at Stafford High School, said that teachers are trained in active shooter drills, “I worry about safety and security every day, right? And I think that it’s a matter of making sure the doors aren’t propped open, letting in people who aren’t supposed to be here. We are all Stafford High School, we are all collectively responsible for maintaining this building’s security”

School security officer Paul Powell, former Marine Corps veteran, and his fellow security officers are trained in various matters, active shooters, fire drills, tornados, etc. 

“Every year we go to a symposium slap seminar and they just tell us all the things we need to do in the event of an active shooter and fire drills, or you know, things of that such. We must be certified every two years in all of those aspects of safety within the school to keep students and staff safe in the building, ” said Powell. 

Powell thinks that a few updates to the way schools protects against potential weapons entering the school, “I would love to see some type of metal detectors installed because the school doesn’t really have a way to combat against someone bringing a weapon”

A Symposium Slap Seminar is a symposium where school security officers go over new things to look at and go over what’s happening in the school system in the event of a fire, tornado, or even an active shooter.

Hector Morales, a former Navy Nuclear engineer, who spent years protecting our country has been trained by the school to insure students safety, “We are going to secure the students first. First we are going to do a quick look outside to make sure if there are any students in the hall close to our doors and we can secure them into our rooms. Then we close, lock and barricade the doors. The students need to be out of sight and the lights need to be off.” 

Teachers are trained to grab students from the hall and bring them into their rooms and barricade the doors, which is very smart because it lowers the chances of an armed intruder finding the student in the hall. Hector continued, “ We put the blinds down in the windows and instruct students to turn off their Chromebooks to limit the amount of light in the room. We are also told that the all clear announcement on the intercom is not enough and we have to wait for the police to come into the room to evacuate us.”

Students and teachers are supposed to wait for the police to unlock the doors and let them out because you don’t know if an intruder is forcing an all clear announcement. 

Students are also trained as well, with the multiple lockdown drills throughout the school year and the FBI training video we were shown “Run, Hide, Fight’.  

So, here at Stafford High School our teachers and SSO’s are trained and take our safety as a top priority so no harm will come to us.

I went around and asked 25 students if they feel safe at school, 12 answered they felt safe and 13 said they did not feel safe. So, I would like to reassure my fellow students here at Stafford High that the statistics of school shootings are based on if there is a gun on school grounds, after school on school grounds, or maybe even a stray bullet,  so stay positive as the chances of anything horrible are low, but be cautious and report any suspicious activity to the police or school.