Schools need increased security protocols throughout the entire school to help prevent school violence which is getting out of hand.  

It is only the second month of the new year and already there have already been 12 school shootings in 2018. And according to The New York Times, this school year there have been approximately 50 school shootings.

New York Times reporters Alan Blinder and Daniel Victor wrote an article about the school shootings. Blinder and Victor wrote,“Gunfire ringing out in American schools used to be rare, and shocking. Now it seems to happen all the time.”

NBC News author Elizabeth Chuck wrote an article about how schools have changed since the Sandy Hook shooting. Her article is called “Sandy Hook shooting anniversary: How schools have changed security,” and she said, “Lockdowns, in particular, can be effective, as a shooting last month in California showed. When a gunman in the Rancho Tehama Reserve killed four people and targeted an elementary school, he was thwarted from getting into the school after staff initiated a lockdown, authorities said.”

Ever since the Columbine shooting back in 1999, school shootings have been getting worse and much more frequent. It is horrible how used to we are to school shootings by now. It happens so often that we hear about it almost every few weeks.

Blinder and Victor also wrote in their article, “Researchers and gun control advocates say that since 2013, they have logged school shootings at a rate of about one a week.”

There have been 289 school shootings since January 2013, according to Everytown.org which is averaging about one school shooting every week. From 1980 to 2009 there have been around 160 school shootings which is a period of 40 years and still, in four years we managed to have around twice as many.

Honestly, it is absurd that in the past four years we have had so many school shootings.

Kids in America are expected to go to school and get an education, but if there is so much violence at school, you never know if your school could be the next school. There are only so many schools in America and at a rate of one shooting a week, it is only a matter of time before something happens at your school.

That is why we need increased security at schools across America. If we can increase the security at most schools across the country we can get the number of one shooting a week down dramatically.

In his article “Schools need more security,” DePaul University student Derek Franke wrote about an interview with Ken Trump, who is part of the National School Safety and Security Service which is an organization dedicated to keeping schools safer and increasing their security.  Trump said, ‘“In the last five or six years, we’ve seen some progress stalled due to cutbacks in resources on prevention counselors, psychologists and mental health as well as the training of security personnel. There’s been an enormous focus on test scores, academics, education reform, budget cuts, and many other important issues in schools. But we have to keep school safety on the front burner.”’

If an organization like National School Safety and Security Service thinks we should have school safety as a top priority maybe we should do just that.

Officer Stuart Galicz of the Mayfield Village Police Department is the School Resource Officer at Mayfield High School. He deals with problems at the school every day and takes care of every fight or threat.

Galicz said, “Some aspects of what I believe are lacking is the overall security of the building accessibility… I think kids just let other kids in and they may know them or they may not. If somebody comes to a side door and they’re looking to get in, kids are more apt to push the door open and let them in whether they know them or not. One thing i’m really not fond of is the accessibility to the school from Wildcat Sport and Fitness which is open to the public and they [anyone with a membership] can easily access the school at any time, so if someone gets in that way… there is not enough checks and balances to stop them from coming further into the school.”

Galicz also talked about what he would like to see improved at the school to create a safer environment for the students. He said, “Definitely more cameras, less accessibility through the side doors. I would like to see an alarm system on the doors that if they’re open anytime during the school day for any reason a small alarm would go off at that door.”

Sophomore Jaida Tinsley has a strong opinion on improving school security.

Tinsley said, “I believe that schools should increase their security because their student’s lives would possibly be at risk if they didn’t.”

She also said, “Knowing that at any moment someone can walk into school or class with a gun is terrifying.”

Students are afraid to go to school. Isn’t it time for a change to make schools safer so students actually feel comfortable actually going to school?