The Effect of the Parkland Shooting

                   

By: Savanna White

School shootings are something that has been seen too often in this country. This issue is something that many are desperately trying to solve. Since the Parkland shooting that happened on February 18, 2018, that took the lives of 17 teachers and students, Florida has passed The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act. This act has implemented higher security by requiring more law enforcement presence at schools, higher surveillance, and response preparation. With school shootings becoming more and more of an issue it is amazing to see communities coming together to help solve this problem. 

 In Taylor county, the school board voted in favor of the new school resource deputy agreement with a 5-0 vote. This agreement will pay Taylor County Sheriff's Office $464,571 this coming school year to contribute 6 deputies to provide security to the schools in the county. Before 2018 the district had only 4 officers for the schools.

 Although the current deputy at the technical college in town will be retiring halfway through the school year the board made it clear that they will be filling this position for the rest of the school year. This meeting to discuss the new security did create some contention because of money, which is a given, but in the end, they came to an agreement to do what was best for the community and schools (Spat). 

I do feel there is more that could be done but it will be a work in progress. Creating more security and educating those present at schools will be helpful when something does happen, but what could we do to prevent these things from happening?

Recently in 2022, a bill was signed and within this bill, it will be required the officers stationed at public schools to complete mental health crisis intervention training. This training will improve officers' knowledge and skills as a responder to disturbances including students with mental illnesses, which will include de-escalation skills to ensure safety for officers and students. Another thing that is included is requiring 80% of employees at schools to receive training in youth mental health awareness. 

This new bill seems like it will be very helpful in trying to go back to the source of the problem. Focusing on the mental health of students could help stop the problem beforehand. Educators being required to learn more about student mental health and to be more aware could help with this problem (Dailey).

It is very sad to me how common school shootings have become. Within all schools we now have drills in case a shooter does come to the school. These drills are called lockdown drills. The fact that this is so common to have required 2 lockdowns per school year is so heartbreaking. I myself have been part of these drills while in school. I remember feeling scared during these drills because they did not tell us if it was a drill or not at least in my case. This caused us students fear even though we assumed it was not real, it could have easily been considering how often they are seen in this country. 

As a country, there are ongoing goals to prevent this from happening. Having officers trained in mental health crisis intervention is a step in the right direction. This could help to de-escalate situations or even prevent them from the start. I think this would be a good course for teachers as well since they are in the mix of it more. 

Although I do not get rid of gun rights altogether I think we need to have more laws in place before being able to access a gun. I feel that mental health checks should be a requirement before being able to purchase a gun. Since cases of the shooting have also involved children taking their parent's guns, parents who do own guns should make sure they're in a safe and children cannot get to them. Although the topic of gun rights is still something that this country has been divided on I hope that soon we can all agree on something that could prevent this from happening so often. 

The issue of school shootings is something the whole country does agree needs more action. We do see more being done to prevent this like supplying more security within schools as well as requiring training for these officers. I hope that soon we can implement and find more ways to help this from happening anymore and I hope this is something that we all can agree on. 

References

Dailey, Ryan, and News Service of Florida. “Florida Gov. Desantis Signs Bill Requiring Mental-Health 'Crisis Intervention' Training for on-Campus Officers.” Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, 6 Sept. 2022, www.cltampa.com/news/florida-gov-desantis-signs-bill-requiring-mental-health-crisis-intervention-training-for-on-campus-officers-13575586.

“Spat over School Security.” Etypewebsite, publisher.etype.services/Perry-Newspapers/e-paper-regular-edition/DF3DD91ABA84A9A6.