Protecting our schools today requires an innovative new approach

Let’s join here in the serious and, at long last, civil dialogue, rising from the horror of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Floating some ideas, with the thinking that will hopefully follow, forms a worthy path for any column. Certainly our children’s safety in school is as local an issue as it is a national one. Leaving for a moment the matter of gun control laws, let’s consider how our schools might act defensively. Some of what will be said here will be strongly worded, but in as sensitive a way as possible.

The stark reality is this: the time is long upon us to train students in schools to respond rather than panic when an active shooter emerges. Drills not unlike the air raid drills of the 1950s must become part of the school routine, as are earthquake and tornado drills in schools in some parts of the U.S. today. The goal is to help kids become self-reliant and proactive. They have to become defenders of themselves, rather than freeze and die. Some of our local schools have made progress with this, but they have to stay current with their efforts.

A persuasive body of scholarship has emerged on the subject of school security. One reputable source is Campus Safety Magazine, which offers free subscriptions. This is one resource where school district officials can learn the cutting-edge basics about controlling access to school buildings, video surveillance, mass notifications and staff practices. Not long ago, these concepts would be dismissed as unduly alarmist and fear-mongering, but how things have dramatically changed! The magazine offers an active shooter threat assessment checklist.

A report that deserves attention, “The Israeli Approach to School Security,” was written in September of 2013 in Campus Safety Magazine by Rod Ellis, a K-12 campus security police chief from Georgia. Echoing his salient points is a separate article in Townhall by reporter Lawrence Meyers, published Feb. 15. Both focus on the cogent lessons to be learned from school security in none other than Israel. Ellis goes further with an outstanding, eight-point plan that will help every school, with such detail as the maximum hours (four) for any shift that is worked by a security guard tasked with watching surveillance monitors in school buildings.

Many will initially react, as I did, that Israel is a nation of 7.7 million at war, with mandatory military service, made up mostly of reservists. They live each day with the threat of rocket attacks and suicide bombers (the latter were once virtually a weekly occurrence for years, where the bombers’ families were paid the equivalent of life insurance payouts, courtesy of Iraq’s now deposed, monstrous Saddam Hussein). Could the experience in Israel have any connection to life in these United States?

Start with the absence shootings at schools in Israel for 40 years. It’s that long ago — 1974 — that terrorists seized hostages at Netiv Meir Elementary School, leaving 25 dead, mostly children, before order was restored.

Today, the Israeli Ministry of Education funds shelters and fences. It uses high standards to hire armed guards (far higher than for the apparently derelict one at Parkland) who are under the guidance of and closely linked to the local police departments. These carefully selected and trained guards, at every school, check all who enter, and engage any threats. The policy is to protect school personnel and students, create a sense of security, deter those with evil intent, and promote self-defense. And above all, unannounced drills to test operational readiness, that include such defensive measures as securing and barricading classrooms, are the norm.

“Adding guns to schools won’t fix anything” is a catchy but outdated phrase. No doubt it will change the atmosphere in our schools, but the deadly specter of shootings has already caused that change. Certainly the presence of guards should not become part of school disciplinary policy. In any event, It has been shown to work with decades of success when done with skillful planning. We actually can learn from a society bearing a heavy burden of senseless violence. Note that in our own way, the burden in America is becoming just as heavy. The Israeli model deserves careful study. Parts of it may truly help.

Can a case be made that the US Dept of Education should design and assist the states with a template for school security? It has to be better than to lie paralyzed with indecision. Some suggest Australia as a model, with its drop in gun crime through voluntary and involuntary confiscation of guns. But that is impossible here, where gun ownership is a basic right, ingrained in the very fabric of our society, and Constitution. Besides, there are an astonishing 300 million guns throughout our land. One might question whether more laws are an answer at all, when so many solid ones, already on the books, are never, or rarely enforced.

Still, do we really infringe on gun rights if we restore the 10-year ban (1995-2004) on the AR-15 style rifles, the weapon of choice in the last and many other school shootings, the Las Vegas massacre and the theatre killings in Colorado and more? Why do civilians need a small, lightweight, easily concealed, vertical handled semi-automatic with an astonishing 30 rounds in its magazine? Is there any unique, civilian utility to such a weapon that makes killing on a mass scale so easy? Certainly hand guns and shotguns and other rifles have their defensive and hunting features. Their ownership is the cherished right of every citizen, but how does that apply to the AR-15 type? Is it not in many chilling ways a virtual automatic weapon? On the other hand, with a permanent AR-15 ban, what will quickly replace it?

Even our school fire-alarm systems need to be updated. No longer should the simple press of a button cause school corridors to be filled with targets. Each alarm box has to be in the focus of a surveillance camera, with instant replay, and smoke alarms and other devices have to confirm and activate a second alarm within seconds before classrooms are evacuated – to be another part of these needed, defensive drills.

Space here does not permit discussion of the the Parkland school shooter’s being the third mass shooter on the FBI’s radar, or how our utterly inadequate mental health services system plods along so poorly that background checks for gun purchases disclose scant records, if any. Stronger background checks clearly a make sense, but note that mental health care providers keep much of their work confidential as a condition of their license to practice.

Nor can we delve into the logical but largely unmet need for different agencies to share information, or how to discourage the news media from notoriously glamorizing a killer, or how behavioral profiling is most helpful when appropriately applied, or the growing disconnect between parents and children, or the common sense of mandatory add-on jail sentences for crimes committed with a gun. We have to conclude that there is no panacea, even if all these issues were to be addressed.

Let’s close, however, with what will be thought-provoking for at least some of us, by sharing this brief exchange:

“Dear God – why do you allow so much violence in our schools?
Signed, Deeply Concerned Student

“Dear Deeply Concerned Student – I am not allowed in your schools.
Signed, God”