Another school shooting. Another atrocity. Another community traumatized by the deaths of children and those who have devoted their lives to guiding them. This time it was just an hour outside of Metro Atlanta, my hometown. This time, in Winder, Ga., a small town, where it is always assumed that this kind of stuff just doesn’t happen, a 14-year-old went on a shooting rampage killing 4 people and injuring at least 9 others at Apalachee High School. As I read the stories in horror, I felt a familiar rage–a rage no one would face in a country with reasonable gun laws. I challenged myself to try to remember the first time I heard about a school shooting. Ah, that’s right…I was just 10 years old. I’m 36 years old now and I have a lifetime of memories of school gun violence.. In the United States of America, stories of school gun violence accompanied me as I rushed home before the streetlights came on in the 90s, as I bought the latest CD from my favorite artist in the 2000s, and as I squeezed into my skinny jeans in the 2010s. Enraged and numb all at the same time, I ask when will enough be enough, how many children do we have to lose, and how many communities will we allow gun violence to destroy? How can we let our children grow up accompanied by this madness?
On April 20th, 1999, I was 10 years old sitting under the dryer at my childhood hair salon for what seemed like an eternity. I had just gotten out of school and came to get my hair done with my Mom. I vividly remember the lively salon all of a sudden going eerily quiet as my hair stylist turned up the TV to hear about what we know of today as the Columbine High School Massacre. At the time I did not truly understand the magnitude of what had happened, but I did know that something was very, very wrong. I remember how my school changed from a place where strangers could walk into the front office and sign the visitor’s list to badge-access-only entrances and the sudden arrival of “No Weapons on School Property” signs At that time though, Columbine seemed as though it was going to be the exception and that there was no way that something so appalling could happen twice. If only that were true. While U.S. school shootings date back historically to 1860, The Columbine Massacre was the beginning of a new violent era that seems to have no end in sight.
On December 14th, 2012, 279 school shootings later, I was a student in a college lecture hall daydreaming about what graduate school I was going to attend when a gunman barged into Sandy Hook Elementary and killed 26 people, 20 of those being precious first graders just trying to learn. On February 14th, 2018, I was a First Grade teacher having a blast in a classroom filled with my brilliant and loving students in Richmond, California as we shared the love during our Valentine’s Day party. This was also the day Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School became a war zone as 17 students and teachers lost their lives at the hands of a former student in Parkland, Florida. Later that week, I was in the Principal’s office urging him to ensure all school doors were closed during school hours because security measures were at the bare minimum. Then came May 24th, 2022, you could find me celebrating the end of the school year with my class of 21 amazing First Graders as 21 people, 19 First Graders and 2 Teachers, lost their lives by yet another mass shooter at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. That same year, I had to report to my administration that one of my students, a 6-year-old, had a “Kill List” and threatened to execute it. In pure shock and disbelief, I urged the parents to get this student help, but no true intervention ever happened. It still haunts me as I think about the urgent end-of-the-year note I put in his file about his troubled thoughts, hoping that a future teacher would notice it. I often think of what the high school version of this student may do. On January 6th, 2023, a teacher was shot by her first grade student.
As a student, I always wondered if hiding under my desk would be enough to save me. As a teacher, I created my own exit strategy, prepared to toss my students out the window and run to safety in the event of a shooter. On September 5th, 2024, I am the parent of a rising kindergartener who does not trust U.S. schools to keep children safe, including my own, no matter the zip code, race, or socioeconomic status. There have been 416 school shootings and more than 383,000 children have experienced gun violence since Columbine. The #1 cause of death of U.S. children is gun violence. There have been 28 school shootings this year. The most recent school shooting was one day ago after Apalachee. Where do we go from here? How many more children will have to grow up in a state of terror and threat? How can we let this go on?
Excellent analysis through the eyes of an educator. My kids are no longer school-age but my heart goes out to those who do have kids in public schools.