The Lessons Learned From School Violence In America And How To Prevent Them
The whole country woke up to a violent crime which was happening at the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Some people may expect bad things to happen in poor, inner city schools but were surprised to see something that devastating happen in an affluent, suburban high school. This article will discuss a few of the crimes that have happened in recent years and what changes schools are making to prevent further killings and shooting to occur in our schools. Some changes are the addition of metal detectors, the removal of a kid’s locker and have only hooks for coats and bags and some decorative shelving where personal belongings can be seen, and some other things pertaining to dress codes.
One of the consistent themes that seem to repeat from the students who cause these violent shootings in school is that they were tired of being bullied by other classmates or that they were outsiders. Up until 1995, school shootings were thought to be very rare but unfortunately since then, there have been many that have happened with the most recent one and deadliest one occurring at Virginia Tech where one student claimed 32 lives including himself. Most of the shootings have been caused by young students that go to the school and are quite familiar with the routine of the school in addition to the layout of the structure. There have also been more shootings that happened in in Washington, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Tennessee and Minnesota and several more.
Following these shootings, many students told authorities that they had witnessed the student make threats about what they were going to do but most of the times, the kids never reported it to staff thinking that the student didn’t really mean it. Now students are taught that if anyone ever threatens to perform a violent act, to tell school officials or the police immediately. Looking back on a lot of the crimes, there were definite signs that many of these students planned to do this violent shooting ahead of time and there was evidence that they did not keep it silent. Teachers, counselors are now also taught to look for signs of students that seem isolated or that are being made fun of or bullied with US schools promoting a zero tolerance policy for that type of behavior towards another student.
To stop students from bringing in weapons or explosives to the building, many high schools have some drastic changes to the building. One way is to have metal detectors placed at the main entrance where all of the kids can only enter the building that way. Installing the detectors have prevented students from bringing weapons inside the school building.
Some schools are eliminating lockers|getting rid of student lockers} from buildings. Many new schools built in Colorado were made without lockers to stop kids from concealing anything dangerous. Also, long, trench coat style apparel has been banned from some schools as a thing a student may conceal weapons under as well.
Tags: decorative shelving, kid’s locker