As a mother, I’m horrified by the notion that a child could be placed on a school bus and never come back home. Losing a child is a parent’s worst nightmare, and I’ve had too many friends who’ve walked through that darkness. As a member of a school board, I’m burdened that the decisions I make with my one vote of eleven could impact the safety of 64,000 children. I take those decisions very seriously, but I fear the root causes of this violence that are beyond my control.
The physical structures of schools are more secure than they have ever been. There are now school resource officers (SROs), stricter requirements on who can enter schools, and locked doors to keep the bad guys out. Students are encouraged to speak up: “If you see something, say something.” Yet I don’t believe anything school board members or administrators do can guarantee the safety of children without addressing the underlying cause of these senseless acts of violence—our country’s moral decay.
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