Guns, Violence, Safety?

The latest shooting tragedy last week at NIU makes me long for the good old days when doors were never locked and children and young adults roamed freely without a thought for their personal safety. I am afraid that those days are gone forever. People will analyze and conjecture about the whys and hows of this latest senseless tragedy but nothing will change the fact that innocent people are dead and lives have been disrupted by injuries, grief and fear. My sympathy goes out to the thousands of people impacted by this act. I had a parent ask me this past Friday if we had plans for such an event in our schools because her 8th grade child had asked her what he should do if there was a shooting at our middle school. The fact is that we do have plans and do practice them in the hope that if we are ever challenged that we will respond in a routine and rehearsed manner to safeguard our children.
Tragedy, such as we have just experienced, is the reason that we have established security procedures and crisis plans to respond to the unexpected in the school. I am aware that some security arrangements are inconvenient and cumbersome but they have been put in place to protect our most precious resource, our students. We appreciate your support as we continue to develop and refine these crisis plans with the first responders of our community.