This morning my wife walked my son to his classroom to donate supplies. In order to get to his classroom she had to produce an ID, state her purpose and sign in at the front office. When she arrived at my son's classroom, my son's teacher was overjoyed to see a student's parent. The teacher mentioned that since the new security rules were put into place after the Sandy Hook shooting, she no longer received regular parental visits. I assume that classroom donations are also down.
Is this the best that we can do for our students? The vast majority of school shootings are caused by students who, by default, would have been waived past the sign in desk. And the rest are caused by people with a connection to the school who would have been allowed to sign in anyway. The fear of random shooters wanting access to our schools is a farce. And the thought that a front office school secretary could stop such a person with a sign in sheet is face palm worthy.
The sad truth is that school security has become the new Transportation Safety Administration. The TSA routinely harasses millions of law abiding Americas each year. Meanwhile, if you're motivated to avoid detection, you simply jump the security fence. That's exactly how a 16 year old CMS student got aboard the wheel well of a jet at the Charlotte International Airport in 2010. It's amazing what you can accomplish if you ignore the rules.
Why do schools punish parents in the name of security? Because when schools feel the need to do something about security, it's the only card they have to play. Just as we cannot secure our national border with Mexico, no school board anywhere can truly secure a school. Until we recognize that schools cannot be secured we will continue to spend millions of dollars to punish parents and harm school involvement.
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