Franklin Schargel’s Blog

Mass school shootings never stopped during the pandemic. Despite the fact that most schools were closed to in person learning, school shootings continued to take place. Education Week Tracker reported (March 2,2021) that there were 10 school shootings in 2020 resulting in:

• 12 people killed or injured in a school shooting
• 3 people killed
• 9 people injured
• 2 students or other children killed
• 1 school employee or other adult killed.

The fall in numbers is likely due to the shift to remote, distance learning for nearly all schools for part or all of 2020.  The pace of school shootings has escalated. Education Week reported (January 13, 2020) that in 2018 there were 24 school shootings and in 2019, there were 25. In 2020, the Covid-19 virus interrupted the trend line because remote learning shifted students from schools to homes. The lull in public school shootings during 2020 brought on by the pandemic response ended on April 12,2011 in Knoxville, Tennessee when a student was killed, and a School Resource Officer was shot.

Since the first mass shooting in Columbine, CO, there have been over 80 copycat attacks. 

While schools look for a profile of school shooters, the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Agency reports that there isn’t a profile. 

On March 28, 2020, the NY Times reported that more than 240,000 students have experienced gun violence in school since the 1999 Columbine massacre. A disproportionate number of these students were Black students, or those in socioeconomic underserved communities. Black boys and young men ages 15 t0 34 are more than 20 times more likely to die of gun homicide than their white counterparts.

In a new book, “Children Under Fire: An American Crisis  by John Woodrow Cox, 

On average, one child is shot every hour; over the past decade roughly 30,000 children and teenagers have been killed by gunfire – recently eclipsing cancer as their second leading cause of death.

Gun trauma has become part of the fabric of school society. While schools are seen as places of learning for many students, they are also seen as places of danger for others.

Preventing school violence has become a “big business”. According to the New York Times, (4/11/2021) it is “now a nearly $3 billion market and vendors are offering among other things,” bleed control bags”, Bullet-resistant white boards, pepper ball guns, and bulletproof classroom doors. This despite the recent National Threat Assessment Report that says that “91 percent of all school shootings are caused by students, former students or students from other schools – not intruders.

The latest National Threat Assessment Report said that Active Shooter Drills are training potential school shooters because 91 percent of all school shooters are either students in schools, former students, or students in other schools. So hard wiring schools against shooters who enter schools is incorrect. Selling “bullet-proof’ book bags simply builds anxiety in student and staff and fear in parent’s eyes.

Yet schools continue to “hardwire” their buildings against intruders and practice “active shooter drills”. The reality is that since most school shootings are caused by students and not intruders, we are giving potential shooters the hidings spots of their potential victims. Schools have a responsibility to educate young children, but they also have a responsibility to ensure that the children have a safe learning environment.  The problem of school violence is that it is multi-faceted and therefore the schools have a difficult task trying to deal with all of the causes. The overwhelming number of schools were not designed with safety in mind. There are too many entrances and exits and not enough personnel to man them. In addition, there are hidden entrances where people can come into the building through side entrances.Students have learned to live in a world of fear – fear in their neighborhoods, in their homes, and fear in school, what should be a place where students feel should be the safest. 

Dr. Anthony Dallman-Jones is a Professor of Education at Marion University and the author of two books dealing with education and preventing school dropouts. Shadow Children – Understanding Education’s #1 Problem (2nd Edition) and The Handbook of Effective Teaching and Assessment Strategies (1st Edition).  

Dr. Dallman-Jones sent this in response to my first blog posting regarding my new website.

Franklin, as always great insight…I especially value your depth analysis of issues AND practices. Brilliant ending piece of prepping perpetrators with what appears to be a safety measure. How often has education initiated what appears to be well-intentioned practices and procedures only to have them backfire and children get more harmed than helped? 

Careless lack of research is almost always the reason – expediency and politics are more important than children in most school district’s central offices. I worked in a large system for 2 years and rarely, if ever, heard the words “children” “students” “kids” “learners” mentioned. The major concern was keeping the media from knowing anything they could use in the news to blast the superintendent or “his” school system. 

Too much time and money is spent, not on the kids, but on appeasement of outside influencers. We need an active Office of Research in every school district…and their focus should be on improving both the learning environment and best educational practices for the kids.

It’s Spring – a time for renewal and refreshing. This past year has given me an opportunity to do many of the things that I had wanted to do – number one on my list was to update my website. With the assistance of my sons, David and Howard, my website has been refreshed. Those of you who, in the past visited the website, will now see a fresh, clean look. David spent an inordinate amount of time redoing 1,144 blog postings. 

In addition to writing and posting blogs about the reopening of schools and the Covid-19 virus, I have been updating my book, “Creating Safe Schools: A Guide for School Leaders, Teachers, Counselors and Parents”. The updated version will feature a major new section dealing with “Child Anxiety, Stress and Trauma”. The virus and the closing of schools has increased child anxiety, stress and trauma.  What shall we expect with schools reopening to in-person learning? There have been national reports about increased child abuse as well as an increase in youth suicides.

A recent change is a revision on “school violence and mass school shootings.” The Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Agency issued new reports this year. The first National Threat Assessment Report, issued after the Columbine HS massacre in Colorado (April 2, 1999 – 22 years ago) recommended a series of steps which schools took seriously including the “hardwiring” of schools, adding “panic doors”,  and School Resource Officers. The new report gathered research from Columbine to just before the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland Florida, (February 14, 2018).  The new report recommends addressing preventive steps not reactionary steps. According to the reports, 91% of all school shootings are caused by students in schools, former school students and students in other schools – not intruders. So, by holding active shooter drills, we are giving potential perpetrators information about where to look for potential victims. 

The Covid-19 virus has exposed the raw underbelly of the educational community in the United States (and the rest of the world).

At the same time, it has created an opportunity to redesign K-16 schools for the 21^st century and beyond. Most schools continue to operate on an agrarian calendar, closing the schools so children can plant and harvest during spring, as well as winter and summer breaks. Are we saying that learning stops during the summer?

The virus has given us the capacity to leapfrog from the 17th century method of learning to the 21^st and beyond .

The educational system has been broken for a while. It has produced gaps which need to be narrowed or closed before we move forward. Some of those gaps include:

• Gaps between schools with Caucasian students and children of color schools
• Access to high quality enrichment programs
• Schools in rural, inner-city and native American schools and those in suburbs.
• Student access to internet devises.
• School access to high-speed stable internet.
• Coordination between agencies trying to narrow educational gaps
• A comprehensive long-term plan for improvement.
• Funding gaps between high property-based areas in a state and low-property taxed places in the same state.
• Gaps between educator salaries and those of similarly educated individuals.
• “Banker’s hour schools” open from 9AM to 3PM, 5 days a week, 9 or 10 months a year.
• Lecture or rote method of instruction rather than interactive learning.
• Teaching students “what to think” instead of “how to think.”

The closing of schools and the switching to either hybrid or distance computer learning has had a greater impact on some students more than others. Not every teacher or student needs to return to in-person learning. States and districts need to prioritize those who are most impacted by bringing them back to school as long as there are sufficient numbers of teachers available. The most affected students include those most vulnerable:

• Special Educated
• Low income
• Children of color
• Native American
• Those with unstable internet
• Those without devices such as I Pads or Chromebooks
• Those entering kindergarten or first grade (According to USA Today, on average 16 percent fewer attended than in 2019 ““ 2020)
• Those entering new schools (middle or high school)
• Those scheduled to graduate in 2020 or 2021

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued new guidelines for the reopening of schools. Those guidelines include:

• That guidance calls for states to ease restrictions in a phased approach only after they ensure they have adequate testing, tracing, and hospital surge capacity and only after they’ve seen declining rates of the virus for 14 consecutive days.
• Schools have provided healthy hygiene practices including hand washing stations, adequate disinfecting
• Social distancing in classrooms and on school buses
• The wearing of masks
• (Go to CDC.gov for a complete list)

Educators know that in-person learning achieves greater impact than distance or hybrid learning. But teachers are fearful about bringing the virus home to their children or families. The American Federation of Teachers poll found that 71 percent of educators worry that they might get infected and bring home the virus to their families and children. But Education Week (2/22/20121) says that only 30 states have prioritized teachers to receive the vaccine.  According to the American Federation of Teachers, 85 percent of AFT teachers and school staff support a return to in-person learning as long as the guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are followed.

The Biden Administration needs to provide resources to states and fund vaccinations, which have borne the brunt of the fighting the virus.

 

 

 

 

 

The Fight to Open Schools

A number of articles have appeared criticizing teacher unions for objecting to opening schools for either face-to-face or hybrid learning.  The criticism comes from various reporters such as George Will, the mayors of Chicago and New York City, the governors of Virginia and North Carolina.  Union critics say they are “concerned about the children”, parents and educators, however they are the same people who have cut school funding, underfunded schools, underpaid educators, failed to upgrade air filtration systems in schools, or provided adequate air conditioning and heating systems.  Critics are now scrambling to provide masks, Chromebooks, internet service to minority, poor, children of color, rural schools or to Native Americans.

Where have they been?Where were they before the Covid-19 virus?

What hypocrites!

 

 

 

 

I have been honored because two of my articles have been published.

Hey Franklin,

Here is your new article on edCircuit.

Here is your new article on Learning Counsel.

Both look excellent!, You are a rockstar in the education media world – your work is everywhere!

Best,

Charles