To see the multimedia website I created for this project, including a page of statistics, a timeline of gun violence & legislation, and photo/video footage from the March For Lives in Washington D.C., please click here.
Story
Introduction
On the afternoon of February 14, 2018, chaos and bloodshed filled the halls of Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School in Parkland, Florida.
Shortly after 2:00pm, a former student, Nikolas Cruz, was dropped off at the school by an Uber driver. Cruz, age 19, had changed schools six times in three years due to behavioral issues before being expelled from MSD in 2017. Based on his behavior in school and online, there had been multiple reports to school administration and law enforcement about Cruz being a threat to others and himself.
Cruz entered the school on February 14 with a backpack and duffel bag containing an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and multiple magazines. He pulled the fire alarm and proceeded to open fire into the throngs of students and teachers evacuating their classrooms.
The shooting lasted only six minutes. In that time, Cruz murdered 14 students and 3 faculty members, and wounded 17 more people, before dropping his gun on the third floor and exiting the school among other fleeing students. He was apprehended and arrested by authorities around 3:40pm, about 2 miles from the MSD campus.
In the aftermath of the shooting, we heard from the students. We heard from the parents. We heard from the politicians. But what do the teachers have to say? I interviewed seven educators from across the United States-- from Washington D.C. to Illinois to Oregon-- in hopes of gaining new perspective into these violent tragedies from the people at the front of the classroom.
From the east coast, I spoke with Sara Boizelle and Sophie Bauer, who work at Washington School for Girls in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington D.C. Boizelle is a third and fourth grade teacher and Bauer is a social worker at the school.
From the midwest, I interviewed Vicki Wilson, a special education teacher for students with behavioral and emotional issues in Belleville, Illinois. Wilson has been an educator for 14 years, and works with students from kindergarten to 12th grade who exhibit "behavior that does not allow them to be in a general education setting."
From the west, I talked to Danny Stapp, an English teacher at Forest Grove High School, as well as Adam Karp and Katy Carrillo, both math teachers at FGHS.
These educators shared their views on some of the causes behind the all-too-common school shootings in the United States, and how the issue could be addressed to help alleviate some of this violence in schools. Also, if applicable, they shared personal experiences of feeling unsafe in their classroom.
Immediate Aftermath and the Role of Social Media
The immediate aftermath of the shooting presented an outpouring of sympathy and support for the victims and survivors. Many citizens, celebrities, and politicians took to social media to convey their thoughts, prayers, and condolences.
One such politician (and celebrity) was President Donald Trump, who tweeted “My prayers and condolences to the families of the terrible Florida shooting. No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school.” President Trump continued tweeting about the incident over the following days and weeks.
The surviving students, however, were not satisfied with sympathy, especially from politicians who had received financial support from the National Rifle Association. Many responded to the posts online declaring their desire for legislative action and sensible gun reform rather than conciliatory tweets of consolation. Within days, student survivors from MSD had formed an activist group called Never Again, and began planning a national protest for gun reform called March For Our Lives, to be held on March 24, with the primary protest to occur in Washington D.C.
On February 17, President Trump returned to the issue on Twitter in a controversial way, blaming the Democrats for a lack of legislative gun reform, and blaming law enforcement for investigating his alleged collusion with Russia instead of catching the shooter before his act of violence. This attack on law enforcement was in contrast to his praise of their work in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
Trump faced extensive backlash for these comments, but organized a listening session at the White House on February 22 to hear the requests of the Never Again movement. In the meantime, and in the early morning on the day of the meeting, he continued to tweet about the issue, introducing his new proposition to “harden schools” by arming teachers.
During the listening session, President Trump said, “I recommend that for the [teachers] who do carry, we give them a bonus; we give them a little bit of a bonus…So now, practically for free, you have now made the school into a hardened target."
President Trump proceeded to elaborate further, saying, "Who wants that many security guards standing around, loaded up with guns? But if you could have [guns] concealed on the teachers, nobody would know who they are, it would be a tremendous threat."
The President also explained his disdain for the term "gun-free zone," by saying, "And, by the way, instead of advertising, ‘this school has no guns, we are gun-free’ you let people know the opposite. Nobody is going to attack that school. They’re cowards, they don’t want to be shot at… But I think we need hardened sites, we need to let people know, ‘if you come into our schools, you’re going to be dead, and it’s going to be fast.’ And unless you do that, you’re always going to have this problem.”
According to an article by the Washington Post analyzing the economics of arming America’s schools, and contrary to President Trump’s statements, it would cost over $250 million at the minimum to arm and train 718,000 teachers (20% of the workforce) in the U.S. When taking the full price of firearms and expansive training into account, the cost to taxpayers would be more than $1 billion, which does not include ammunition costs or increased insurance rates that would result from stockpiling weapons in schools full of children.
Reactions and Reflections for Arming Teachers
Understandably, this idea of arming teachers in schools was met with resistance. The six teachers I interviewed were unanimously against it, but all presented different reasoning for their views.
"If I was a student in the school and I was aware that there was a gun in my classroom already, and the teacher was armed just in case something were to happen, I would think that so many things could go wrong with it...so no, I'm completely against that," Bauer said.
"I think it's the dumbest thing ever," Boizelle said. "Partly because, if you're going to do that, you have to spend a lot of money on training someone how to use [a gun], especially how to use it in a non-lethal way. Even if it's in self-defense, the emotional impacts of killing somebody, regardless of what they were doing, are just so huge... You might shoot the wrong person, you might hurt somebody who's not supposed to get hurt, and then there's all sorts of legal issues that go with that. I feel like it would be a ticking time bomb waiting to blow up."
"We already serve a lot of roles," Wilson said. "I act as a surrogate parent to a lot of my kids because there's no parent at home. My kids don't always have food. I find myself being a social worker and a classroom educator and a general confidant to a lot of kids, and I just don't feel [having a weapon] is my role. I can barely get the training for classroom curriculum, how am I going to get trained for that? And I was a former parole officer, so it's not that I'm not comfortable with arming people that need to be armed, I just don't feel that's the teacher's job."
"I think it's terrifying, mostly because I wouldn't trust myself being armed," Carrillo said. "If we were going to have more guns in the school, I would want it to be with people who are actually trained for that...I think that if something like [a school shooting] happened and I had a gun, I could see one of my students saying, 'I got it' and taking it from me, or y’know, trying to be the hero. I just can’t say that thing would be mine only and that I’d be the only one that could control it. That’s scary."
"How are you going to put four million guns in schools all over the country and not have a bunch more people getting shot to death?" Stapp asked. "When you add guns coming from different directions, you’re going to have more people getting shot. People are not going to know who’s with who. I’ve seen comedy sketches about, ‘Well, I’m the good guy with a gun.’ Well, I’m the good guy with the gun, y'know? One person pops off a gun and six people respond to it with guns and shoot each other, because they’re not trained, and they’re freaked out and scared and they want to stay alive. It’s not a good idea."
"Training to shoot at objects and obstacle courses and things like that is different than the 'killer instinct' that you would have to develop as a police officer or a soldier or other kind of career," Karp said. "That takes continuous practice and training and re-training on an every week basis to always be good at that because you can't let your guard down if you're a police officer in a tough city or something. But teachers aren't going to be able to do their full-time job, live their life, and do that, to the extent that if something bad did happen, we'd really have the right instincts and skills to shoot quick or not to shoot or when to shoot or who to shoot if we don't know where everyone is. There's so many pieces to that puzzle of how to get involved in a firefight; it isn't just about being good with a gun. And I don't think teachers are ever going to amount to that level of skill to really do the job right."
Some schools around the country, however, are more in favor of using guns to protect students. According to a recent article by CNN, schools in Arkansas, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Idaho have already implemented programs to arm and train teachers and faculty in the event of a school shooting, with several of the programs dating back more than five years.
The required training for these armed teachers ranges between 40-80 hours, and many have to be approved by the school board and a law enforcement agency.
A common theme among these schools was their geographic setting: rural areas far removed from the nearest law enforcement facility. As the article states, "School administrators say they trust law enforcement but they are too far away. If a shooting takes place, they say school employees would have 'a fighting chance.'"
As resistance to the idea of arming teachers grew, the overall issue of gun control became more polarized in the popular media. This prompted Emma Gonzalez, a surviving student of the school shooting in Parkland and one of the key members of the Never Again movement, to post a clarifying tweet about the movement's intentions on February 25. Her tweet can be seen below.
On March 9, Florida governor Rick Scott signed a bill that raised the minimum age to own a gun to 21, and mandated a 3-day waiting period for each gun purchase. The law also allowed for certain Florida school employees to be armed on campus.
One month later, on April 10, less than two months after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Broward County School Board in Parkland, Florida voted against arming and training teachers in their district. The proposed legislation would have afforded the district $67 million to fund the venture. Instead, the school board suggested that the government "give us the money to keep kids safe in other ways," stressing an importance on mental health initiatives and outreach for students.
Underlying Causes of Violence in Schools
This emphasis on mental health as a source of this gun violence was shared by the teachers I interviewed. According to Karp, "We're a nation who probably-- among industrialized nations-- stigmatizes mental health issues more than other countries do. So I think we're less likely to-- if we have problems-- get treated for those problems, help others with their problems... we don't treat it the way we treat a liver problem or something. We're afraid of it or embarrassed by it or something."
Bauer and Boizelle expressed similar sentiments. Boizelle began by saying, "There is a lack of addressing mental health, not only in the field of medicine, but also just within education itself. I find that a lot of times, when a kid does have a mental health problem, it is pushed aside. Emotional issues or social issues are very much ignored in the school setting. It seems like something we're not supposed to address; we're supposed to be more focused on their academics and test scores and getting them ready for college...It's all about the best grades and the best scores, and there's so much stress on that by society, that a lot of the social/emotional [aspects] have been forgotten."
Bauer added, "From kindergarten through 12th grade I think there needs to be more training in schools for teachers and staff, to educate people about the signs of— and I hate to use this word— homicidal behavior or thoughts, but also suicidal ideation or behavior or signs."
These violent behaviors can begin to manifest at very early age, as Wilson explained with the help of a startling anecdote: "I have had students as young as six years old bring weapons to school. Not necessarily a gun, but I did have a seven-year-old once who brought a 12-inch chef's knife. Most of the students that I am involved with have true mental health diagnoses, in addition to a typical ADHD diagnosis...and there's very little in the way of resources for students with mental health problems in our country as a whole."
In addition to a lack of mental health resources, teachers also expressed concern for the publicity that these tragedies create for the perpetrators, which might inspire future violent acts. According to Stapp, "One of the big factors is that it's worked: kids who have felt invisible and off the radar have committed mass atrocities and, in the process, gotten their face out there, gotten their message out there. That’s a lot of these people’s goals, and it seems to work. If we don’t do anything about it, it’s still a viable platform, if you will."
Carrillo noted that "There have been shootings recently that haven't been as publicized, and I think that's best...you don't want people to copycat them by what they see."
Presumably, Carrillo was referring to the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in 2015. The UCC campus is located in Roseburg, Oregon, about 180 miles from Forest Grove High School where she teaches, along with Karp and Stapp.
Stapp elaborated on that incident, saying "After the school shooting down in Roseburg, the police wouldn’t release the name of the shooter, wouldn’t tell us anything about him, and it was the smartest damn thing that could’ve happened. It’s not that anyone makes a hero out of these people, but they would not publicize anything about him and they made it clear that’s why they were doing it, and I think that was a very smart move."
The following is an excerpt from an article in the Washington Post on 10/2/2015, the day after the Umpqua shooting:
"The names of those killed and wounded were not yet released nor would Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin name the shooter publicly, more out of rage than discretion. 'I will not name the shooter,' he said at a news conference Thursday night. “I will not give him credit for this horrific act of cowardice. Media will get the name confirmed in time … but you will never hear us use it.' (Saslow, Kaplan, Hoyt)"
March For Our Lives
On March 24, 2018, less than 40 days after the school shooting in Parkland, the student survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and their "Never Again" activist group organized and delivered "the most ambitious show of force yet from a student-driven movement" (NYT).
The primary protest was centered in Washington D.C., but the New York Times reported that over 800 protests were organized across every American state. Also, according to the report, despite the issue of school shootings being unique to the United States, protestors marched for the cause on every continent except Antarctica.
Crowd estimates varied drastically for the March For Our Lives event in Washington D.C., ranging from 180,000 to 800,000 protestors. The protestors marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the Trump Hotel, directly to the steps of the U.S. Capitol, where the Parkland students survivors and other prominent voices for the Never Again movement spoke to the masses from a large stage.
Emma Gonzalez spoke for about two minutes before standing silently for an additional four minutes. After six minutes of being on stage-- the same amount of time that the shooting lasted in her school-- she issued a final plea for action before exiting the stage.
Cameron Kasky and David Hogg were among the other Parkland survivors to speak, and emphasized the importance of sensible gun reform laws and encouraging people to vote out politicians who accepted donations from the NRA.
Protestors and speakers rallied for a common goal, as stated on the March For Our Lives website, to “demand that a comprehensive and effective bill be immediately brought before Congress to address these gun issues.” Since the rally, several propositions have been made, including the banning of bump stocks and universal background checks for gun buyers, but no major federal legislation has been passed (as of May 1st).
Despite the lack of legislative results thus far, the Parkland students have inspired millions with their passion and activism, and hope to carry that momentum into the midterm elections this fall. As Karp put it, "Those kids (from Parkland) are old enough or nearly old enough to vote, so I hope they'll rock that vote when the time comes and get neighboring schools and communities to unify with them and to, figuratively, march hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm and get to some of those polls and make a change so when Mr. Rubio or whoever says 'This isn't going to happen,' then they will say, 'Well, then, you're not going to happen.'"
For my full gallery from the March For Our Lives in Washington D.C., click here.
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