On June 13, 2022, at approximately 8:43 am, a man entered through the main doors of the Duncanville Fieldhouse, a sports complex in Duncanville, Texas that is used as a summer camp for children. On any given day, there can be as many as 150-250 students present.

Inside the building, the man was confronted by a staff member. A conversation ensued and the man became upset. He pulled out a pistol but it is unclear exactly what happened next. Some news agencies report that the staff member was armed and that the two fired at each other. Other agencies report that the man shot at the unarmed staff member and missed. Either way, adults helping at the summer camp heard a gunshot and sprang into action. A counselor near the violence quickly closed the classroom door. The man tried to open the door but it was locked. He fired one round through the door and then walked into the gym.

Police arrived two minutes later and immediately rushed into the gym. The officers confronted the man and shots were exchanged. The man was hit several times. He was given aid on the scene but died later at the hospital.

No one else was injured.

With this attack in mind, I’d like to highlight a few points.

1. Violence has its own sounds—yelling, fighting, gunshots. Our staff members must be reminded, taught, and encouraged to act without any formal lockdown commands. To trust their senses and to act fast! If we’re only training them to wait for an official command to lockdown then we’re inadvertently training our teachers to be hesitant. Any hesitation works against us.
   
   The staff members at the summer camp didn’t wait for a command but acted immediately by closing the classroom door. Without a doubt, they saved lives. The room was full of children.
   
   Our staff members must be prepared and encouraged to act without commands!
   


2. After being denied entry into the classroom, the man didn’t destroy the door or use his body to burst it down. He fired a round through the door and moved on. This is what they all do!
   
   They try the handle. If it’s locked, they shoot through the door and move on. If it’s not locked, they shove and fight to get into the classroom. I do not know of a single school attacker any where in the entire world who stopped and took the time to destroy a door.
   
   Therefore, add what we know into your lockdown procedures by giving your teachers these 3 priorities.
   
   1) Run to the door!
   2) Close it—it must already be locked!
   3) Get out of the way—because they shoot through the door.
   
   Our lockdown procedures must reflect what we know of the threat—get away from the door!


3. There are lots of professionals who do not like the Hide aspect of Run, Hide, Fight. They think it’s too limiting, creates a ‘fish in the barrel’ consequence, and that it doesn’t work as well as Run or Fight.
   
   Staff members at the summer camp immediately transitioned into a Hide. They put space (door) and therefore distance between them and the attacker. It was the right thing to do at the right time and we know this from the outcome. No one died. No one was hurt.
   
   Hide is an excellent option. It’s the strategy that most people use to survive school attacks. Depending on the circumstances, another strategy may be better but that in no way diminishes the value of Hide. For some of our schools there is no other option but to Hide. The student’s age or disability makes Run impossible.
   
   I will never advocate for only one strategy. However, we see again and again that Hide is extremely effective. Trust in Hide…trust in your procedures.


4. Law enforcement arrived in two minutes, immediately confronted the attacker, and ended the event…within minutes!
   
   This is the norm. This is what happens almost all the time. Parkland and Uvalde do not represent law enforcement’s response, dedication, or willingness to put their lives on the line for you.
   
   We shouldn’t let the outliers override the rule!
   
   Confidence is one of those necessary elements that our teachers must have to be successful. The more confident they are the more willing they will be to play a greater role. We must remind teachers and staff members that our police officers will be there if trouble happens. They will run into the building. They will immediately confront the attacker. They will immediately end the threat. They will put their lives on the line for them and their students.
   
   How do we know this?
   
   Duncanville, Texas…as well as so many other times.




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If you’d like to prepare and inspire your teachers, consider scheduling a Safe & Loved teacher professional development. We still have some dates available for the start of the 2022-2023 school year.

Presentations can be 3-8 hours long and fit perfectly into in-service training.

emailfor more details.





The Two Types of School Safety.

June 20 2022 From the course Safe & Loved

There are only two types of safety—mechanical and human (people).

Doors, cameras, gates, and locks are mechanical safety.
Your policies, procedures, and practices are people safety.




Mechanical is a hard asset. People are a soft asset.




Mechanical safety will stop an attacker from getting into your classroom.
People safety will make sure the door is closed and locked.




Mechanical safety will deter an event.
People safety will prevent the event.




Mechanical safety hinders unwanted movement.
People safety encourages positive interaction.




Mechanical safety creates a safer environment.
People safety creates a safer and better culture.




If you only focus on perfecting your mechanical safety, your safety will feel cold, hard, and unfriendly. It’s difficult to be inspired by a camera or a metal door. It’s still extremely valuable…just not warm or inspiring.

If you only focus on perfecting your people safety, your safety will be warm, engaging, and friendly but that alone won’t stop a threat from getting into your classrooms. Your classroom doors must provide excellent protection.

Most schools focus on mechanical. However, mechanical is only as good as your people safety. Afterall, what good is a great classroom door if the people using it never lock it or can’t quickly close it during a lockdown?

The secret to being safe is to have a robust blend of both types of safety.

As you prepare for next year, continue improving your mechanical safety. The greatest improvement you can make is to enhance your classroom doors (ADA handle, metal door frame, and small window with safety wire or tape).

Make this your mechanical safety priority!

Your people safety priority should be to inspire your staff to engage! Engage by blending in violence prevention techniques (safety layers and filters) into every positive student engagement. Engage by perfecting lockdowns to 7 seconds or quicker. Engage by making the most of your mechanical devices by locking every door handle.

Make engage your byword for next year as well as your people safety priority!




Last point—mechanical devices are vital but your people are priceless. People are by far your greatest safety asset. No mechanical device will ever outdo one vigilant, caring, prepared, and responsible person. People are the prize for making your school safe and your teachers, students, and staff members feel loved. Put your effort into your people! They deserve it, need it, and will amaze you at what they can do when inspired to see safety as something different, holistic, positive, and in harmony with the goals of education.

If you improve your people, I promise you’ll leap forward in safety!





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If you’d like to prepare and inspire your teachers, consider scheduling a Safe & Loved teacher professional development. We still have some dates available for the start of the 2022-2023 school year.

Presentations can be 3-8 hours long and fit perfectly into in-service training.

emailfor more details.





The Question of Metal Detectors

June 15, 2022 From the course Safe & Loved

I’m getting this question often because a lot of parents and others are wanting their schools to install metal detectors. I know there is a lot to consider and I hope this helps you decide!

If you want to make your school safer you must have multiple safety layers and filters. A safety layer is something that an offender must pass through or overcome and a filter screens for unwanted or dangerous behaviors. The more layers and filters you have the safer your school. The fewer you have the more vulnerable you are.

Having said that…there is a tradeoff.

Metal detectors will require that you add or give up certain things.

1. Extra time.
   Metal detectors slow down student entry. It takes time to get through the machines so it will add time to your morning arrival. It could be up to 30 minutes or longer depending on your level of screening, searching, number of machines, and number of students. It takes time to drop backpacks, take off belts, and put loose items in bins…if you want this level of screening. You can always reduce it but it will lower effectiveness.


2. Trained and ready.
   The people operating the machines must be trained. It’s not difficult to do but it will require training and several designated personnel to run it each morning.


3. Wands and searches.
   These personnel must have wands and be proficient in searching and screening students. Inevitably students will set off the machines. When that happens you’ll have to pull the student aside and be prepared to wand as well as search their person and bags. Again, it’s not difficult but it will require more time, training, and the right personnel. If your teachers and staff members do not feel comfortable with this responsibility you will have to outsource it.


4. Prepare for violence.
   The personnel must be prepared and ready for violence. Should a student have a gun, knife, or something else that trips the metal detector—you will have to physically secure the weapon.
   
   The goal is to stop these things from coming in but what do you do when it happens? You’ll be face-to-face with a potential threat so the staff member must be ready and able to handle it. Therefore, you can’t just assign anyone to do it. This is one of the reasons why so many schools that have detectors hire outside security personnel to run the machines. This alleviates the problems of training, wands and searches, and being ready and able to confront violence. The tradeoff of course is the cost to hire these folks.


5. Change in culture.
   Metal detectors change your culture and…not for the better. I’ve never seen a school’s culture improve with metal detectors. Perhaps safety, but not culture. In my experience, I think it deadens the spirit of the students—it’s depressing, starts the day off on a bad and unhappy note, sends a message of mistrust (metal detectors implicitly imply that at least some of the students are not trustworthy), and hinders the ability to form relationships. Metal detectors slow down morning arrival so there’s not much of an opportunity to greet and talk to the students since the overriding priority is not to welcome but to get hundreds of people quickly scanned. It is simply not conducive to warm interactions.
   



If metal detectors were foolproof it would be easy to say yes to them but people can get around them. Like every other mechanical device they are helpful but not perfect.

I was in one school where a student threw a gun up to a waiting friend hanging out of a second story window to get around the metal detectors. In another school a student with a gun was let in by another student who opened an exterior door for him so he could avoid being screened. In one school attack, a student with a gun ran through the metal detector shooting the security guard and murdering him before running into the building and murdering 6 more people.

Last point—if you have severe safety issues, multiple guns found in the building, or repeated acts of extreme violence then you may need metal detectors. However, if this isn’t your school then most likely you don’t need them. Instead, put your effort into people focused violence prevention techniques that multiply your safety layers and filters through positive engagements and interactions with students. There’s no cost to it, no trade off, teachers love it, and you get a safer, happier, and more successful school.

The greatest safety asset you have is your people—focus on them!





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If you think people are the prize for making your school safer then you’ll love Safe & Loved. We have a 2-day course, soon to be released leader course, as well as a 3-8 hour professional development for teachers and staff members.

The professional development is a burst of focused energy to start of your new school year. Schedule Don to present Safe & Loved to your teachers for your in-service training at the start of the 2022-2023 school year. Reserve your day as soon as possible. Everyone pretty much does the same few weeks for in-service so there’s not a lot of slots available!

emailfor more details.





Dangerous Students and Close Ended Questions

June 14, 2022 From the course Assess & Progress

We tend to take a great lesson learned and go too far with it. For example, not asking close ended questions. It’s become a hard and fast rule like never jiggling the coins in your pocket if you’re giving a speech. Don’t do it. It’s bad.

I get it.

Close ended questions don’t promote communication, rapport, or developing relationships. However, if you’re trying to figure out if a student is a threat or dangerous (student safety assessment) then close ended questions are not only helpful, but absolutely necessary!

Close ended questions help you to determine a fact and facts are invaluable.

“Do you have a gun?”

This is a close ended question in search of a fact. Do you or do you not have a gun? It’s a yes or no question that demands a yes or no answer!

Open ended questions help you to gain insight. Use them in conjunction with close ended questions.




Let’s put it all together.




You’re interviewing a student because he made threat. You want to know if he has a gun so you ask him both close and open ended questions.




“Do you have a gun?” (close ended)
“No.”




“Are there guns in the house?” (close ended)
“No.”




“How would you get a gun if you wanted a gun?” (open ended)
“I don’t know. My grandfather has guns. Maybe from him.”




The close ended questions reveal facts—the student doesn’t have a gun and there are not guns in the house. The open ended question gave us insight into the student. He can get a gun from grandpa.

I know what you’re thinking…IF the student was telling the truth.

That’s a fair and smart response. If you’re doing a student safety assessment you must always be skeptical! That doesn’t mean cold hearted or unwilling to believe…just skeptical. Verify everything to not only gain facts and understanding but also to gauge the student’s veracity.

If you follow up with the parents and they tell you that there are guns in the house…then you know the student didn’t tell the truth and therefore the risk just went up because you can’t trust the student!

The more truthful a student is the lower the risk. The less truthful the student is the higher the risk.

Either way, close ended questions are a tremendous and necessary good. Do them to gain or verify facts. Use open ended questions to gain insights.

Call or text me if you need anything! I’m happy to help!




P.S.




If you want to enhance your student safety assessment skills, consider attending or hosting Assess & Progress – Threats & Dangerous Student.

Hosting is easy…just provide a training space and help advertise via established networks and we’ll do the rest. In return, we give you 3 free seats to the training!

Just email us and we'll set it up!





Locked Doors Save the Day

June 13, 2022 From the course Safe & Loved

A few days ago (June 9,2022), a man tried to enter Walnut Park Elementary School in Gadsden, Alabama. He tried at least two doors but couldn’t get in. Inside were approximately 34 students participating in a literacy summer camp. The school went to a lockdown and called police. The SRO responded immediately and found the man trying to make forcible entry into a marked police car near the school. When confronted, a fight ensued and the man attempted to wrestle away the officer’s gun. The officer called for assistance. Another officer arrived and the man was shot and pronounced dead at the scene. The SRO was treated for minor injuries and released.




There is no word if the man had a gun or what his intentions were with the school. There are a lot of things that are unknown. I’d like to focus on what is known.




Someone tried to enter the school and was stopped because the doors were locked.




Keeping your doors locked is called exterior access control and it’s one of the 3 things you must do to keep your school safe. You must 1) supervise your space and the people in the space, 2) control who can enter and leave your space (access control), and 3) you must clearly define your boundaries and in doing so help to send a very clear message of ownership. Ownership tells potential offenders that you care about what happens here, you won’t allow any unwanted behavior, and you’re not an easy target.




There is also interior access control. That’s locking your inside doors like classrooms.




A locked door is a layer of safety. The more layers you have the safer your school. A layer is something that an offender must contend with or overcome. All layers are not the same. Your staff wearing a badge is a layer of safety but it’s nothing like a locked door. A locked exterior door or a locked classroom door is one of your best layers and here we see its true value. A person was stopped from entering the school. We don’t know yet what he wanted, his intentions, or why he was trying to get in. We don’t even know if his purpose was nefarious. We just know he was stopped by locked doors.




The threat that is closest to you is the greatest threat. Locked doors provide you with space (an object) and distance from potential danger. I know it seems simple and sometimes a pain in the neck to lock doors, especially with young children, but the reward far outweighs the hassle.


A man was stopped from entering a school with 34 children because the doors were locked.






Always Opportunity First

June 7, 2022 From the course Assess & Progress

For a school attack to take place three elements must be present at the same time. If any one of these elements are not present, violence will not occur. If all three of these elements are present simultaneously the crime, violence, or attack will happen.

Those three elements are 1) Desire, 2) Ability, and 3) Opportunity.




Desire:

How badly the person wants to do it?




Ability:

Does the person have the skill set?




Opportunity:

Does the person have the chance or opportunity to do it?




Of the three, which one do you think is the hardest to influence or eliminate? Which one is the easiest?




By far, desire is the hardest to remove because it means getting inside a person’s head and making them no longer wish for or desire something. That’s incredibly difficult, time consuming, and often complicated.




The easiest to remove is opportunity because that’s totally up to you. It’s the quickest and usually the most effective element to remove because you’re eliminating it yourself.




A couple of examples of how it all works together…



1. Lots of anti-bullying programs start with trying to get the bully to no longer want to hurt someone else. That’s desire and it’s the hardest to influence. Instead, increase supervision of the students therefore removing the opportunity for it to happen. Should the bully still want to act it will require greater effort (ability).  


2. You perfect your lockdown. A person attacks the school but teachers can lockdown all classrooms within 7 seconds. The attacker desperately wants to get into the classrooms (desire) but can’t because the teachers have locked down (no opportunity). He tries to kick the door open but can’t (no ability). The frames are made of steel and the doors are too solid (no opportunity).


3. Every morning you stand outside and greet the students. You’re energized, engaged, and vigilant. 70% of all school attackers are current or previous students. A student wants to attack the school (desire) but he sees you fully engaged each morning. He knows that he must get by you and it won’t be easy (reduced opportunity). Therefore, he must do something different so he begins to plan for a way around you.


4. In the case of Uvalde, a troubled and broken young person wanted to attack the school (desire). He had guns and the ability to use them. He was able to enter the building through an open door (opportunity).


5. You have a student who has made a threat to attack the school (desire). You begin a threat assessment and find the student to be a danger to themselves and others (desire & ability). You begin to counsel, guide, and help the student. Getting him to choose something else besides violence is difficult (desire). You implement an intervention and management plan which has several requirements such as the student must arrive early before morning arrival, can’t ride the bus, can’t carry a backpack, and must leave early each day (removing/reducing opportunity).



As you can see, reducing or removing opportunity is the easiest and often the most effective because we have total control over it and to remove it often requires small things like locking a door. As you consider your next steps to make your school safer, always start first with removing opportunity.




It doesn’t mean that you will or should ignore the other two elements. Working on one also impacts the other two.




If you remove opportunity, the person will have to delay in order to obtain a higher skill set (ability). This delay may help to diminish their desire since they can’t do it or don’t believe they will get away with it.




Either way, work first on removing opportunity. Do the little things. Lock doors, perfect your lockdowns, engage with your students and these efforts will reward you with big victories.






How to Survive a School Attack

June 6, 2022 From the course Without Mercy

It’s clear that the national debate about how to end and prevent school attacks will not be sorted out any time soon (if ever). I worry that in our drive for long term solutions that we’re ignoring the immediate and personal needs of teachers, students, and parents. After all, any solution that takes longer than a day is too long for those who needed it yesterday.

In this article, I want to share something immediate that every teacher, student, and parent can use to be safer today. This isn’t theory but careful observation and years of study. Not only study of school attackers but more importantly of survivors. We’ve discovered that those who survive a school attack do the same three things.



1. Act fast
   They move fast and respond quickly. They don’t wait but leap into action. They act fast!


2. Space & Distance
   They put some space—a door, desk, wall, classroom, anything between them and the attacker therefore gaining distance from the violence.


3. Survive
   They do whatever it takes to survive.



So, what does this mean to you, how does it work, and how do you apply it?



1. If you’re a teacher and you hear “lockdown” or extreme violence erupts in your school, don’t wait but act fast and immediately run to the classroom door. Don’t walk but run! If the door is not already closed, close it and get out of the way. By closing the door you have put space between you and the attacker and therefore gained distance.
   
   It is common for school attackers to shoot through closed doors but not to fight their way in. By acting fast and immediately gaining space & distance (closing the door), you’ve given yourself and your students a 99% chance to survive.
   


2. Always keep your classroom door locked! Trying to perform a fine motor skill such as locking a door is extremely difficult or even impossible. Never put yourself in that position! You can’t act fast enough to get the space & distance that you need and therefore it becomes harder to survive. Always, always lock your classroom door!


3. Space & distance is the key for deciding what to do when it comes to Run, Hide, and Fight.
   
   For example, if you have space & distance (an object between you and the attacker which gives you distance) you can probably hide. If you don’t have or can’t keep space & distance (it appears the attacker will enter your classroom), then that usually means that you should run. If you do run, go out the window. Those who go out the window survive because it gives you space (walls/windows) and distance from the school.
   
   The ’fight’ element of run, hide, fight is very confusing because fighting is almost always explained as going physical with the attacker and most people don’t want to. The truth is that everyone fights in an attack…they just fight the best way they can.
   
   If you run, you’re fighting!
   
   If you hide, you’re fighting!
   
   If you survive, you’re fighting!
   
   Should you not be able to maintain space & distance from the attacker and you are directly confronted, try to go physical with the attacker. Other teachers and students have stopped school attacks by going physical…so can you!
   
   Adopt a survival mindset and do whatever you must to survive!


4. If you’re a principal, teacher, or staff member never leave your hide position unless you’re willing to go physical.
   
   This is a hard and fast rule because to do so means you’re closing with the threat and therefore reducing your space & distance. If you leave for any reason you must be prepared to physically attack the threat.


5. Most people survive a school attack by hiding in their classrooms. A hide position that gives you cover is the best position. Cover is when bullets cannot hit you such as behind a cinderblock wall. Always look for cover!
   
   Concealment is the next best position (you can’t be seen but you can be hit by bullets). It’s good but not the best.


6. If you’re outside during recess, act fast by running away from the building towards a predetermined meeting location. By running away from the building the students are typically spread out and you’re automatically getting space (fields, homes, other structures) and distance. It is almost always a better idea to run from the building than to run back into the building.
   
   Recess worries a lot of teachers but the truth is that it’s better to be outside than inside during an attack. I know of only two attacks that have taken place outside. They are very rare.




Last point—schools have 2 natural benefits—size and strength.

On average, school attackers gain access into 6 classrooms or fewer. That’s because the size of the building makes it impossible to attack every classroom. We forget just how big our schools are and how impossible it is to run to every classroom before action is taken to stop the threat. If we act fast and transition even quicker into a lockdown (less than 7 seconds) then we will make it even harder to get into any classrooms.

The other natural benefit of our schools is our classroom doors and frames which have been strengthened to resist fire. This has been a tremendous help by also making it extremely difficult to break into classrooms. It is not an understatement to say that it has saved an untold number of lives. However, none of it helps if we don’t lock our doors!

Please lock your classroom doors!

Act fast, get space & distance, do whatever you must to survive…and lock your classroom doors!





The Pros and Cons of Arming Teachers

June 1, 2022 From the course Without Mercy

Test everything. Keep what is good. Do no harm.

When it comes to school safety, that should be our motto. Unfortunately, the question of arming or not arming teachers has spiraled away from this success oriented concept and instead has turned into an ugly brawl. For too many it’s become an issue of either you agree with me and that makes you a good person or you don’t agree with me which makes you a bad person. This type of discourse will never make our schools safer. All that truly matters is whether arming or not arming teachers is a good idea or a bad idea.

Here's where it starts and must end.

With that in mind, here are my pros and cons to help you decide whether you think it’s a good or bad idea for your school.

PROS

1. Shortened response time
   The national average for police officers to arrive at a school during an attack is 3 minutes. Having an armed person capable of confronting the attacker will reduce that time from minutes to seconds. This is a tremendous pro because we’ve learned that every second saved is a potential life saved. It really has come down to time…to seconds.
   
   We know it and school attackers know it. We read it in their journals and see it in their behaviors. The Sandy Hook murderer deliberately parked his car in such a way so that he could increase his time in the school before officers arrived (I won’t share exactly how he did it so that the same tactic won’t be used against another school).
   
   As we have seen from recent events, a lightning fast response is critical and therefore being able to reduce your response from minutes to seconds is clearly the single greatest pro for arming staff members.


2. Delay
   School attackers on average spend 7 months planning and preparing to attack a school. The uncertainty of not knowing who or how many staff members are armed may force the attacker to delay. Almost always any delay is in our favor because it gives us more time to spot an indicator of danger and therefore a greater chance to intervene and prevent the attack from taking place.


3. Deterrence
   A school attacker in South Carolina shared online that he was going to attack the elementary school because the middle school was too far away and it had an SRO. One of the major commonalities among school attackers is that they are not looking for a fight—but victims. It’s the reason why only 7-10% of school attackers first engage the SRO. Having more armed personnel will deter some attackers.


4. Confidence
   I’ve personally heard from hundreds if not a thousand teachers and parents who want armed officers in the school. I understand that not everyone does but without a doubt, there will be lots of staff members, students, and parents who will enjoy a higher level of confidence knowing there are more armed personnel inside the school.

CONS

1. Blame
   As a society, we have become very unforgiving. We expect perfection from others but not ourselves. Anyone who chooses to carry in a school must be prepared for the blame that will squarely fall on your shoulders if you do not perform in the exact manner that others expect…regardless of whether they even know what the right thing is to do or if they could even do it themselves. You will be blamed for not being perfect and you will most likely be made to suffer what is known as the second trauma. The first being the violent act you witnessed and the second being the hatred you will be forced to endure.
   
   I’m not saying that teachers shouldn’t be armed because of this danger. Law enforcement contends with this daily and they still choose to accept that risk because they value justice over personal safety. It’s just that any staff member who decides to be armed must be prepared to be blamed…even if there was nothing they could have done.


2. Obligation
   Being a protector carries a heavy obligation. It means that you may have to take a life to save a life. Arming staff members carries a certain level of obligation to protect others which means that teachers may be forced to kill someone. That someone may be one of their students or fellow staff members. The worst case of school violence in America was perpetrated by the school treasurer.
   
   Anyone choosing to arm themselves must fully accept this enormous obligation.


3. Weapon retention
   Once I was fighting a guy on a porch and he tried to rip my weapon out of my holster. I didn’t see it coming because it was pitch-black and I was hanging on to the top of him. A bolt of lightning raced through me and I mashed down his hands with mine to stop him from pulling out my gun. We were literally fighting over my gun and he was pulling so hard that he spun me sideways. Luckily, my holster had a triple lock which means that to draw my pistol I had to do three things simultaneously. The bad guy couldn’t. This is a purposeful design and it saved my life.
   
   Anyone carrying inside a school, whether it’s a pistol or rifle, must have the absolute means, training, ability, and mindset to retain their weapon. This may be the greatest con—weapon retention. If you cannot retain your weapon you are giving the attacker a weapon. And to prove that this is a very real danger, an SRO told me how he stopped a school attack and while questioning the student whether he had a gun, the kid said that he didn’t but he knew where to get one. When pressed, the student said he was going to take the scissors out of his teacher’s desk (he named the teacher), he was then going to stab the SRO in the neck, take his gun and magazines, and attack the school.
   
   If you cannot retain your weapon, it is better not to have a weapon in school.


4. Policies
   Learning how to shoot is relatively easy and you can be proficient in one day. Knowing when and when not to shoot is much more difficult and can take years of experience to perfect. Arming teachers will require extensive and well thought out policies so armed staff armed members know exactly when and when not to engage. It seems like a simple thing to arm a person until you consider the confusing situations that they may find themselves in such as, an attack is taking place and you are in your classroom. Do you unlock your door, leave your kindergarten students alone, and run down the hall to confront the attacker? What if your students panic and run from the room? What if there are two attackers in different parts of the school? Where do you go first? Do you shoot at the attacker if there are students behind him? What if you hit them? Where do you shoot the attacker in the body? If you’re running down the hall how do you clearly identify yourself so that the responding police officers don’t think you’re the attacker and accidently shoot you? This happens to off duty officers trying to help.
   
   I could go on and on but any person arming themselves must have incredibly tight polices to protect themselves and others. It’s not that you can’t do it but that it won’t be easy and it’s going to take great thought and effort.


5. Personal change
   When you arm a teacher they will still be a teacher but now they will also become a protector. Many can do it and carry both roles. Some will find it difficult. Everyone will experience some personal change. It doesn’t mean for the worse, just a change.
   I would never go back and not have been a Marine or a police officer but without a doubt, it has taken its toll on me. I am a different person because of it. I’m not saying better or worse, just different. Being a protector changes you. It’s inevitable. If teachers carry this dual role it will change them. In one role they educate students in another role they may be obligated to shoot a student. That is a conflict certain to create personal change.




If you’re a parent, teacher, principal, or superintendent, I hope this was beneficial. I’m available if you’d like to discuss any of the points, need help with policies, or just would like some additional clarification. I’m here and happy to help!

I would like to end this post by reminding you of a few things.

We’re never going to arm all teachers. The national discourse is making it sound like every classroom will and must have an armed teacher. That will never happen and neither should it. Whether you decide to arm a few select volunteers is no one’s decision but yours—you and your parents.

If you’re wrestling with whether this is a good idea for your school, try not to be too hard on yourself. Arming teachers is no longer a theory. It’s already happening and some teachers have been doing it since 2018. You just need to decide if you want to join them by allowing a few volunteers to be armed. National pressure is making it sound as if this is the only thing that will prevent school attacks. It’s not. There have been many school attacks where there was an armed, expertly trained and equipped police officer in the building, and the school was still attacked. There was an SRO at Columbine and the school was still attacked.

Last point, a safety layer is a human, mechanical, or procedural feature that a potential attacker must contend with. A safety filter is a feature or procedure to scan for dangerous behaviors. The more safety filters and layers you have the safer your school will be. The less you have the more vulnerable you are to violence.

Without a doubt, arming a few select volunteers has benefits and drawbacks. Should you choose this path, you will be adding one more safety layer. It shouldn’t and can’t be the only layer…just one more.





What we know about school attacks…and how it can help you!


May 31, 2022 From the course Assess & Progress