School Safety

Schools on lockdown and students getting shot. El Camino Real High School and Gardena High School were in recent news when each campus was faced with the dangers of gunmen. Only a day separating them, both incidents impacted lives in ways that are not supposed to occur on grounds made for teaching and learning. In the case of the Gardena shooting, a student was shot in the head and another in the neck as the gun in a student’s backpack fired.

When I learned about the situation, I thought of how horrible it was that something like this was happening. I wondered what the students felt like. They woke up and went to school just like they would any other day, but that day was completely different. Some looking from the outside would ask what type of school it is and in what sort of area is it located in. That does not matter. People think these like this will not happen in their area, but it could happen anywhere.

I attended Hawthorne High School here in California. It was not the best of high schools according to state standards, but never once did I feel as though something bad would happen at school. Yes, there were some racial issues and gang affiliations, but they were not threatening to my education. I got ready for school every day, never thinking today is the day someone brings a gun to school. Our situations are different, but I do not think anyone at Gardena High thought someone would either. Had it crossed my mind? It was a possibility, but highly unlikely.

Still, this was a horrible situation and listening to the news, I could not help but get annoyed at what one reporter said. I have forgotten the exact words, but the reporter said that parents of 16 year olds could sit more at ease because the girl shot was 15. That statement had some truth to it, but it was still so uncalled for. The only ease that gives to parents is that their child was not harmed, but the parents are still worried. Someone took a gun to the school their child attends. There is not a lot of ease in that fact.

Again, drawing from my years at Hawthorne, I remember a time where we were put on lockdown due to some actions by a few, unruly students. Ours did not last as long as the one at El Camino Real High and it was not due to a student with a gun as it was in Gardena. In our case, the student had a suspicious weapon; a knife, I think. We were placed on lockdown, for maybe thirty minutes, and then were released. We were told to go home. I found my friend who lived on the same block as me and she said her sister was on her way to pick us up. All of a sudden my phone rang and it was my mom. She had heard the story on the news and came over immediately. My father saw the news at the doctor’s office and our family all the way in Costa Rica saw it too. They were all worried, but many of the students were still clueless about what was going on. Even though there was no shooting, there was worry.

There is no ease when something like that happens. In all aspects of life, the situations are scary. They are even sadder when students are shot. They are supposed to be in a place where they should be taken care of and things like this happen. It is a horrible thought, but it is a million times more beautiful when students can return to school with no fear, but hopes that those injured can one day return in the same fashion.

~Michelle Mitchell