Parents Must Be Free To Choose Safe Schools

 

Recent coverage of school violence makes clear some parents are apt to entrust, nearly completely, judgement of their own children’s safety to school districts, and police departments.  Such notions of delegated parenting create perilous conditions that threaten children. 

 

No sensible analysis of school safety can begin without first agreeing on a timeless, universal principle:  It is the right and responsibility of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children. 

 

Those of us who advocate best practices for robust school security stand to accomplish far more in safeguarding American schoolchildren by first educating parents about what they should expect of their schools.   Logically, if a school cannot meet a parent’s expectations, parents should be fully empowered to easily move their child to a school that can. 

 

Perspective is critical.  Though events like last month’s Parkland, Florida school shooting are rare, it’s nonetheless worthy that solemn attention is paid to them.  These episodes ought to inspire parents, and safety professionals alike to review procedures, and refine precautions despite assurances the vast majority of American students will never encounter deadly violence at school. 

 

Parents should assess whether proactive strategies are undertaken to address four basic categories recommended by experts:  Prevention, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.  We’re fortunate in Northern Colorado that cooperative efforts between the Poudre School District, and emergency responders rather aggressively attend these core considerations.

 

Yet, each school is unique.  To deter violent incidents, judicious schools maintain sensible student discipline, and virtuous behavioral expectations.  Strategies should nurture prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, and proper manners.

 

A safe school is competent in identifying mental-health issues and facilitating support for emotional stability.  School personnel should know their students, and their families. 

 

Students who indicate a capacity to harm others should be identified for intervention for the sake of their own wellbeing, and that of others.  Some schools promote anonymous-tip portals, and strategies encouraging peers, parents and others to pass along concerns about suspicious behavior.  

 

Schools should be teeming with adult volunteers.  Schools that reject loving parents in the building are hazardous.  Children learn better when they feel surrounded by competent adults who will protect them; who are prepared to neutralize threats. 

 

With certitude, teachers must be able to address safety-related questions, and communicate their role in protecting students.  Parents should consider preventative elements of school design and the architecture of the school building itself.  

 

Blind corners, recessed doorways, and hiding places might need to be addressed or remediated.  School personnel must be well drilled for school-wide responses to everything from extreme weather, floods, fire, disease, to violence.  Schools should be capable to conduct mass-notifications to parents of events. 

 

Being prepared also means projecting safety.  Is there a school-safety officer on site?  How many?  What’s the response time for emergency personnel?   The school’s intercom system, school-entry control, intrusion-monitoring system, and security cameras should be reliable.  

 

These features help determine the extent to which coordination and visibility for response teams are possible in the event of an emergency.  The Fort Collins Police Department, and the Larimer County Sheriff’s Department routinely conduct school-safety walkthroughs.  Residents benefit from verified integration with jurisdictions including fire departments and hospitals. 

 

Finally, parents should understand a school’s capacity to recover from an incident.  Does the administration and faculty possess resilient, professional integrity to pull together, regain institutional focus, and comfort students?

 

Non-charter public schools are commonly unionized, bureaucratized, government-owned, monopoly institutions.  That’s not a criticism.  It’s simply the reality of what they’re legislated to be. 

 

Like all bureaucracies, government-owned schools are wholly incapable substitutes for parents.  They aren’t designed for this purpose; nor should they be.  No school has an obligation to protect children that is greater than the parents’ responsibility to protect their own children.

 

To be sure, safety isn’t the only variable parents consider in making such an important choice.  Whether in the case of school safety, or the broader mission of thorough education, politicians should ensure parents enjoy the widest possible menu of options for choosing their child’s school.  

 

Accordingly, we should all be empowered to vigorously exercise our right to direct the education and upbringing of our own children.  When schools don’t measure up to the expectations of discerning parents, it is their moral obligation and solemn American duty to promptly move their children to schools that do.