In what has become a startling trend, there was another school shooting Nov. 8 in Tennessee. Three school administrators were shot by a 15-year-old freshman, killing an assistant principal and injuring the other two. Other students in the school had seen Kenneth Bartley with the gun, and when he was brought into the office concerning the students' reports, Bartley opened fire.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Although the number of annual shooting incidents in schools is very small, it is still extremely concerning. As a former educator, I can't imagine anything more terrifying than having one of your students pull a gun on you.
Even though it's not officially listed in the job description, teachers do have some sort of responsibility to help kids when they are troubled. But if there's even a remote possibility the kid is going to pull a gun on you, why would you even attempt to try?
Despite having a license to teach social studies in the state of Indiana, I don't think I've ever been considered an outcast, and I'm not a psychiatrist, so I don't have the first idea what the mindset of these kids could be.
What issues are there? Are there parental problems?
Beyond that, I'm not even sure there are actual solutions.
Although Tennessee is spending $4.9 million dollars this year on school safety, Dale Yeager, a consultant for this type of incident, agrees the problem wasn't lack of safety funding. In an article for the Southern Standard in McMinnville, Tenn., he claims it was a failure of the school's emergency planning.
"All the school shootings in this country were preventable had someone stepped up and had a systematic way of identifying violent children, understanding how cliques work, understanding the connection between truancy and violence and actually interceding in these children's lives," Yeager said.
Some argue even more money needs to be spent in this area, but more money isn't possible because there is too much pressure to meet test score mandates and "No Child Left Behind" standards.
I'm not 100 percent sure I buy this argument - a lot of the problem falls on the parents' shoulders, too. The parents of Bartley had attempted to help their child out by admitting him to a place called Kingswood School, which is a private Christian school that takes in students who have had trouble at school or at home. However, the parents pulled him from the school because they felt he was cured, even though administrators felt differently. Ultimately, these types of decisions fall to the parents, whether the issue be with academics or at home.
The three administrators were brave in preventing this from being another Columbine. The principal, for instance, was able to get to the intercom after being shot and immediately put the school on lockdown. I just can't imagine how I would be able to handle myself in a situation like that - just the thought makes me sick.
It is unfortunate that an assistant principal lost his life trying to take the gun away from Bartley, but the administrator might have saved many others. This time around, it was just one unruly kid - no "Trench Coat Mafia."
To paraphrase sportswriter Bill Simmons, in a comment that sums up this situation perfectly: When I was in school, there was the kid who peed his pants, the kid who ate his own boogers and the kid who stuttered. There wasn't the kid who came to school and shot everybody.
Write to Phil at prfriend@bsu.edu
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