Glenbard Schools Targeted for Violence

By Naazish YarKhan, #CollegeEssay Coach, WritersStudio.us CEO

Phew! That is all I can say. November 1, early decision/ early action deadlines have been met. I was literally working with WritersStudio.us students on their #commonapp #essays right up to the nth hour!!

One of my students wrote about his experience at school facing 2 bomb threats and an active shooter threat all in 2023. They turned out to be hoaxes but were still traumatic. According to NBC Chicago, in IL alone, there were a whooping 36 schools that were impacted similarly just between Jan 2023 and Aug 2023. Even towns like Glen Ellyn, IL are on the list, including Glenbard West. In May 2023, "a student allegedly threatened other students with a firearm while in the school parking lot" at Glenbard South.

According to School Shooting Statistics 2023, 43,000 kids witnessed gunfire in school in 2022, alone.

He wasn't the first WritersStudio.us student to write on the topic. Naperville Central student Reham Fahad, then 14, for a WriterStuduio.us assignment, drew on her own experience with school shooter drills. Per the parameters of the writing workshop, she included interviews and research, citing various sources to write an #article. WritersStudio.us has students submit their work for potential publication and that is how Fahad's piece came to be published by Islamic Horizons in 2020. She continued on to becoming a freelance writer for them, building her #college #resume. Here is an excerpt from her piece that was published in 2020 but, unfortunately, continues to be relevant:

"As we’re all working in class, we hear a shrill siren screeching over the school’s PA system. By now, we all recognize the sound immediately and head to our places. We crouch by cabinets and huddle close together, while our teacher locks the door. We’ve reached the year’s third school shooter drill and it’s only December.

It’s now routine for our entire school to get into place after barricading doors and switching off the lights. Some students joke about the situation but most, including myself, are anxious. Even after the staff informs us it’s a drill, the thought of this someday being a reality is truly terrifying.

For some students, these drills are a way to get out of classwork. However, for students like me, we see it as preparation for the moment we do have a school shooting. The thought of being trapped in a building with a shooter is scary in itself, and when the school district repeatedly practices intruder drills, it shows there is a high chance this will occur. The increasing rates of mass shootings is a stressful thought, and having constant drills to remind us of this adds to the stress a student already faces. Some days we wake up feeling nervous, not knowing if we’ll make it back home alive.....

The intruder drills may prepare us, but they also feed our fear and despair. In some situations, survivors of earlier violence may experience a resurfacing of panic, because the drills can cause them to remember how they had felt then. They can cause people to feel trapped, like they’re drowning in their own memories. These drills are good for our safety, but not for our mental health, for they negatively affect child survivors of violence and may end up adding to their trauma.

While schools do prepare students for the worst, it doesn't eliminate the fact that people will continue to put children’s safety at risk. Instead of school administrators and law enforcement asking “How can we keep our students safe when there is an active shooter?” they should look at the issue from a new perspective, focus on the source and find effective ways to help improve our mental health and keep (students) from feeling despair and loneliness.

Counseling.org reports, “78% of school shooters had a history of suicide attempts or suicidal ideations prior to their attack.” With more mental health awareness and care, the numbers of school shootings can drop drastically and can help keep students safer.

According to lawcenter.giffords.org, “1,500 children are shot and killed each year.” While many government and law enforcement agencies work towards keeping the general public safe during active shooter emergencies, they may arrive too late to prevent casualties.

The easiest way to minimize these emergencies is to tighten gun laws. The same source continues, “On average, fewer people die from gun violence in states with strong gun laws and more people die in states with weak gun laws.” Tightening gun laws will allow people who need a gun to feel safe to have access to them, while preventing the wrong people from easily gaining access to them.

The jury is out as to these drills’ effectiveness. Cecilia Burke, 14, of Naperville North Highschool, Illinois, says, “Going to school and acknowledging the fact that I could die from a shooter shouldn't be deemed as a normal danger when going to a place of education. When I went to visit family in Ireland, the conversation of shooter drills came up. I asked my cousins if they had these drills in their schools. They looked at me in shock and said, ‘no’. Shooter drills aren't normal, and American school children are taught that their lives are less important than the ‘American right’ to own a firearm."

Burke says that while drills do help keep students safe, such exercises should never reach a point where it can be viewed as ‘normal’. The constant reminders that students can be killed at any moment in our places of education negatively affects their mental-wellbeing, she says.

Although students like her agree that these drills have negative side effects, others believe they are for the best. Connor Ciske, 14, a high school student in Lombard, Ill., states, “School Shooter drills are just like earthquake drills. These are very real situations we all have to prepare for to improve safety and well-being for us and those around us.”
But while Connor does make a strong point, is it fair to ask if our methods are working if they put the mental health of students at risk?

Both weaker gun laws and lack of mental health support and awareness are major contributors to the alarming increase in gun violence and school shootings. Putting tighter laws on gun ownership, and working towards improving basic mental health can be extremely successful in putting a stop to frequent school shootings. Hundreds of thousands of lives can be saved by making these changes to the way we approach gun violence incidents.

The thought of being in a school shooting is absolutely frightening. However, we, as a society, can all step up and work towards making these changes and improving the safety of the general public."

Those are the thoughts of a 14 year old. Let that sink in.

At my husband's work, this year, they began having shooter drills, too. It is shocking to me how the onus has been transferred to average Americans to save themselves. Just how are we letting this happen to us? How?

And our elected officials do little about guns or keeping us safe. And they continue to get re-elected. I cannot imagine how we, as Americans, have gotten this blase that the status quo remains so ? How?

( Image hotpot.ai/art-generator)

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