Being inside a school used to be a haven. We only had to be concerned about a few fights inside the school grounds. But that has changed over the years. Students and teachers now have to be concerned and worried about someone coming into schools with much more violence than the tug-and-grab of fist fights on the blacktop.
What happened in St. Louis, so close to home this past month, was horrendous, and even though there weren’t countless lives lost, one, and in this case, two, are two too many. I don’t know all the answers, but I know some things have to be done that could help the situation of school shootings and mass shootings in general. But will we ever get there is the question. I mean, I just wrote a post about this five months ago!
My heart goes to the victims’ families at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School (affectionately known as VAP). My heart goes out to the staff and students of the schools in the St. Louis Public School District. My heart goes out to every educator, pupil, and school across this land. It’s not fair, and it’s not how it should be, but unfortunately, it’s where we are. My wife is a graduate of VAP. The building was at a different location then, but it’s still home for her. When I texted her to see if she had heard what had happened, she responded with a crying emoji. The news shook her up but she also stressed how worrisome it must be as a teacher. I confirmed.
The day after this tragic incident, I had to go to school and wondered if I would hold up the entire school day without losing it. I hoped and prayed that nothing would happen to us. Many parents kept their students home from school the next day mainly because of social media threats against our school (and many others in the area). Authorities ultimately deemed the threats not credible (I still don’t understand what that means). The incident and the threats were in the back of my mind, as I’m sure held true for many other parents, students, and educators, but we made it through the day, we made it through the week; we made it through the first term unscathed. As we head towards the end of the first semester, hopefully we will have another semester, another summer, another fall, winter, and spring with no school shootings…we can only hope and pray.