Districts Implementation of Active Shooter Drill Policies

High-profile school shootings provoke public outcry and calls for policy responses to gun violence in schools. However, policy makers face pressure from diverse stakeholders with distinct agendas, and in some areas, there is little empirical research to guide policy makers’ decisions. Active shooter drills are one such example of a hotly debated policy response in need of further study. As a preliminary step to filling this research gap, this mixed-methods study investigated how school districts in Florida have implemented active shooter drills following legislation passed after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. We analyzed school safety specialists’ perceptions and reports of drill procedures and their alignment with best practices. The majority of the districts surveyed aligned with Best Practices established by the National Association of School Psychologists and National Association of School Resource Officers. Implications for future research and considerations for the implementation of active shooter drills are discussed.

School Shootings and Trauma-Sensitive School Environment

School shootings are traumatic events that have detrimental impacts on children. Studies revealed that after the school shooting children can suffer from traumatic symptoms which cause difficulties in learning and relationships. Traumas negatively affect developing brain structures of the children which can lead to long-term problems. For that reason, the trauma sensitive schools (TSS) model, which aimed to provide safe and secure environments for children, can be helpful to support the children and to improve their well-being after the school shooting.

Building Stronger Connections Among Students, Families, and Schools to Promote School Safety

Safe schools help promote positive social, academic, and educational outcomes. Research consistently suggests that students tend to be most successful in schools where they feel safe. For example, prior literature establishes that when students attend safe schools, they are more likely to graduate from high school compared to students who attend schools with behavioral problems or safety concerns. Over the last three decades, school shootings have garnered increased public attention, and the public has a heightened awareness that not all schools are safe environments for students. Drawing from ecological systems theory, this chapter will examine how the bonds between students and their schools are important for creating a school culture that is safe, inclusive, and supports the success of all students. Bridging social capital between families and schools also helps foster a safe school atmosphere, where students can focus on their academic and social development.

School Shootings and Therapeutic Interventions for Traumatized Victims

This study attempts an encapsulation of school shooting as a strand of mass violence with the purpose of presenting a perceived effective approach that could be therapeutically adopted for handling traumatized victims of school shooting incidents, particularly traumatized students. School violence involving firearms and high fatalities have been trending in many parts of the world. Pathetically, most of the students who are victims of school shootings receive inadequate or no therapeutic interventions that could help them to recover from the emotional trauma that usually accompany school violence. Students with trauma symptoms experience dysfunctional adaptation, leading to impairment of daily functionality, distortions in peer interactivity, and disruptive self-expressivity. This study leans on family system theory and elucidates how the application of this theory could help the traumatized to regain themselves psychosocially in order to maintain adaptation to function properly in the school or community.

Getting Back to a “New Normal”

Violence in educational institutions compounds and accumulates in our collective memory, as school shootings have become a ubiquitous phenomenon. When a young man carrying three guns entered Dawson College in Montréal, the downtown core came to a standstill. As bullets sprayed and ricocheted, one young woman was killed, 19 others wounded, and a community of 10,000 students, teachers, and staff were traumatized. This research employed a qualitative methodology, interviewing 10 senior administrators and managers in-depth. Findings document the salient role grief leadership played in restoring balance and an educational focus in the wake of a shooting on campus and served to reshape the community into one of learning, resilience, and courage. It details specific actions taken by administrators, which promoted healing and re-established equilibrium at a site of grief, loss, and terror. Administrative responses proved essential in helping to re-establish thriving at Dawson College.

Silent Witness

The present study traces campus climate at Virginia Tech, site of the deadliest school massacre in modern U.S. history, from 2003 to 2017. Using the unobtrusive method of content analysis as a measure of campus climate, data in the form of desktop graffiti—student-authored graffiti on classroom desktops—is analyzed according to amount and content. A total of 1,443 desks are studied, resulting in 8,172 pieces of intelligible graffiti analyzed. Data collected prior to the massacre is compared to data collected one semester, one year, and one decade following the massacre. From this emerges an unobtrusively painted picture of campus climate at Virginia Tech over the course of 14 years, spanning before and after tragic events. The present study adds to the literature on classroom culture post-campus violence and speaks to the subtler, often obscured, impacts of school shootings.

Fear vs. Threat, School Shootings and Violence

The first recorded school shooting took place in Charlottesville, Virginia on November 12, 1840. The most recent school shooting took place on July 11, 2019 in Hartford, Connecticut. Over 500 school shootings have taken place since the Charlottesville incident. Sadly, school shootings are not an anomaly to many communities in America. Administrators, and particularly principals, are faced with significant challenges in creating an environment that is conducive to the development of a productive and safe school culture. The content of this manuscript will explore the existing administrative roles and responsibilities with respect to school safety and the implementation and supervision of those procedures. Also discussed in the manuscript will be the role that fear plays in the decision making process and how some decisions may be misplaced and could be redirected toward more favorable areas of emphasis (i.e., counseling, active supervision, alternative academic options, community outreach, and inclusive student opportunities).

Addressing “Another” in the Aftermath of School Shootings Using Dance and Rhetoric

This chapter investigates dance and rhetoric as resources for sensemaking and discussing school shootings in their aftermath, such that people might speak to one another empathetically and respond as active agents of change. Inspired by the production process and performance of “Equipment for Living: An Artistic Exploration of School Shootings,” the 2019 dance concert choreographed by the author, community is proposed as an additional resource for addressing and healing from school shootings. Burke's dramatism is paired with his concept of “equipment for living” to discuss dance as an alternative to traditional media, such as print journalism, for addressing “another” in the aftermath of school shootings. Another refers to (1) people conjured in the act of performance, collaborators involved in the production process of media, and audience members invited to participate as active viewers and (2) the problem of rhetorically framing school shootings with the term “another.”