- Target:
- School Board and Larry Hogan
- Region:
- United States of America
This petition is not in anyway connected to any gun regulation, that is another conversation that needs to happen but not here. The sole purpose of this petition is a call for action to make our schools safer as soon as possible and does not replace, discourage, or encourage any legislation that is currently being discussed in regards to gun regulation.
When evaluating threats you take care of them in order of urgency. The immediate threat of an active shooter on a campus has been taken care of (for now). Next we focus on the threat of someone else being able to walk onto a campus, unchallenged, with a weapon of any sort. By focusing on this tier of threat we eliminate the first from happening again. It should not matter what type of gun, or how many guns a student has gotten ahold of because they shouldn’t be able to walk through the door. This should be the first and immediate measure to secure our children’s safety and does not preclude any additional measures.
It is understood that any plan that is put into action will take time and money to implement, but we need to begin as soon as possible. How much are our children’s lives worth? Everyone is going to put a price tag on school security and argue about covering the cost, but we can say that to us their lives are invaluable and we should do whatever it takes to make sure that no more parents have to bury their children due to an avoidable act. It should also be noted that the budget for school security should not be taken out of the already shoestring budget. Our children are our future and their education and safety should be important to us.
We have allowed this to continue for far too long. Make the investment in our children. They are our future. But they can’t be our future if they don’t even make it out of their school alive. We send our children to school to learn; not to leave in a body bag.
We, the undersigned, call on the school board (County and State) and the Governor, Larry Hogan, to immediately address the issue of school security in our state. With the most recent deaths associated with gun violence in our country, the time is now to make sure that our children are safe walking the halls of their schools.
We are proposing that:
• All side doors be continuously locked with students being forced to use one door for entering and exiting the building (except in case of an emergency). This is less an issue for Elementary and Middle Schools and more for High Schools where students may have a half day at a technical school and need to access their vehicles. These students currently can use a side door to get to the appropriate parking area.
• Teachers take a yearly active shooter training class in order to be better prepared in case of an emergency (no this does not include arming teachers, but instead would be practical ways to incapacitate the shooter and things they can do to keep their class safe)
• Armed security be stationed at the front door (this could be security hired for this specific purpose or a detail for a police officer in the jurisdiction)
• Metal detectors be installed in every school
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The Keep Our Children Safe petition to School Board and Larry Hogan was written by Kristina Duncan and is in the category Students' Rights at GoPetition.