Reactions to the NRA’s proposal for more guns in schools have ranged from supportive to disgusted.

The nation’s largest gun-rights lobby on Dec. 21 called for the placement of an armed police officer in every school, but parents and educators question how safe such a move would keep kids, whether it would be economically feasible, and how it would alter student life. Their reactions ranged from supportive to disgusted.

Already, there are an estimated 10,000 sworn officers serving in schools around the country, most of them armed and employed by local police departments, according to a membership association for the officers. Still, they’re deployed at only a fraction of the country’s approximately 98,000 public schools, and their numbers have declined during the economic downturn.

Some departments have increased police presence at schools since this month’s shooting rampage at a Connecticut elementary school that left 26 dead, but they say they can only do so temporarily because of funding.

The National Rifle Association said at a news conference that it wants Congress to fund armed officers in every American school, breaking its silence on the Connecticut shootings. The idea made sense to some anxious parents and teachers, but provoked outright anger in others.

“Their solution to resolve the issue around guns [in schools] is to put more guns in the equation?” said Superintendent Hank Grishman of the Jericho, N.Y., schools on Long Island, who has been an educator for 44 years. “If anything, it would be less safe for kids. You would be putting them in the midst of potentially more gunfire.”

Where school resource officers are already in place, they help foster connections between the schools and police, and often develop a close enough relationship with parents and children that they feel comfortable coming forward with information that could prevent a threat, said Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers.

But an Oklahoma educator who teaches at a school with armed school resource officers described the National Rifle Association’s proposal as a “false solution,” though she’s not opposed to the presence of more police.

(Next page: Why the NRA’s proposal might not work)

Amid the confusion and sorrow, stories of heroism emerged. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT)

While church leaders and President Barack Obama prepared to comfort a grieving town Dec. 16, federal agents planned to fan out to dozens of gun stores and shooting ranges across Connecticut, chasing leads they hoped would cast light on the life of school shooter Adam Lanza.

Among the questions: Why did his mother, a well-to-do suburban divorcee, keep a cache of high-power weapons in the house? What experience did Lanza have with those guns? And, above all, what set him on a path to shoot and kill 20 children, along with the adults who tried to stop him?

Lanza shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, to death at the home they shared on Dec. 14, then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School in her car with at least three of her guns, forced his way in by breaking a window, and opened fire, authorities said. Within minutes, he killed the children, six adults, and himself.

All the victims at the school were shot with a rifle, at least some of them up close, and all were apparently shot more than once, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. H. Wayne Carver said. All six adults killed at the school were women. Of the 20 children, eight were boys and 12 were girls.

See also:

Leaders eye school safety plans after Connecticut attack

How to talk to children about the Sandy Hook shooting

Could Sandy Hook shooting be a gun-control tipping point?

School safety resources from the eSN archives

Asked whether the children suffered, Carver said, “If so, not for very long.” Asked how many bullets were fired, Carver said, “I’m lucky if I can tell you how many I found.”

Parents identified the children through photos to spare them some shock, Carver said.

The terrible details about the last moments of young innocents emerged as authorities released their names and ages—the youngest 6 and 7, the oldest 56. They included Ana Marquez-Greene, a little girl who had just moved to Newtown from Canada; Victoria Soto, a 27-year-old teacher who apparently died while trying to hide her pupils; and principal Dawn Hochsprung, who authorities said lunged at the gunman in an attempt to overtake him.

The school shooting has plunged Newtown into mourning and added the picturesque New England community of 27,000 people to the grim map of towns where mass shootings in recent years have periodically reignited the national debate over gun control but led to little change.

“It’s just very difficult to be able to … eliminate all those risks,” said Rick Johnson, superintendent of the Mahomet-Seymour Community Schools in Illinois.

The mass killing inside a Connecticut elementary school has educators across the country reviewing their school security measures, reassuring parents, and asking, “What if?”

“Every principal will be going through their own protocols, the things they do on a daily basis to protect their students and staff,” said Dr. Will Keresztes, associate superintendent for student support in the school system in Buffalo, N.Y.

Amid grief and condolences for the 20 children fatally shot Dec. 14 by a gunman in Newtown, Conn., school leaders nationwide sent eMails, text messages, and phone recordings assuring parents and children their schools are safe, while acknowledging the difficult balancing act in keeping that promise.

“It’s just very difficult to be able to, in today’s world, eliminate all those risks,” said Rick Johnson, superintendent of the 3,000-student Mahomet-Seymour Community Schools district in rural eastern Illinois.

Driven by previous school shootings, many district officials say they already lock building doors, require identification from visitors, employ safety officers—some of them off-duty police officers—and have established text-messaging or other mass emergency notification systems for parents. There are metal detectors at some public schools considered at risk for violence, including some schools in New York City and Milwaukee. Portable detectors are brought out as needed in some districts.

At Sandy Hook Elementary, the scene of the Dec. 14 massacre, Principal Dawn Hochsprung wrote a letter before the school year started outlining new safety measures, including locked doors during school hours. Hochsprung was among those killed in the shooting.

The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School stands as a possible tipping point after a decade-long aversion to talking about stricter gun laws.

The question surfaces each time a mass murder unfolds, especially at a school: Will this one change the political calculus in Washington, D.C., against tougher gun control?

The answer, after the Virginia Tech killings, the attempted assassination of Gabby Giffords, the Colorado movie-theater attack, the Wisconsin Sikh temple shootings, and more: No. But now?

The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the bloodiest attack against youngsters in the nation’s history, stands as a possible tipping point after Washington’s decade-long aversion even to talking about stricter gun laws.

So it seems in the stunned aftermath, judging from President Barack Obama’s body language as much as his statement. “We have been through this too many times,” said the famously composed president, this time moved to tears. “We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”

It remains to be seen whether Sandy Hook will break the usual cycle of universal shock fading into political reality. That reality is based on a combination of powerful gun lobbying and public opinion, which has shifted against tougher gun control and stayed that way. However lawmakers react this time, it’s the president’s call whether the issue fades again or takes its place alongside the legacy-shaping initiatives of his time, with all the peril that could mean for his party.

Here are some resources from the eSchool News archives that might help.

In the aftermath of the terrible tragedy in Newtown, Conn., that claimed the lives of 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, school leaders are re-examining their school safety measures and procedures.

Here are some resources from the eSchool News archives that might help. (To read these stories, click on the headlines.)

Columbine’s lessons still sharp, a decade later

A decade after two students opened fire at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colo., killing 13 and injuring dozens more before turning the guns on themselves, the lessons in crisis communications and management gleaned from this tragic event still resonate for school leaders nationwide…

Schools turn to technology to bolster their security–but will it help?

Since Columbine, the terrorist attacks of 2001, and similar acts of violence, “the new normal is increasing the use of technologies to make campuses more secure,” says Ronald Stephens, president of the National School Safety Center in Westlake Village, Calif. But “no system is perfect, and despite all the high technology, the most effective strategy is the physical presence of a responsible adult,” says Stephens…

How to prepare for a crisis

Putting together a crisis management plan is no easy task, but if the school violence of the past few years has taught us anything, it’s that there is no excuse for a school not to have one. So where should you start, and what should your plan include?

More than 20 percent of the apps examined included links to social media services, meaning children could post comments, photos, or videos that could harm their reputations or offend other people.

The government is investigating whether software companies that make cell phone apps have violated the privacy rights of children by quietly collecting personal information from mobile devices and sharing it with advertisers and data brokers, the Federal Trade Commission said Dec. 10.

Such apps can capture a child’s physical location, phone numbers of their friends, and more.

The FTC described the marketplace for mobile applications—dominated by online stores operated by Apple and Google—as a digital danger zone with inadequate oversight over online privacy. In a report by the FTC’s own experts, it said the industry has grown rapidly but has failed to ensure that the privacy of young consumers is adequately protected.

The FTC did not say which or how many companies it was investigating.

Among 400 apps designed for kids examined by the FTC, most failed to inform parents about the types of data the app could gather and who could access it, the report said. Others apps contained advertising that most parents would find objectionable or included links to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media services where kids post information about themselves.

The report said mobile apps can siphon data to “invisible and unknown” third parties that could be used to develop a detailed profile of a child without a parent’s knowledge or consent.

“It’s not hypothetical that this information was shared,” said Jessica Rich, associate director of the FTC’s financial practices division.

The FTC also said it was investigating whether any of the apps developers engaged in unfair or deceptive trade practices, which would be illegal.

A trade group representing app developers said the industry’s growth has been fueled largely by small businesses, first-time developers, and even high school students who do not have legal departments or privacy experts on staff. The FTC’s report is a reminder of the importance of educating developers on best practices for privacy, the Washington, D.C.-based Association for Competitive Technology said in a statement.

In one case mentioned in the FTC report, an app that allows children to paint pictures and save them in an online photo gallery didn’t indicate that it included advertising. But investigators said the app ran an ad across the bottom of the screen for an online dating service that said, “See 1000+ Singles.”

A Texas student is suing the Northside Independent School District over its SmartID student-tracking technology.

To 15-year-old Andrea Hernandez, the tracking microchip embedded in her student ID card is a “mark of the beast,” sacrilege to her Christian faith—not to mention how it pinpoints her location, even in the school bathroom.

But to her budget-reeling San Antonio school district, those chips carry a potential $1.7 million in classroom funds.

Starting this fall, the fourth-largest school district in Texas is experimenting with “locator” chips in student ID badges on two of its campuses, allowing administrators to track the whereabouts of 4,200 students with GPS-like precision. Hernandez’s refusal to participate isn’t a twist on teenage rebellion, but it has launched a debate over privacy and religion that has forged a rare like-mindedness between typically opposing groups.

When Hernandez and her parents balked at the so-called SmartID, the school agreed to remove the chip but still required her to wear the badge. The family refused on religious grounds, stating in a lawsuit that even wearing the badge was tantamount to “submission of a false god” because the card still indicated her participation.

A state district judge had been expected to decide Nov. 28 whether Northside Independent School District could transfer Hernandez to a different campus. But the family’s attorney said late on Nov. 27 that the hearing was cancelled after the school district asked that the case be moved to federal court. A new hearing hasn’t been set.

“How often do you see an issue where the ACLU and Christian fundamentalists come together? It’s unusual,” said Chris Steinbach, the chief of staff for a Republican state lawmaker who has filed a bill to outlaw the technology in Texas schools.

The rules ban all messages that violate school regulations or “harass, bully, or intimidate employees or other students.”

It soon will be illegal for a student to bully a teacher online in North Carolina, under an expansion of the state’s cyber bullying law that goes into effect Dec. 1 and might be the first of its kind in the country.

The School Violence Prevention Act of 2012 will make it a misdemeanor for students to post something online “with the intent to intimidate or torment a school employee.” It builds on a similar law passed in 2009 that criminalized online bullying of a student or a student’s parent or guardian.

Legislators say the law is necessary to keep up with the rise of students on social media.

“On the internet, if it’s in print, a lot of times people accept it as the truth,” said the bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Tommy Tucker, a Republican from Union County. “Certainly if you put something in print that could damage the reputation and character of a teacher, then there should be some sort of penalty.”

But critics say that what constitutes cyber bullying isn’t clear in the law and that fear of punishment could stifle free speech. State law has never defined the word “intimidate,” said Sarah Preston, American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina policy director.

“Without definitions of ‘torment’ or ‘intimidate,’ it’s not clear what online activity will violate the law,” Preston said. “It does invite arbitrary enforcement because there’s no clear legal standard.”

Preston also notes that the law extends beyond libel, by criminalizing statements, “whether true or false,” that could provoke someone to harass a school employee.

“Even if you post a factual statement about your teacher, then it could be criminal depending on the interpretation of those words,” Preston said.

Tucker counters that intimidation has a clear definition — “to use a tactic that would cause someone to change one’s behavior” — that doesn’t need to be spelled out in the law. The General Assembly passed the law in July with only one dissenting vote.

Activities made illegal by the statute could include building a fake profile or website; posting personal or sexual information about school employees; and signing school employees up for pornographic websites or junk mail.

The law might be the first in the country to make student-on-teacher cyber bullying a crime, both Tucker and Preston said. The offense is a class 2 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 60 days in jail.

Cyber bullying as a crime

Local district attorneys have charged 37 people under the state’s 2009 cyber bullying law, though only three have been convicted, according to the state Administrative Office of the Courts.

Cell phones are just one of the many distractions that challenge drivers.

The last thing Ashley Umscheid did before her pickup flipped end over end, throwing her into a ditch, was tap a single letter on her phone: K.

Short for OK, it was a reply to a text from her older sister on that spring day in 2009.

Amanda Umscheid didn’t receive the message, and she never got to talk to Ashley again. The 19-year-old Kansas State University student died a few days later from injuries she suffered in the one-vehicle wreck near Manhattan, Kan.

Amanda Umscheid, 29, has spent much of the three years since telling her sister’s story. She wants teens to understand that texting while driving is not worth their life, or the anguish that family and friends go through after losing a loved one.

“It’s hard to explain what it’s like to lose a sister or your daughter,” she said. “The text can wait.”

Her message has been a part of television and radio commercials, billboards, flyers, and pamphlets circulated across the country. She has been traveling from her home in Paxico, Kan., as often as three times a month to high schools and colleges from Colorado to Wisconsin to New York to speak about the dangers of texting while driving.

For more safety & security news, see:

Technology helps make school bus rides safer

As school year starts, states tackle cyber bullying

School Safety & Security Center at eSN Online

“Having a Highway Patrol officer write in a police report that a text message sent at 12:04 p.m. is the reason she’s dead — knowing that you were the person she was talking to at the time she was killed — isn’t something that will ever go away,” Umscheid says in a short documentary that’s part of a national campaign by AT&T.

In 2010, the most recent year for which national numbers are available, more than 3,000 people were killed in distracted-driving accidents, and an estimated 416,000 were injured.

Kansas reported 495 wrecks involving cell phones in 2011, with three deaths and 234 injuries. In Missouri, from January through October 2011, there were 1,490 accidents involving cell phones, with nine deaths and 673 injuries.

Of course, cell phones are just one of the many distractions that challenge drivers. But one study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that drivers are 23 times more likely to crash if they are texting.

One bus-safety trend that’s on the rise is the use of external video cameras to catch motorists who pass a school bus that is stopped with its lights flashing.

As students returned to school this year, many were riding buses newly equipped with cameras designed to nab dangerous drivers, buzzers intended to make sure they weren’t left on the bus at the end of the day, and others technologies designed to make their ride safer.

For instance, Fayette County, Ky., school buses are carrying a new electronic feature designed to help district officials and parents keep closer track of elementary students going to and from school.

The electronic ID system will help provide quick answers in worrisome situations when, for whatever reason, a young child fails to get off the school bus at his or her assigned stop, said Ketsy Fields, an elementary school director with the district.

“From our understanding, we’re the only school system in Kentucky that will be using it,” said Marcus Dobbs, associate transportation director for the Fayette County school system.

The ID feature uses the Zonar bus-tracking system that Fayette County Schools began installing on all its buses last school year. The GPS-based system tracks and provides information such as the location of school buses at all times and the speeds at which they’re traveling.

This year, the school district is adding a new twist to the Zonar system that also will keep track of young kids on school buses. When a child steps on the bus, the electronic system—called ZPass—will record the child’s presence and identity and send that information to a database within seconds.

When a child steps off the bus, the system also will record when and where the student left the vehicle.

If there’s any question later as to where the child is, district officials can check the system database to determine whether the child got on the proper bus and when and where he or she got off.

Parents, however, won’t be able to check the system themselves.

The system is designed for elementary students, not older children. “It gives us a permanent record to help us,” Dobbs explained. “In the past, if a parent called looking for a child who hadn’t arrived home, the school could [only] say that they put him on the right bus.”

However, “with maybe 70 kids on the bus, the driver might have trouble remembering if the child was actually there or where he got off,” Dobbs said. “Now, we can check and tell the parent, yes, he got off at his correct stop. If he hasn’t arrived home, is it possible he went to a friend’s house or something?”

As in previous years, Fayette elementary students who ride buses to school are issued color-coded bus tags that help guide them to the proper bus. This year, however, each child received a tag accompanied by a personalized radio-frequency ID card.