Commentary: School shooting statistics have reached incomprehensible levels

A school shooting occurs, on average, every week in the United States, the website Everytown for Gun Safety reports.

It is difficult to wrap one’s mind around such a statistic. A school should be a haven for children, a safe place for parents to leave their kids.

When students go to school, all are expected to return home safely.

Only these days, there seems to be no sanctuary from maniacs causing death and misery to innocent people, the most recent example being the tragedy that happened at Umpqua Community College in Oregon.

How ironic that since 9/11, no foreign terrorist attack has hit our shores, yet terror has become more prevalent in the form of Americans who plan and execute random shootings on school campuses.

Have lockdowns and bomb threats become part of the culture of going to school for students and teachers?

When I took teacher-credential classes many years ago, there was never a discussion about what to do during a lockdown because Columbine was still more than a decade from happening.

As if teaching does not have enough challenges, now there is a sense of potential dread that at any given moment, completely unannounced and in the blink of an eye, a teacher and her students may face a deadly threat. Once that notion has been planted, it cannot be redacted from one’s psyche.

The common strategy on dealing with a shooter on campus is to have a lockdown, which involve locking doors, turning off lights and hiding under desks.

I have had to sweat it out over two real lockdowns that thankfully turned out to be harmless, but were still emotionally trying for the two-hour duration as I huddled with 30-some students under tables on the floor with the lights out, some students sobbing.

The main rationale for this procedure is so that when the police arrive on the scene they won’t confuse who the shooter is. Frankly, if I heard shots in the classroom right next to mine, I have no idea how I might react. It seems to me that making a run for it in the opposite direction of the shooting would produce a higher survival rate than cowering on the floor and listening for the shooter to approach. A locked door would hardly deter a determined killer.

While the public and political pundits debate gun control, the local school boards in our communities should work independently on how to better secure school facilities.

No one wants schools to resemble penitentiaries, but in today’s America, prisons seem safer than schools. When is the last time you read about a mass shooting at a prison?

BRIAN CROSBY is a teacher and the author of “Smart Kids, Bad Schools” and “The $100,000 Teacher.” He can be reached at briancrosby.org