Floodgates Open: Multiple Texas Schools Receive Threats by Friday
The past few days have felt like a dream, similar to how I felt two or three times this year after hearing about 'cowards and mentally unstable people' opening fire on innocent people, teachers, and children. Then comes the social media fireworks, followed by debate, name calling, prayers and then before you know it, it's rinse and repeat.
These are kids. In America. And we're worried about politics?
Just two days after the horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida that took 17 lives, schools around the country have been receiving threats - and that includes Texas. By Friday morning:
- three North Texas schools arrested students who brought guns in on Thursday (Plano, Flower Mound and Garland)
- threats have been made to El Paso area schools
- a teenager was arrested after threatening to commit a school shooting at Permian High
- Beeville ISD reported a threat through Snapchat
- a daycare center in Austin was evacuated due to a bomb threat
- Veteran's Memorial High in Corpus Christi increased security after seeing a threat via calculator screen
- and the list goes on nationally...
I'm hoping we're seeing more of these stories in the last two days because everyone is highly aware of what's going on right now. But this kind of readiness to protect our children cannot just occur after a tragedy. We need to be vigilant about safety in schools ALL OF THE TIME.
Prayers are great! They won't hurt anyone. But - speaking like a broken record - when will we see a change? Some schools in Texas allow teachers to be armed on campus, including Medina ISD, according to KENS5 Eye Witness News. Is that the answer? Or should every school have increased security from this point on? Are current gun control laws not capable of keeping citizens safe?
At the end of the day, I don't care WHO comes up with the right answer, just get a real conversation going so we can move forward as a country and as a people - we owe at least that to our kids.