The Federal
Government’s 310 Year Gamble on Your Child’s School Safety
In the days following the Parkland High School shooting,
my emotions were out of control; first, because of the lack of “adult”
leadership by the Federal government officials and secondly, because when
called out by the high school’s young adults they (politicians) attacked the
teens. Whenever asked about how they
intended to keep another active shooter event from happening they hid behind
thinly veiled comments about how it was someone else’s responsibility to
address the causes and fix them.
Let’s be realistic, it’s about guns, it’s about mental
help, it’s about a person’s desire for fame, it’s about lack of protection, it’s
about lack of designed evacuation routes and the list goes on… Some causes can be fixed in the short term
and others, like mental health issues will take many years to devise systems
that are effective in identifying “at risk behaviors” and getting the person
the proper treatment. We also need to
address the way schools are designed not only should they be great environments
for learning by they must also be safe. One example is there should always be two ways
to egress a space in an emergency. Currently,
many times there is only one and if there are two, they lead into the same
hallway.
So, in the meantime, if students and faculty are going to
be taught to “hide” in the back of the classroom then the space must provide
ballistic protection. If it doesn’t, the
AR-15 bullet will travel through the hallway locker, drywall or classroom
furniture. I thought, if we don’t have
specific ballistic protection in place couldn’t we design a system similar to
have hotels create additional space by mobile walls. I reached out to my friends at Amulet
Ballistic Technologies and come up with a design for retrofitting existing
classrooms or new construction.
In 2018, the Federal government allocated $100 million for
security upgrades to schools. The
deadline for application to receive some of that money was 31 July 2018. If your school district didn’t apply, it for
sure won’t get any of the money, so you’ll have to wait until next year. Fortunately, many State legislatures have
been setting aside funding and the process seems to be continuous.
Another unfortunately circumstance when it comes to funding
is that most of the money will go to hiring school resource officers (RSO) from
the local sheriff or police department.
Placing an armed guard is not in of itself sufficient. While it will help deter possibly, the truth
is if a RSO is present he/she will become the first victim and/or will not be
where the shooting starts when it starts.
Another key security feature will be electronic surveillance and access
control. Both are useful and effective
but have their limits as well. Cameras
must be monitored in “real-time” AND a response must be immediate. Access control is only effective if it doesn’t
become a burden to day-to-day operations.
If it becomes “taxing” people will figure out how to get around it.
Now, back to $100 million per year for the next 10 years
($1Billion total). There are an
estimated 50.2 – 58 million students in America’s schools. The average class size in the US is somewhere
between 17 and 26, so let’s just say 20-22 students. If we divide the average size class occupancy
into the lower number of total students that tells us we have about 2.5 million
classrooms (give or take). Now, if the
average cost of constructing or retrofitting one classroom with ballistic
protection is $15,000 (I suspect that once we get going the costs will be lower
and more likely to be about $10-12k for a classroom of 20 using the Department
of Homeland Security recommended square footage for safe-haven/shelter space
occupancy.) then it will take $3,750,000,000,000 to retrofit all existing
classrooms. At one billion every ten
years that will be 375[1]
years to protect every classroom in the US.
Let me put that into context. Most people think that during the 2008 financial
crisis[2],
the treasury department used $700M to save the banks. This is not true. The Special Inspector General for the Troubled
Asset Relief Program (TARP) in their summary report says that the total
commitment of the government is $16.8 trillion with about $4.6 trillion already
paid out.
According to a team at Bloomberg
News, at one point last year the U.S. had lent, spent or guaranteed as much as
$12.8 trillion to rescue the economy.[3]
In either case, more than enough to protect America’s kids
in less than 10 years instead of over 300.
[1] I
rounded down to 310 years just in case my numbers are off a little, at any rate
you get the idea.
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