Guns in Suburban Schools

I was a little alarmed to hear last week that a rival middle school of mine growing up was the scene of an incident where a man with a gun held the superintendent hostage at South Orangetown Middle School in Blauvelt, NY. While I didn't go to this school, it was in a rival district and the site where my "Mighty Midgets" soccer team held its practices. It's also has the indoor pool where I learned to swim taking town-organized swim lessons during my childhood summers.

One of the comments made by a reader seemed to ask a good question, about the wisdom of leaving schools largely "open and accessible" to visitors once school is in session. Now I'm sure that a lot has changed in the decades since I've been to school, but I seem to remember that it was pretty easy to walk in unmolested into the school and roam the classrooms. There were no security guards in these suburban schools, and while you were instructed by a sign to "please sign in with the office", you could theoretically choose not to wander around unfettered.

Contrast that with many office buildings, including mine, where you need to get your photo ID taken and provide official identification in order to get past the key-coded secure doors and uniformed security guards manning every entrance into the building. Thankfully, there are no metal detectors, and I'd hate to see it ever come to that.

You want to have a good balance of safety while setting the tone that a place of learning doesn't need to be fortress. The incident in South Orangetown was probably an outlier, but that's likely cold comfort to parents who have children at that school.