On Prevention and Code Reds
We live in a world where our society is the only thing getting in the way of getting things done. Earlier this year one of the most tragic events to happen in the state of Florida caused 17 students to lose their lives. I’m talking about Marjory Stoneman Douglas. My Civics teacher once told me that as a citizen of the United States it’s your job to be active in your community and to use your voice to stand up for others. As a student who goes to Wellington Community High School in Florida, this incident was a terrible time for public schools in Florida and this resulted in many changes. I know students that tell me how they don’t even want to attend school because of how unsafe they feel. Just a few issues to address include a lack of police aid, the effectiveness of lanyards and the issue with students feeling they have a say.
First, lanyards are a great start to solving school safety issues. In fact, according the National Center for Education Statistics “A greater percentage of high schools (16 percent) and middle schools (13 percent) than of primary schools (3 percent) required students to wear badges or picture IDs.” Imagine if we could increase that to 100% of all schools in the U.S. However, even though lanyards are a good first step in the right direction, we as a country still have a long way to go because students feel that lanyards are simply not enough. With the tragedy of Marjory Stoneman Douglas on the student’s minds this certainly doesn’t help the atmosphere of school.
Secondly, one of the concerns about what happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas was that there weren’t enough police officers on campus at the time. Recently, Wellington High School had a lockdown on and not once did I see a school resource officer on campus. It is absolutely crucial that every school in the U.S has the access to more resource officers. I interviewed a sophomore who attends Wellington High School, who expressed his feelings about the lockdown the other day “With our Code Red, I find it terrible how afraid we have to be with something like this.” I asked the student if he could change one thing about the school what would it be? He responded, “One thing the school could do is inform the students of what is going on security wise.” Many of the students that I’ve talked to agree with these statements.
Lastly, students feel they have the right to express their concerns and should be heard. Many students everywhere are trying to make a change for the better. It’s up to us to make a difference in our society. It doesn’t matter what your race, age, gender, sexual orientation, or religion because in the very end, we can’t stop someone from killing, but we can try to prevent it.