Question: Is your kid’s school among them?
Here’s something to cause profound concern for many parents: Four-out-of-ten teachers in this country do not think their school has sufficiently strong security to keep out a would-be mass shooter.
In other news…. Wait! What?
The new Gallup Poll of about 500 elementary, middle and high school teachers also finds another 40 percent do not believe their school security is strong enough either to effectively combat a shooter once he gains entrance.
Here’s the question exploding in every parental head right now: Is my kid’s school in either of those vulnerable 40 percent groups?
The new poll results come a month after a Florida school shooting left 17 people dead. Even though school, health and law enforcement authorities had plentiful warnings about that shooter’s mental state but did not act, the latest incident reignited the perennial national debate over new gun controls.
Another Gallup Poll last week found that stricter controls on gun sales drew the support of 67 percent, the highest such response since 1993 and seven points higher than just last fall.
President Trump has even suggested that training and arming some unidentified teachers might give a potential killer pause.
A majority of these teachers (51 percent) admit their school is only “somewhat protected” from a marauding shooter and only 46 percent say it’s “somewhat prepared” should a shooter gain entry to the classroom building.
Thirty-six percent of teachers polled were either very worried (9 percent) or somewhat worried (27 percent) over the possibility of a shooting in their school.
Teachers in elementary and middle schools are more worried about a possible shooting (46 percent) than high school teachers (24 percent). But high school teachers are slightly more likely to report their students are worried than are lower school teachers about their pupils.
