Uniting for Safer Schools: A Call to Action | Episode 147

Uniting for Safer Schools: A Call to Action | Episode 147

Chapter Markers
0:01 Back to School Safety and Security
11:56 School Safety and Security Advocacy
19:40 Safety and Security Measures for Protection

Navigating the back-to-school season can be a daunting task, especially when your child is transitioning from a more relaxed preschool environment to the structured world of kindergarten. Amidst the excitement, there's an underlying anxiety that many parents feel about their children's safety. Join us as we share personal stories and tackle the pressing concerns about school safety, from adjusting to new routines to grappling with the harsh realities of active shooter drills. We discuss the disparities in security measures across different schools and underline the urgent need for standardized protocols to ensure every child's well-being.

The safety of our children in educational settings should transcend political affiliations. This episode offers a candid discussion on the persistent issue of school shootings and the polarized debate on gun control. Drawing parallels to post-9/11 airport security, we advocate for rigorous safety measures in schools, akin to those at concerts and sports events. The conversation emphasizes the importance of a unified approach to protect our children, critiquing the media's role in politicizing tragedies and stressing the human aspect over political divisions. Tune in as we call on parents, educators, and policymakers to come together and make our schools safe havens for learning once again.

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Chapters

• 0:01 Back to School Safety and Security
• 11:56 School Safety and Security Advocacy
• 19:40 Safety and Security Measures for Protection

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, Justin Allen Hayes. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate your support and can't thank you enough. If you're able to like, share, comment, pass this organization, voices for voices and this episode on. We're trying to reach and help three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond, and we can't do it by ourselves, so we have been very grateful again for your support. You can find this episode and all past episodes on every streaming platform, every podcast from the audio side of things platform as well. So this episode today we're going to take a look at.

Speaker 1: 1:08

You know, back to school. So recently the grade school, kindergarten, started back to school and so there is, you know, the ahead of time. You buy the school supplies and you try to motivate your child to want to look forward to going to school and being surrounded with friends and people that are supportive and caring. That are supportive and caring, and I just was thinking about when I started school. I don't want to say I always dreaded it, but it wasn't one of my favorite things to do, and we'll get back to kind of when I was a student in a little bit to tie a topic together with that. So you have the start of school, and so the routines could be taking a bus to school, could be being dropped off at school or walking to school. Some are able to bike to school, so there's a variety of ways to get to school. So that's kind of the first thing you have to think about.

Speaker 1: 2:38

And this year for my family, my immediate family, our daughter started kindergarten. So we went from a kind of a preschool daycare setting which is a little bit more flexible, so we could drop her off at times that suited our schedules my wife and I as well as picked up at the end of the day. But now with kindergarten, one of the things that we found is that there's a little more structure. So there's structure time where school starts at a given time, school ends at a given time, lunch is at a specific time and and so that that's that's something that our our daughter's getting used to. So she's uh been uh going to school now just for a couple couple of weeks. So we're still learning that uh, as far as picking up, you know's the, you know riding, riding a bus, being picked up, or being picked up even a little bit later in a like an after after school program. You know, like the YMCA or some daycares offer offer transportation back to the daycare until the parent is able to pick them up.

Speaker 1: 4:08

So there's all these little things that are on the checklist of trying to mentally prepare from again a more lax schedule to a more structured schedule, as well as and so there's, you know, anxiety around that making sure, right, that it's like a deadline, like we have to get our daughter to school by the time the first bell rings, and so there's a little bit of anxiety of that. But then there's a little bit of anxiety, and so we're talking about the mental health side for parents, that anxiety that comes with some danger that can potentially occur at school, which, look back at my school, so many, many years ago we didn't have to be concerned with individuals coming in and shooting individuals or harming classmates, harming faculty members, what have you? Whereas now it is not just something we have to think about, it's something that we have to prepare for. So even at the kindergarten level, there are, you know, there's tornado drills, there's fire drills, and then there's you know, usually it varies in name. You know active shooter training is what can usually cover that, and so that's something very real. Our daughter has come home and you know, talked about different, those different drills that they have to do, saying we have to be still and do these things If there's a bad guy that comes in, and so that adds another layer of anxiety and stress to the parents, and so that's something that we have to think about. We became so, not just us as a family, but even around the nation and even across the world. We've been relaxed with some of the procedures. World. We've been real lax with some of the procedures.

Speaker 1: 7:08

You know how you can enter a school building if it's locked. If you have to call, if there's a call button, I have to be buzzed in. If there's a key card that can help open, you know buzz and open the door, and so all these different precautions are being put in place at schools. Now the one thing, the one big takeaway, is not all schools do things the same way. So a school where you live may handle security, safeguarding the school, the students, the faculty, may do things different than a school near where, where I live or where one of our board members lives. And so those are things that I think, as time goes on, there might be some consolidating at the federal level to standardize the response, the security of students and faculty, so that, whether I go to a school in Chicago, Illinois, Los Angeles, California, or Stowe or Hudson, Ohio, that there's some standardization. And so what that would do is we would know, school to school, no matter what, there would be certain protocols, certain safeguards in place, that we would be, we would just have kind of ingrained in our minds as we would visit a school for maybe a performing arts show, maybe a band show, maybe even going to a ball game, baseball or football or a track meet that there are certain security protocols that would be in place.

Speaker 1: 9:25

So why am I bringing this up at this point? It is because, unfortunately, with the start of the 2024-2025 school year, the start of the 2024-2025 school year there has been yet another terrible tragedy a school shooting in the state of Georgia, and the shooter went into the school and began shooting. And again the tragedy is there are a few people two students, two faculty members that tragically lost their lives, as well as I'm not sure the exact number that were wounded and being treated for their wounds due to the shooting. And so that's scary because, as I mentioned earlier, we talk about how our students, how our children, get to school and how they get home to school and how they get home the day of that school shooting. There were family members who helped get their student, their son, their daughter, to school in the morning, but they they didn't pick them up. They weren't able to pick them up at the end of the day because of this terrible tragedy that occurred. Same thing with the faculty members. There were significant others, as well as children, that saw them, saw these faculty members in the morning and then they weren't able to see them at the end of the day because of the tragedy that took their lives. And so that's why we're talking about this in this particular episode, because of the timing and because we need to say take the stigma definitely off of mental health, and that's a 24-hour day, seven-day-a-week, all year around.

Speaker 1: 11:56

No matter how much work that we do as an organization Voices for Voices, other organizations and even government to a certain extent there are events that just keep happening. And I think the big thing for me is because there's a lot of opinions, a lot of people are speaking out, which is good. People are talking about this event, but what we haven't heard from the many school shootings in the previous years this isn't the first year we've had a school shooting. This isn't something again, that's brand new that, oh okay. What do we need to do? How do we make our school much safer so that not only the parents feel a little less stress, a little less anxiety, because they know that their child or children, because they know that their child or children, if there's more than one, that they are going to be safe, that they're going to be able to see them in the morning and see them at some point after school.

Speaker 1: 13:14

And what is another tragedy is how some media outlets they talk about school shootings and they want to bring up what political side of things. Are you conservative, Are you liberal, Are you Democrat, Are you Republican, Are you pro-gun, Are you against guns? And so our thought as an organization, I've already voiced a TikTok that you can find on our Voices for Voices TikTok account that talks about this very issue and that's the polarity. So you know, we have the North Pole and the South Pole, so we have individuals and news organizations and other organizations that are in the North Pole and others that are in the South, and it seems that any time that there is a school shooting, an event like this that happens, individuals want to jump to their talking points at their particular side of the aisle, if they're on the left or they're on the right, and so if you're on the right, individuals say, oh well, we can't take guns away from everybody that's my Second Amendment, right and then you have the other side, which is the left or the liberal side or progressive, saying we need to get.

Speaker 1: 14:51

There's too many guns on the street, we need to do something about that. And so I'm bringing this up just as a topic in general. We're not talking about it from a political standpoint. We're just recognizing that that is happening in society, that there are some individuals and organizations and government officials that feel one way or the other, but the fact remains, regardless of what side they're on, they're not enacting enough legislation, enough safeguards for parents to feel comfortable sending their children to school, for children to feel safe. When they go to school, they feel that they're in a safe place. When they go to school, they feel that they're in a safe place. And if that means metal detectors, if that means a police officer or security officials that are there. As school is going on, then so be it. It has nothing to do with. Well, too many guns are out there.

Speaker 1: 16:01

We don't want to add guns to this. Well, my daughter being in kindergarten, I don't want her to have to see somebody carrying a gun, but I'd also want to pick her up at the end of the day. I want to see her in the morning and see her in the evening, as well as my wife and all our family members, as well as you, your family members, as well as you, your family members, your friends, want to see their children at the end of the day, and so that's what this is all about. It's about making sure, as much as we can, that we're making schools secure again. So we're not talking about the Make America Great Again. We're talking about make those schools which are across the country and across the world, make them safe again, because right now they're not safe.

Speaker 1: 17:02

There are, again, as I mentioned, there's different levels of safety from, you know, school A to B to C to D. Some are more secure than others, and what we would like as an organization and as a parent, what I would like to see is not just help keep my child safe, but keep my child's school safe. I want to see all schools that are safe. So, whatever that means, then that's what we need to do. So we need to forget which side of the aisle we're on, Forget which political party we're on. I understand this is a presidential election year and things are getting heated. There's a debate tonight, as we're filming this Today. We're filming it, and so I realize that. But we're all, at the end of the day, we're all human, and so I think we need to think about things in that light. Does it really matter how I vote once a year or once every four years, versus how safe my child is? How many days of school, 100, 200 days of school, Whatever that number is, I want them to be safe all the time. I want my children to be safe, my child to be safe, and I want your child to be safe. So that's where we're coming at.

Speaker 1: 18:32

What I'd like to pivot to, and a little bit of a tangent, is think about airports. When was the last time you flew or know somebody that's flown? When you walk into an airport and you check in if you're checking bags, you'll get your tag and it will go off to an area that will put the bags on the luggage carrier and then put them eventually on the plane. But before they do that, it being, the luggage gets checked and so it goes through some type of machine X-ray type of machine that helps them see what's inside to a certain degree, and if there are questions then the bags are open to check. And so those happen all day, every day, at airports.

Speaker 1: 19:40

Now, us as individuals, when we go after, we after our luggage, if we're checking it goes into that particular area. We have our backpacks, we're checking it goes into that particular area. We have our backpacks, our purses, our satchels, whatever your carry-on is, and you don't just go straight to where the plane is. You have to go through security, and so I've traveled a good bit over my years and it's not fun. It can be incredibly painful with the time frame that it takes, depending if you're running late for a plane and depending on how many different lanes are open at the security checkpoint. But you go through the security checkpoint before you get on a plane.

Speaker 1: 20:31

Now it took, you know, 9-11 to happen, which was a very big tragedy to happen in our country For these actions, these protective measures, to go in place, and they are continuing to evolve as time goes on. That was one event 9-11, and it was a huge event. It was a huge tragedy. Just think if we went back to the first school shooting and at that point we all, as human beings, came together and said we want to make sure that our children are as safe as they can be, and we all came together as a human, as a human race, to want to protect our, our children, instead of I don't even know what number of school shootings this is since they began, but that hasn't occurred. And again, there's varying degrees of security from school A to B across the board.

Speaker 1: 21:44

So airports, there's security. I don't like seeing people with guns and having to go through a security checkpoint, but it's something that I would rather do, that than to be on a plane that gets hijacked, and while that can still occur, there are much less of that happening now due to the security that's in place, Not only with the pre-flight security that goes on, but then air marshals, individuals that go on certain flights, and so they blend in kind of like the undercover police officer, and so they blend in kind of like the undercover police officer. So I want to feel like I go through an airport when I'm thinking about dropping off and picking up my daughter from school and I think you would too to go to court, whether you are the person that is attending court, that you have a date with the judge, or whether you go to jury duty, which I've had to go to jury duty the last few years. I've been selected, so my number's been picked, luckily or unluckily, but each time I went for jury service or jury duty, there's security checkpoint that I had to go through each and every day, and so there were police officers and they're carrying weapons, and not just firearms but tasers and the like. And it was just the fact of life of like, oh, I'm going to go to court. So let me minimize what I'm taking in as far as how many things go into the little container that goes through that they check, and then as far as if you have a metal belt on and different metal pieces, then you take them off and then they re-scan you. So I wouldn't mind my daughter having to go through some type of scan each day where she puts her backpack on a conveyor belt, it gets checked and then she walks through, uh, the metal detectors or other devices, I wouldn't mind it because she would be more safe at that point than not having that particular safeguard in place.

Speaker 1: 24:39

So again, we're talking about everybody's children, not just mine been to a ball game baseball, football, soccer or if you've been to a concert, there's security that you have to go through to enter those events as well. And just a few years back there was a mass shooting in Las Vegas where an individual was in the Mandalay Bay and shot down on an outdoor concert country music concert that was taking place. So with that event happening, security not only for individuals to enter a venue, but also security for the performers. The performers want to be safe. They want to feel safe when they're out performing. They want to be concerned on how they're playing their instrument or how they're singing instead of okay, is this person in the front row going to harm me and do I have enough bodyguards or safety officers that would help me if somebody tried to harm me? Musicians want to focus on music. They don't want to have to worry about that safety aspect.

Speaker 1: 26:14

But those safety and security measures that are implemented and again will be evolving. Some of them we can see some of them. We can't D know. Drones are used. There's electronic means that can be used as well to see what's happening with individuals. So that's how, one of the ways that when a when a political figure, president, somebody running for president in the United States, with their security detail as they travel the Secret Service or FBI, Homeland Security they have jamming devices, and so what that basically means is you're not able to use your phone because they want to limit the chance of an individual being near a person and communicating Like oh, I've entered here, I'm ready, Go ahead, those types of things, and so that by jamming it, they basically render the phones unworkable for a period of time.

Speaker 1: 27:41

So I guess I'd like to think if it's important enough for an elected official to have security. I think that you know, just talking about the physical, of course, like the White House, not as much as when they travel. I'm not asking for private security to follow each child 24 hours a day. I'm talking about when they're at school, and so let's think about this episode and that we want to keep all children safe. We want to not only see our loved one, our children, in the morning, but we want to see them after school as well. So I think this is a good time that we can come together as a human and not a Republican or Democrat. We can come together as humans for the safety of all our children and all our loved ones. Thank you for listening and watching this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I am Justin Allen Hayes, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices. Until next time, be a voice for you or somebody in need.