In the wake of the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, many are wondering if schools throughout the country are safe for students. State Coordinator of the New Jersey Office of School Preparedness and Emergency Planning Anthony Bland told NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider that school communities need to be prepared every day and instill in students and staff members that violence can occur anywhere.
When the shooting occurred Friday, Bland was in Georgia, but he said people were communicating with the state’s Department of Education providing relevant information. “We want to make sure our schools are responding and recovering from the emergency such as the one that took place in Newtown, Conn.,” he said.
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While Bland believes New Jersey schools have a level of preparedness, he said parents and students need to talk about emergency drills on a consistent basis and students and staff need to know the rules for lock downs. He said the protocol should be the same in every county.
Some have argued that schools need to have armed personnel monitoring the buildings to help prevent acts of violence, but Bland doesn’t believe that will solve the problem. “There’s nothing more proactive than students and staff knowing their responsibilities because we cannot stop, as President Barack Obama said, evil from taking place and senseless acts of violence,” he said. “And I think we need to have a culture and a community that is about resiliency and I think we have to teach our community that obstacles can happen and any sort of setback is a setup for a comeback. And that’s what New Jersey consistently does.”
Officials say there can be warning signs before events like mass shootings and Bland agrees that everyone in the school community should report incidents, whether it’s about a potential school shooter or bullying.
Urban school districts tend to experience violence on a more consistent basis, according to Bland, but he said rural and suburban districts are having their own issues with violence.
“We have to understand that and we must get that message home that violence happens anywhere and we cannot eliminate these senseless acts,” Bland said. “And also it’s important that we let people know that there is a profile of a shooter and what we want people to know is that the profile is there’s no profile. And we need to be prepared for that.”