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A look inside safety policies and how effective they actually are.

to the modern capacity of news, the prevalence of gun violence today and a plethora of other factors. Since Columbine, two decades have passed without any federal resolution, leaving large scale tragedies and smaller acts of gun violence to prevail.

upon the community to ensure learning environments are safe. While seemingly straightforward, the precarious nature of such a task makes this “little thing” a critical responsibility.

In the last twenty years across the United States, school shootings have evolved from a “horrifying, unimaginable massacre” title that once defined the event, into a topic of political discussions periodically revisited, without any productive outcome.

When 13 students were murdered and 24 injured at Columbine High School in Colorado (1999), Americans were moved by grief and shock. It spurred a reaction unlike anything gun violence had provoked before. The event marked the first major school shooting in America’s history, and since then, hundreds more school shootings have devastated the United States.

Growing up in a fast evolving, increasingly digital world, young people have more expertise in technology and access to information than ever before. Young generations today and forever moving forward are most familiar with a world where media is fast, global, and at their fingertips at any moment in time. Although a privilege, the accessibility and accelerated nature of media creates a force-fed consumption of information; before there is time to finish processing one major event, we have moved on to the next tragedy, the next story, the latest vapid celebrity update. The nation as a whole is desensitized due

Johnston is not immune. In September of this academic year, a JMS student was shown on cameras with a firearm on a bus. In response, the student was expelled; Iowa law (Iowa Code § 280.21B) asserts that the board of directors at public schools should expel a student who brings a firearm on campus for one year minimum.

Additionally, a clear backpack policy was implemented at the Dragon Stadium, an effort to prevent a mass casualty during the football season. Whether the policy is here to stay at the Dragon Stadium and potentially other school events is yet to be determined. But, Principal Ryan Woods doesn’t recall receiving any negative feedback from Johnston families about the new policy.

“Honestly, those messages went out fast and furious … I think people understand the rationale, and the end goal is, a little thing, to keep everyone a little safer, hopefully.” Woods said.

Johnston’s students, educators and other staff hold perspectives of utmost importance in the matter of school shootings and safety. With recent attacks on education (shown in the staggering numbers of teachers leaving the profession) and students preoccupied with their adolescence, the burden of defending themselves from gun violence is both excessive and depraved. It is

For many at Johnston, school shootings and mass acts of gun violence feel distant and out of reach, until the issue hits close to home. On news stories and the impact on student mental health, Holden Witt ‘23 states,

“I like to know, but I don’t like to get super deep into it … Things that are really far away, it’s like you’re concerned about them, but you’re not. It’s not like, ‘oh this is gonna affect me right here, right now.’ It’s more like, ‘Oh, this could affect me later.’”

So when word spread of the JMS gun incident on the bus, families in Johnston were shaken by the news, with some less than surprised reactions.

“I never really thought it would happen here. Like, I always knew it happens and stuff, but you never expect it to happen near you, especially with having a little brother there. Like that definitely caught me off guard a little bit, but also remembering what that school is like. It doesn’t surprise me,” Witt said.

Local action and response thanks to school board officials and state legislators is undeniably present, but how logical and effective is it truly? As of this year, another security development is the student ID scanners used when returning from lunch, DMACC classes, or leaving for an excused absence. Implemented in part to help the recent efforts to improve attendance, the scanners ostensibly pertain to security too by seeing an ID from the barcode.

“The goal is, anyone walking through those doors, we know who they are,” Woods explains.

Still, from an inside look, glaring shortcomings counteract the security. Lydia Whitehead ‘24 recounts some flaws.

“Kids letting their friends in during lunch because they don’t want to go in through the cafeteria doors. Kids skipping very easily, which is not a good thing during a drill. … It’d be pretty easy for someone to just sneak in, in the morning,” said Whitehead.

Woods clarifies that the expectation is students do not open locked doors for peers; in a building of thousands of people, the precautions almost have to be in everyone’s hands. Maintaining a balance of secure protections and reasonability that isn’t an inconvenience for staff and students is a complex issue.

“Sometimes I don’t think we have enough safety policies here, like I feel like I’ve seen a lot of kids just get in and out of the building ... Especially as a senior ... But at the same time, the kids that you see, like getting in and out of the building, you generally know ‘em,” Witt said.

Apart from lesser violations by students of opening locked doors, why aren’t the scanners a morning precaution too? Staff knows who’s in the building, but only when they’re returning from lunch or DMACC.

“I feel like if we do it (ID scanners) in the morning, that’s gonna be such a hassle because everyone’s coming in, but when people leave and come in, obviously we do scan in, but there’s other doors that people are coming in and they don’t even realize,” Hannah Abbey ‘24 said.

When asked about this inconsistency, Woods commented, “We talked about that. I think the morning is an interesting time because we have so many kids coming through… That’s something we’re talking about right now, actually, in our safety committee meetings.”

The district’s safety committee meets every month to report to the board, address questions and changes, and use the funds the governor issues for improvements.

“I feel like, if you’re gonna do it, do it. Have them at every door or make it so we have to like, almost like a teacher has to use a badge to actually unlock the door and get in,” Witt said. “... I can understand it’s their first year of trying it. So it’s gonna be bumpy; the juniors and the sophomores, they’ll be more like, they’ll probably get more into it, or they’ll be more just used to it. … They’ll have time to build the habit of it.” of threats and red flags pertaining to gun violence, as opposed to gossip among students. From the US Government Accountability Office, a review of school shootings shows half of the shootings were committed by current or former students, with suburban, rural, wealthier, and low minority schools like Johnston having more school-targeted, fatal shootings committed by students. Disquieting facts like this makes the responsibility to inform and initiative upon threats even more pressing.

There is potential in the scanners being a security protection, but until then, the reality is that they exist to control the flow of some 2,000 students and hundreds of staff going in and out. Additional security qualities at Johnston are easy to take for granted, for example, the classroom doors that immediately lock without a key, the feature of visitors being both buzzed in and out at the attendance office, and even the attendance office being at the front entrance.

JHS students throughout the district have differing ideas of the best plan of action for nationwide gun violence in schools.

“If you ban guns, you’re just taking it away from people who want to defend themselves in case they need to. … So while kids should definitely not have access to guns, I think it’s very difficult,” Witt said.

Either way, Johnston is fortunate enough to have a well-thought-out plan of precaution.