Child safety at issue

In Saturday’s “Smart Bombs” column, I wrote an item – OK, a rant – about school safety in the aftermath of two shootings last week. The overall point was that we need to raise expectations for protecting children at schools.

Before addressing the main objection to that conclusion, I want to correct a false impression. I wrote that when Spokane’s high schools lost their resource officers nobody stepped into the breach. That’s wrong, and Mark Anderson, associate superintendent for school support services, called to set me straight – in a nice way.

The district tapped levy money to put a full-time uniformed officer at each high school. There are also “central officers” at each middle school who also respond to incidents at elementary schools. These are commissioned officers who go through police training. However, they are not armed. The district decided it doesn’t want them firing back for fear of heightening danger.

The district is also outfitting each school with cameras, keyless entries and other security items. Anderson says the district would like more funding for safety, but state money for that purpose was cut off in the late 1990s.

It’s up to you to decide whether this is good enough. I hope the answer is no.

Leaders can grapple over where the money comes from, but I don’t think they should be arguing over the need.

I mentioned that 50 children have been killed in school shootings in the past 10 years in the United States. Make that 53 (and possibly more) after Monday’s tragedy in Lancaster County, Pa.

I knew when I wrote that number that it wouldn’t move some people. Five a year. What’s the big deal? Far more children than that die at their parents’ hands or in other ways. That’s true, but that’s an argument for spending nothing on school security. After all, shouldn’t that money be going toward efforts to keep children safe at home, where they are more likely to die?

Sorry, but I don’t think good parents should lower their expectations for safety at school, because other parents are monsters at home.

Look at it this way: If 50 children were gunned down in Spokane schools alone in the past decade, would we really do nothing because they die more frequently elsewhere? Of course not. Security would be tightened immediately. Long-term funding would be easy to find. Politicians would make it the centerpiece of their campaigns.

Why? Because you would demand it.

What if an average of five lawmakers a year were murdered on the job nationwide? Security funding wouldn’t be held back by critics who noted that more adults are killed in their homes. No, politicians would take it personally. The District of Columbia and state capitals would be armed fortresses.

That urgency is absent when it’s schoolchildren who are dying. Parents should take that personally.