Valentine’s Day and School Violence: Grief and Reflection

I have struggled with Valentine’s Day for the last 12 years. While I love celebrating the holiday with my spouse, it holds a more somber tone for me. This Friday marks the 12th anniversary of the fatal shooting at Northern Illinois University, my Alma Mater. On February 14, 2008, a gun man opened fire with a shotgun and three pistols in a large lecture hall, killing five people and injuring 17 others. The gunman, who eventually killed himself, was a former student of the university and would have been there when I was enrolled. He could have been my student when I taught courses as a graduate student, or he could have been my client when I was a student therapist at the two counseling centers on campus. Many of my colleagues were first responders after the shooting, providing crisis services and mental health counseling to the student body, staff, faculty, and the larger NIU community. It especially hit home in my household, as my husband went to Virginia Tech and had just experienced a similar shooting a year previous when the place he loved and learned had also been traumatized.

Two years ago, I was teaching a course on Trauma and Resiliency (which I am teaching again this year) and I was preparing to discuss my own experiences with the NIU shooting on the 10th anniversary. Before I could get to class, however, my social media accounts were blasted with the news that there was another horrific shooting, this time at a high school in Parkland, Florida. On February 14, 2018, a gunman opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others. The gunman was eventually caught, but the casualties continued a year later when two Parkland survivors killed themselves. As that day progressed, and as I processed this new shooting with my students and in my own head, new reports started comparing the Parkland shooting with the Columbine shooting that had occurred 19 years prior. Flashback to college, sitting around my living room with my housemates and friends, glued to the television watching the aftermath of the Columbine shooting. It was especially impactful because many of my friends were graduating in a few weeks and had plans to become high school teachers. I remember looking at one of my close friends, now a successful and amazing high school English teacher, and just seeing his face drain of all color when he realized that it could have been him.

According to the center for Homeland Defense and Security, there have been 504 shooting incidents that resulted in 226 deaths in K-12 schools since 2010. One hundred and 30 of these were an escalation of a previous disagreement, 50 were related to gang violence, and 40 were attempted suicides. Mental health or drug related issues were present in less than 20 of these incidents; however, in 104 of these incidents the cause of the shooting is unknown. The majority of the shooters were 18 years old or younger. Between 2001 and 2016, 437 people were shot in 190 college shooting incidents.

Research on the effects of school shootings on student and staff outcomes is prolific. Common reactions youth may have when they witness a school shooting include posttraumatic stress reactions, grief, fears of recurrence, and separation anxiety from parents and caregivers. Students may have flashbacks or intrusive thoughts or images of the danger situation, or they may mentally, emotionally, or physically avoid situations that remind them of the shooting. They may demonstrate heightened arousal, have trouble concentrating and sitting still, and be prone to panic. They may experience grief, depression, or symptoms that look like physical illness. They may also engage in risk behaviors, struggle with learning, and demonstrate increased aggressiveness (for more information, please see the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN).

In response to school shootings, many school districts have implemented more stringent safety measures. For example, I must show my state issued ID and my information is submitted to a visitor management system when I visit my children’s school. Some districts have increased the presence of law enforcement or school safety officers. In addition, most districts have implemented school lockdown drills, where students practice what they should do in case of an active shooter. Controversy exists about whether these lockdown drills do more harm then good. Zhe and Nickerson (2007) reported that students who underwent the training in lockdown practice retained that knowledge and could implement it later; they also found that those students who practiced the lockdown drill did not differ from students who did not do a lockdown drill on perceptions of school safety or anxiety. Schildkraut, Nickerson, and Ristoff (2019) assessed over 10,000 children in New York and also reported that lockdown drills and related training led students to feel more prepared for emergency situations. In contrast to Zhe and Nickerson, however, the students in Schildkraut at al.’s study reported a decrease in feeling safe after engaging in safety preparedness training. In addition, female students and students of color were even less likely than male and white students to report feeling safe in their school. Taken together, these studies suggest that while these lockdown drills may help students feel more prepared for threats, it may have a wide range of effects on their feeling of safety—which has implications for how students might struggle to focus on learning.

Teachers may also struggle, either after a school shooting or following intensive training in school safety efforts. Many teachers struggle because they are charged with the responsibility of maintaining calm and engaging in emergency response activities while also experiencing the traumatic stress of the shooting experience. Research by Ilk (2019) demonstrated that teachers who engage in emergency preparedness drills do find them helpful in making teachers feel better prepared to respond to threat. Ilk also reported that teachers did not report heightened anxiety or poor perceived sense of safety when there was frequent and open communication among teachers and administrators. In a study conducted on Penn State preservice teachers, over half of the preservice teachers felt somewhat prepared to deal with a school threat. Many of them had experienced training in their courses, field placements, or other work experiences. However, many reported that they felt they lacked the skills and experience to be truly effective and ready to deal with school threats (Hetzel-Riggin & Burke, 2016).

Thankfully, there are a lot of resources for individuals, teachers, administrators, and parents to help mitigate the impact of school shootings. NCTSN has fact sheets on how school districts, teachers, principals, administrators, and support staff for providing psychological first aid after school shootings. The site also has a six hour training in psychological first aid that is free for anyone to take. For parents, fact sheets on how to talk to your children about school violence are available. The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments (NCSSLE) has a Resilience Resources webpage that contains a report on how teachers can support students in order to buffer the effects of school violence and factors associated with youth resilience. The National Education Association (NEA) has extensive resources on how to prevent and address school violence, including resources for teachers. The Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) technical assistance center offers resources for planning and readiness. Another resource for school systems is a report by the Critical Incident Stress Response Group of the FBI on a Threat Assessment Perspective. Included in this report is background information on school shootings, how to assess threats systematically, things to look for, and ways to intervene on a school wide level. The Final Report of the Federal Commission on School Safety also provides resources and information for the prevention and mitigation of school threats. Our own website has a wealth of resources for educators and schools in order to prepare for threat.

But even with all these resources, I feel sad. When I ask my children about how they felt about school shooting drills, they shrugged. This is their reality. They come home and share that they had a lockdown drill as easily as they share what they ate for lunch. They expect to show identification in order to enter a school. As a college educator, I now put emergency response statements in my syllabus, am signed up for text alerts for current threats on campus, and always know where the emergency response plan is in my classrooms. And while I wholeheartedly believe that these measures will help save lives and prevent violence, I am still sad. Because while I grieve the loss of the many lives lost to school shootings in recent years, I grieve even more the sense that schools were an inherently safe place.

References

Hetzel-Riggin, M. D., & Burke, M. K. (May 2016). "Preservice Teacher Preparedness for Dealing with Potentially Traumatic Events: An initial mixed methods study," Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, IL.

Ilk, S. (2019). The psychological impact of mass violence preparedness drills on Massachusetts school teachers (Order No. AAI10842536).

Schildkraut, J., Nickerson, A. B., & Ristoff, T. (2019). Locks, lights, out of sight: Assessing students’ perceptions of emergency preparedness across multiple lockdown drills. Journal of School Violence.

Zhe, E. J., & Nickerson, A. B. (2007). Effects of an intruder drill on children’s knowledge, anxiety, and perceptions of school safety. School Psychology Review, 36(3), 501–508.