Now that the shock of the Silver Rail Elementary School shooting has settled into the bureaucratic phase, the conversation in Bend has had a predictable outcome.
We already know what happened on October 15th when 16-year-old former student Griffin J. John II, carrying a parent-purchased pump-action shotgun, blasted his way through the glass doors of the elementary school. He killed three young children and a teacher in a special education classroom before an armed parent put an end to the killings.
As I have said repeatedly, Silver Rail did not fail because it lacked protocol; the building already featured secure vestibules, perimeter fencing, security cameras, interior locking doors, and biannual lockdown drills. Yet, a high-powered weapon easily rendered those expensive structural hurdles useless in seconds, proving once again that physical fortification is nothing more than security theater designed to give people the illusion of safety while completely ignoring the gun problem.
The limits of that security theater collided directly with financial reality during a packed, emotional community meeting on Thursday night as Bend-La Pine Schools leadership faced frantic parents.
Families desperate for protection demanded bulletproof glass, window privacy film, panic alarms, and police officers stationed in every middle and high school. However, district officials had to break the news that there is simply no money in the ledger for those massive structural additions.
Beyond the plain impossibility of paying for these upgrades, every single dollar spent turning our public schools into militarized bunkers is a dollar ripped straight out of the classroom, leaving less funding for actual education, modern learning materials, and living wages for teachers.
The public outcry also brought up state-level mandates like Alyssa’s Law, which encourages districts to install panic alarm systems linked directly to emergency services. School board chair Amy Tatom pointed out the absurd reality of these legislative mandates, noting that lawmakers love passing ambitious safety bills without providing any ongoing funding to actually pay for them. When initial state grant money dries up after a single year, cash-strapped districts are left holding the bag and forced to abandon the technology entirely.
Parents at the meeting even pressed administrators on what the district is doing to track former students who drop out or unenroll, as if it is somehow the public school system’s legal responsibility to act as a lifelong surveillance agency for every teenager who passes through its doors.
Faced with massive budget shortfalls, district leaders floated the idea of asking voters to pass local bonds or levies to cover security upgrades and counseling services. Which brings us to the uncomfortable truth that nobody in these packed auditoriums seems willing to speak out loud. Where exactly do parents think millions of dollars for physical upgrades come from? You cannot bake sale your way out of a multi-million-dollar infrastructure deficit, yet god forbid anyone mention raising taxes to fund a slate of reactionary security measures that are not even guaranteed to stop the next dedicated shooter from breaching the school.
With no extra taxpayer money available, board chair Tatom tried to offer practical advice by reminding families that locking up their guns is completely free, pointing out that local agencies regularly hand out free cable locks.
I can only imagine how well that suggestion went over with a room full of furious parents demanding high-tech ironclad promises.
Recommending a free lockbox is the absolute bare minimum, but until our society stops obsessing over building impenetrable fortresses and starts addressing the unchecked availability of guns in our homes, no amount of money or hardware will keep our kids safe.
(Source)
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