TLDR: no blame for guns, notes on existing security (and what doesn't work), armed teachers (specifically allowed by law in Utah) and training (yeah, I know Front Sight is in chapter 11 right now and Pizza is a huckster, but the training itself was never bad)

Hello [school] Families,

It is with a heavy heart that I write to you tonight, as we consider the 19 beautiful children and 2 wonderful teachers that were killed in yesterday’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

We send our love and compassion to those families who lost precious loved ones.  We pray for them, for the shooter’s grandmother who remains hospitalized, and for the entire Uvalde community.

This very troubling incident provokes many questions to us as school leaders.  We have spent several hours in the past 24 hours considering the facts of this event in an effort to learn all we can about ways to keep students safe. Safety has always been a high priority at our schools.  You may not be aware that the school shooting in Sandy Hook in 2012 was at a school with a double entry that required all visitors to be buzzed in to the school.  The shooter simply shot his way in.  The school in Uvalde had an armed safety officer on the premises.  We are discouraged that these preventative measures, which seem like they would be effective, are in reality so ineffective at preventing loss of life in a shooting incident.  

After the Sandy Hook shooting, a couple of different approaches began to be explored by safety experts.  One approach supports the idea that teaching all the adults in a school building how to disarm a shooter could save many lives.   There is quite a bit of research which indicates that a shooter never expects anyone to come TOWARD them, and when someone does, it confuses them and makes them vulnerable for disarming.  A second approach supports having  concealed carriers in a school.  According to some safety professionals, these are two important approaches that could significantly reduce loss of life in a shooting situation.

As a result of these ideas, or school has led the way in Utah in what is called “Fight Back Training”.  Each year, all our staff are trained in fight back/disarming techniques and they spend time running through scenarios during this training so they are mentally prepared.  Other districts throughout Utah have now joined in this effort and are having all their staff members trained.  

With regard to concealed carry, many people are surprised to learn that our school is not allowed to prohibit concealed carry on our campuses.  So, our approach has been to keep an open conversation with our employees about this topic.  We support those employees that wish to conceal carry by providing the highest level of handgun training for them, at no cost, at a training facility called Front Sight in Nevada.  We have had over 100 staff members train at Front Sight.  It is an incredibly rigorous training.  Many staff members decide not to carry once they learn how difficult it is to safely carry and how challenging it would be to effectively respond with a firearm in a shooter situation and not hurt an innocent person.  However, some do decide to carry, which we believe increases the safety at our schools.  

Fight Back training and high-level training for concealed carriers are two unique things we have instituted at our school that we believe would reduce or prevent the loss of life in an active shooter situation.

Additionally, regardless of the failures of preventative measures like double locked entries,  we believe there is merit to these systems.   We know it won’t prevent a shooter from gaining entry to a school (as we learned in Sandy Hook) but it would likely slow them down and the shooting at the entry door to gain access would alert the office staff early on in an incident so they could quickly trigger a lockdown and prepare to disarm the shooter before he gets very far into the building.  This is the goal of disarming training - to immediately disarm the shooter before he can get near any classrooms.  In alignment with this idea, this last year we piloted a double door, locked/buzzer entry at [one] campus.   We plan to expand that to more campuses.

We realize that there is little comfort today in any of this information.  With the many lives lost in Texas, we mourn with all the families at the school and with the school employees who experienced this unspeakable tragedy.  But we wanted you to know your child’s safety is top of mind with all of us.  May we find effective solutions to these very challenging problems.

wall o text.

not sure I care.

You’re missing out. But continue in ignorance.

One school gets it.

Bravo to them. I’m jealous.

My kids have a few teachers I know that carry but nothing like that.

A friend who’s not a gun person said to me today “these cowards always attack the unarmed and defenseless”.  Some people do get that gun control won’t solve this.

Front Sight is good people and training, too bad Dr. P is a fruit loop.

Hence the tldr for those who don't care to read at the beginning.

Just trying to share there's at least some schools/teachers not jumping straight to "ban guns" and are actually trying to train/arm teachers.

Look ma an edgelord.

Thanks for posting OP. Nice to see some common sense in all this bs going on right now

Then don't comment.

In reality, you should spend the three-ish minutes it takes to read it and appreciate the fact that this school district is trying to do something effective instead of the usual squawking for disarming everyone.

Wow, did not expect that at all!

Good stuff and I hope it catches on.

Good common sense in that letter.

Hopefully more schools/districts will take that approach.

Great response by the School.

Bigger_Hammer

I sent you an IM.

Disarm the shooter by putting a bullet through his/her cranium.

That was a very upstanding email.  We need more of that, and less of the bolshevik "never let a crisis go to waste" crap.

Nice to see there's a school district out there that sees their students as more than just a name and number.

That worthless fight back crap is just going to add to the body count if something ever happens there. The rest of it is awesome. I hope it's true that they have dozens of people carrying.

Regarding this disarming a better tactic would be shotguns with less lethal beam bag rounds near the front door. FYI bad guys wearing bullet proof vests have to be shot in the head or legs.

Been there, done that.

Agreed.

It's actually written quite well...good school for you kids OP.

Pelvic girdle for the win.

(better than a sharp stick in the eye)

Double door sally port with buzz in didn't work because the shooter shot his way in? Eliminate the GLASS in the door. If you have to have glass, add in "decorative" wrought iron on the inside that will not allow him to either reach the crash bars or handles, or allow him to slide in between the bars. Better, add that AND a level of bullet resistant glass. Then anyone caught propping open the doors because they are lazy is A) terminated, (staff), B) suspended, (student), to show they are very serious about student safety.
I like this school and what they say.

Very good response.

good read.  it was not too long.  

First post failure.


This school is on the right track.  Thank you for posting this it is encouraging to see that at least one school is taking well thought out measures and continuing to learn from other incedents and make changes to improve their posture.

Good school with some good options that they talk about in that letter.

Ask someone to read it to if you.

@borderbacon

This needs to make the rounds, Fight back!

My Marxist-lead county, Fairfax Virginia, predictably emailed every parent this:

“May 24, 2022

FCPS Families and Employees,

Today, Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas experienced a horrifying act which resulted in the tragic loss of 20 innocent lives; 18 children and at least two adults, including one teacher. Many more were injured.

We condemn this senseless act.

Recently, days like today seem to happen too frequently, but it does not dull the impact they have on students, school employees, and families. We offer our deepest sympathies to those who have lost loved ones in Uvalde, Texas, and our support to those for whom this brings painful memories.

Only this morning the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to declare June 3 as Gun Violence Awareness Day in Fairfax County. The importance and weight of this day is even greater, as our nation reels from the tragic loss of life to senseless and hateful gun violence that recently occurred in Buffalo, Milwaukee, Laguna Woods, and Houston as well as at Uvalde, Texas.

We want you to know that the safety of our schools, and the children and staff within them, is our highest priority. We continually work to make critical safety upgrades to our buildings each budget year. FCPS has one of the most advanced school security systems in the nation. While we hope we never see a day like today again, please be assured that we will continue to assess our protocols to ensure the safest learning and working environment possible.

Your child may have questions and concerns after learning about this tragic news. The National Association of School Psychologists has a helpful resource for families and educators to support them when talking with students about school violence. If you or your child need additional support, please reach out to your school counselor.

Lessons on gun safety are already built into our curriculum. Information about gun violence prevention is available on our website. We encourage everyone to be knowledgeable about this topic.

Scott Brabrand, Superintendent”



The Superintendent is a racist, BTW.

Lol FPDNNI

Awesome school OP.

I'd send my kids there in a quick minute.

Good post OP, thanks. And for the >insert FP response< - stop posting. When your husband gets done baking your cookies and is finished breast feeding you, actually have him read it to you.

1. "Fight back" is dangerous at best
2. I really appreciated that they admitted many staff declined to carry a gun after the found out how hard it actually is to be proficient and effective.
This is my personal pet peeve with SRO programs. Some schools just hire a retired cop who carries a Glock27 and they have him were a polo shirt to look non threatening.

Impressive, no bullshit response.

Great response.

I wish theyd let parent volunteers get involved. Id happily take a few days each month to help keep my kids school safe.

Nice

Logic instead of feels.

Letter in OP seems reasonable

Attached File



Meanwhile in nj our dick sucking governor is demanding stricter gun laws for the state. I still maintain that’s there’s always more shootings when there’s a communist sitting in the White House than there is when a republican is in.

Wall of text?

F’ing GD never ceases to amaze me.

Attached File

Maybe you can work on your reading skills so this would take you about 30 seconds to read like everyone else?

These caught me...

1st bold; Quality gear and understanding your carry (body type, position, correct weapon choice, clothing wore etc) negate much of the 'difficulty'.

2nd bold; something bad happens in front of them and they DONT have the tool to deal with it due to 1st bold, they are going to be living with a heavy burden...



Decent response from the school however.

Salt Lake. Charter school with about half a dozen campuses.

If you need to use a gun to defend a school fuck less lethal.

The sad thing is, although I'm licensed to carry a handgun, I have to disarm before entering my kids school (Texas).

Teachers and admin should not only be allowed to conceal carry, but should be given incentive to do so. Giving teachers $10/day to ccw,
or giving them yearly vouchers to purchase handguns, ammo, holsters, and training. I bet there's a ton of parents willing to pay this bill.

Having double locked doors and lockdown protocols are definitely a step in the right direction, but there has to be several trained armed persons inside the schools at all times.
There is no other way.