Lake Highlands High School does everything it can to keep kids safe, a longtime teacher says, but until we “fix the actual problem,” she knows she “could be the next teacher this happens to.”
Back in 2016, longtime LHHS teacher Casey Boland organized what is now a tradition, Senior Walk, where graduating seniors return to their elementary schools to dispense inspiration. This being the last week of school, Senior Walk started today, which should be joyful and celebratory. But instead of fully focusing on the future, teachers, students and parents here and everywhere are lost in thought about yesterday’s mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Boland took to social media today to share her perspective on safety at Lake Highlands High School. (Shared with permission.)
“I’ve been on the teacher side of school for 24 years. I work in a school the unknowing would classify as ‘scary’ diverse. We have 3,000 kids, some of whom suffer from mental illness, bullying and radicalization. We are as ripe for a mass shooting as any school,” she began.
“So why have I never, not for one day, been scared in my building? Because I know we do all we really can do to keep kids safe. Safety features and procedures are in place. We have IDs, SROs, locked doors and double-paned windows.
We have active shooter drills and ‘how-to-pack-a-gaping wound’ trainings. We are as safe as we can be.
But could it still happen? Of course. Because what we won’t do is fix the actual problem, which is access to weapons that can kill a classroom full of kids in minutes.
Until we have that real conversation, and legit action to back it up, all of the prayers and laments and tears just come across as performative to someone like me, who really could be the next teacher this happens to.”
Even before I finished writing this post, we received word that a school nearby, Berkner High School — which shares a stadium with LHHS and serves some of Lake Highlands — was on lockdown due to an armed person in the area. Turns out everyone is safe and the suspect is in custody.
