A high school student was shot and killed by one of her friends in this spot. Multiple opportunities to prevent this tragedy were missed. The school and district had focused intently on active shooter incidents while ignoring numerous proven strategies to prevent the types of homicides that claim the lives of 8.5 times more victims than active shooter events. The school district settled the civil action filed in this case for $350,000. Tragically, the school district and local law enforcement agencies had been provided with approximately $49 million in federal grant funding for school safety efforts, security and emergency preparedness.

Factual Information Should Drive School Safety Efforts

With striking regularity we are pounded with headlines that paint a terrifying picture of school safety in America. Reports that claim that school shootings take place almost daily, that the majority of students and staff who lock down in school shooting events are killed, and that we must now focus our efforts on training students and staff to attack gunman. The problem is that each of the examples and many more too numerous to list in a blog have not been supported by any real evidence. In some cases, these alarmist assertions have been made by vendors with a product or service to sell at any cost. In other instances, outlandish claims have been made for clearly political purposes. And in many cases, they are made by people with the best of intentions. The problem is each of these and other alarmist and unsubstantiated claims result in the deaths of innocent students annually. This is because many of our local, state and federal school safety efforts in the past two years are intensively and pervasively focused on active shooter incidents to the exclusion of far more common causes of death in K12 schools. In effect, preventable deaths continue to occur while we focus intently on the most frightening types of events with intensity while dedicating precious few resources to leading causes of death in K12 schools. Having worked seven active shooter incidents in American and Canadian schools, I fully understand that mass casualty school shootings are truly horrific events. However, the tragedies faced by many parents whose children die from more common causes cannot be ignored just because the quiet tragedies do not receive intensive media coverage.

In his groundbreaking report Relative Causes of Death published by the Maine Department of Education, Steve Satterly proves conclusively that active shooter events are not the leading cause of death in American K12 schools. Satterly’s research is the first time the standard United States Government definition for active shooter incidents has been used to determine how many people have been murdered by active shooters in American K12 schools. He found that 62 people were murdered by active shooters on K12 property over a time period of fifteen years, from 1998-2012. This figure is much lower than the numbers we often see reported. Satterly spent two months evaluating mounds of data to compare active shooter deaths to other causes of death on K12 school campuses. Among other things, Satterly demonstrated that twice as many people died from suicide on school property (129) as were murdered by active shooters, that other forms of homicide are far more common than active shooter deaths and that school-related traffic fatalities caused nearly 8.5 times more deaths than K12 active shooter deaths.

While active shooter incidents have resulted in the brutal murders of 62 students and staff from 1998 to 2012, school-related traffic fatalities claimed 525 lives during the same time period. While any school can be the scene of a mass casualty shooting, other types of school crisis events have claimed far more lives over the past fifteen years. School safety resources should be utilized in a thoughtful and balanced manner.

Over the past two years, school and public safety officials have often focused far more time, energy and money towards the prevention of and preparation for active shooter events than on other deadly threats. This would be an improvement if there were a focus on strategies that have been proven to work and if the efforts to prevent more common causes of death were not suffering as a result. Active shooter events are one very real possibility for any school in America. No school is immune to the genuine possibility of such an event on campus. However, Satterly’s research demonstrates that school officials should also devote attention to the types of violent deaths they are far more likely to experience. While most children who die on school property die one at a time without national media attention, these deaths are just as tragic as those horrific events that capture the headlines as well as tax our limited school safety resources.

The Window of Life is a tool to help school employees reduce danger to themselves and others in a school crisis situation. The Window of Life is especially important for active shooter incidents where calling 911 before communicating the need for a lockdown can cause a lengthy delay in taking protective actions that can save lives while law enforcement officers are on the way – even when officers are assigned to the campus where the attack is taking place.

School shooting Incidents will not end Soon

One question reporters often ask me is what can be done to make sure there are no more school shootings. Though I am an optimist by nature, I do not anticipate an eradication of school shootings in my lifetime. There are a variety of reasons for this. We are nation with many people with a propensity for violence that is well entrenched in our culture.   Though gun control measures have helped make school shootings rare in countries like the People’s Republic of China, even the death penalty for ammunition and firearms possession has not been able to completely eliminate mass casualty school shootings there.  According to an article in the Economist last year, approximately 5,000 people are victims of shootings annually in China even though private ownership of any type of firearm has been in place for more than sixty years. In a nation lacking this type of draconian criminal justice system and with more than 300 million firearms in private hands, it does not appear that there is any simple legislative measure that will effectively prevent some people from getting their hands on guns to carry out school attacks. As the dozens mass casualty school attacks in China demonstrate, offenders will also likely simply switch to alternative weapons such as knives. Knives have been used to kill as many as fourteen victims in a single school attack in China. As we point out in Staying Alive – How to Act Fast and Survive Deadly Encounters, between 200 and 300 elementary school children and employees have been seriously injured and murdered in mass casualty attacks in the People’s Republic of China in recent years.

School security is still inadequate in many schools

In addition, there are still numerous K12 schools that lack even some of the most basic school security measures. In spite of clear indications that school shootings can occur in public, private, charter, parochial and independent schools in any community, there are many schools that lack effective prevention measures. These factors and others combined with the massive number of schools in our nation make it likely that school shootings will continue to take place here just as they have occurred in Canadian, Chinese and German schools.

Many school shootings can be prevented

Thus, it is my belief that school shootings will sadly continue to be part of our national landscape. However, school shootings are not inevitable at individual schools per se. The good news is that individual school organizations that take the threat of violence seriously can do a great deal to reduce the chances that they will experience a school shooting. In fact, my experience has been that the reduction in risk for school shootings can be dramatic. By focusing on a multifaceted approach to school violence prevention using evidence-based approaches, the average school can make the chances they will experience a school shooting remote. This is borne out by the lack of school weapons incidents at school districts around the nation that have maintained a perfect track record in spite of intensive local risk factors for school violence. It is important that we study school shooting that take place. At the same time, it is imperative that we also study schools where school weapons violence would be expected, but has not taken place. We must take time to study not only our tragedies but our many successes as well.