Advocacy Agenda: May 2024
It’s been six years since the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. While our school still works toward recovery years later, much work remains to prevent other schools from ever experiencing anything like the pain our community continues to endure.
The terrible threat of a school shooting is something that every building leader must consider and prepare for, but the safety of students and educators across the country requires action from all leaders, including parents, law enforcement, school districts, local elected officials, federal lawmakers, and even the president of the United States and his staff in the White House.
Continuous Recovery at Stoneman Douglas
I am the proud principal of Stoneman Douglas, which is a very special place for me. I started my career here almost 25 years ago as a biology teacher. Both of my children are Stoneman Douglas Eagles, one recently graduated and the other a current sophomore.
A year after the horrific mass shooting that occurred on our campus in 2018, I was asked to come back home to lead the school in its continuous recovery efforts that are still very real and active today. Despite the time that’s passed, many current students and educators need special assistance and care. We suffer setbacks and regular retraumatization each time another school shooting occurs, and we’ve unfortunately become a target for swatting, threats, and pranks that leave a struggling community further on edge and harm our recovery efforts.
As a Parkland resident, I experienced our tragedy alongside my neighbors and the rest of the community, but I also experienced it as a mother who received a panicked text from her then-eighth-grade son that there was a Code Red at school, and it was not a drill. My son was locked in a portable classroom on February 14, 2018, just steps away from where 17 students and colleagues were tragically murdered and 17 injured. Moments after the shooting began, his teacher heroically pulled in Stoneman Douglas students fleeing from the danger and kept them all safe together.
Nothing is more terrifying to a parent than the thought of their child being in a life-or-death situation. Since that day, I’ve committed myself to doing everything in my power to prevent other communities from experiencing the terror and tragedy that Parkland did six years ago. As a member of NASSP’s Principal Recovery Network (PRN), I work with a group of 20 other current and former school principals who, like me, suffered a shooting in their school or assumed leadership immediately after a shooting to lead the long and arduous road to recovery. The PRN now reaches out to every school that suffers a shooting and offers advice, guidance, and support to other principals after they endure the unimaginable.
Since our founding in 2019, the PRN’s work has grown in scope and impact. In 2022, we published the “Guide to Recovery,” a nationally circulated collection of best practices and practical advice for any school leader facing a shooting tragedy (available at nassp.org/prnguide). We’ve also fostered a close working relationship with federal agencies that support school recovery and violence prevention efforts, notably the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. We advise and consult with these agencies as they develop resources and guidance for schools, and we work hand in hand to coordinate outreach to schools impacted by shootings.
Expanding Our Impact
Earlier this year, our federal footprint expanded further to include the new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Along with other PRN members, I was honored to be invited to speak alongside First Lady Jill Biden, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, and others at a White House town hall for school leaders in January to discuss violence prevention and the importance of safe and responsible firearm storage in the home. (To watch a video of the town hall, visit bit.ly/480YtQe.)
At the event, the White House released a new resource (available at bit.ly/3w2FOWO) for school leaders and urged us to take an active role in encouraging families to safely store any firearms in the home to prevent children from accessing them. It is my hope that this event at the White House is the first of many conversations focused on taking deliberate action to end the epidemic of gun violence in this country, and specifically on school campuses. The PRN is committed to this work and to continuing to help with the development and implementation of solutions to protect our students and our campuses.
This is a multifaceted crisis, and it’s going to require action on many fronts. But if we are prepared to name the problem and agree that we must continue to address it, we will make progress, prevent shootings, and save lives.
Last year, there were at least 346 incidents of gunfire on school grounds in our country according to the K–12 School Shooting Database, the most ever recorded. In these tragedies, 249 students and educators were killed or wounded. Although we often only hear about the incidents like Stoneman Douglas, those with mass casualties that receive national media attention, we are averaging a school shooting incident almost every single day, and that number has been increasing year after year.
We must face this problem head on, and parents, educators, law enforcement, and policymakers must come together and work toward more solutions. This is a multifaceted crisis, and it’s going to require action on many fronts. But if we are prepared to name the problem and agree that we must continue to address it, we will make progress, prevent shootings, and save lives. That’s what those of us who lead schools recovering from such tragedies believe, and we need you to join us in this effort.
We can all play a role in making our schools and communities safer. I urge all school leaders to review the new safe firearm storage information from our federal leaders, and to contact members of the PRN with any questions.
We are here to assist any school impacted by a shooting, and I look forward to the day when our voices are no longer needed. Until then, we will continue to support all schools that suffer shooting tragedies, and we will ensure that the principal’s voice is represented when policymakers are considering action that will impact us all.
Michelle Kefford is the principal of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, and a member of NASSP’s Principal Recovery Network (PRN). PRN members will present two sessions at UNITED in July.