Editorial
School violence

The recent outbreak of violence in our schools has provide one thing ... we expect it.

People in Colorado, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have expressed outrage and distress that these violent acts have occurred in their towns and in their schools but not simply because they have occurred at all.

In the last decade shootings at suburban schools have made the news after occurring throughout the country. The most famous of these is 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, where 12 students and a teacher were killed.

These shootings are a reminder that violence is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our daily existence.

Area schools are locking the doors and requiring IDs for all adults walking through the building. School officials and police have evacuation plans - similar to the fire drills of the past. They have developed lock down drills - for cases when the students and teachers cannot evacuate safely. The schools and police departments have also worked together to get an officer in the schools to get to know the students and help prevent problems before they occur.

Many of these basic safety steps - locking the doors - are simply good planning and should be completed for a variety of security reasons. The next security steps will be taking things too far.

Students should not have to walk through metal detectors to get to class. They should not have to take off their shoes like they are in line at the airport.

But in some ways these students are facing a second type of war on terror that their parents never had to face.

Area schools have not taken these more drastic measures because they have not faced significant threats to the safety of students and facilities.

But schools cannot battle the issue of violence on their own.

Parents, community members and others must step up and say this type of action is unacceptable in our community. It is not a matter of simply blaming the video games, television shows and books. These are the abstract versions of the violence that people are coming to expect.

People have to talk about how violence, especially gun violence effects a victim, a victim's family and even the perpetrator's life after the incident. The program is similar to the Face to Face program offer during 1990s, where AIDS and HIV patients talked with students to directly address issues of these diseases on their lives and on their families.

Violence and its effects cannot be abstract to people. It must have a face because we cannot say it's not in our school so it is not our problem. We cannot allow it in any school.