I’ve looked into Thursday’s school shooting in the Perry Iowa High School. In the online videos from the scene, Iowa’s Governor, Kim Reynolds, and the local police chief praise the rapid response of the police and how it stopped the tragedy from being much worse. It was not mentioned that if there was an armed police officer with a metal detector at any of the school’s open doors there would have been no tragedy. I cannot understand how having a 6th grader shot dead and five others wounded can be praise- worthy if the facts are nobody should have been shot in the Perry Iowa High School.

I don’t know if there is a New York City Police Officer with a metal detector at the only open door to the Mary McLeod Bethune School, P.S. 92, in Manhattan, like there was when I did a practicum there in 1989, but I do know if there is still an officer at that door the school is a safe place for its students and staff. Instead of trying to get faster response times to tragic school shootings why not eliminate them by making schools safe.