School safety has become an international issue over the past decade, especially this past year. Already in 2018, there has been a total of 23 school shootings in the U.S.
Schools have been debating how they could advance this protection, and a couple students have decided to speak out on this controversial topic, giving ways on how schools can improve their security.
“We should have some metal detectors at the doors, kind of like an airport. This would not only stop weapons from coming into school but also alcohol and drugs,” junior Ryan Finley said.
But not every student agrees with Finley’s proposition. Another junior, Adam Booker, said that metal detectors would take too long, and it’d be too much of a hassle.
“There should be more cameras more cameras outside,” Booker said, “To detect who goes in and out of the building.”

Junior Devion Harris leaned more towards the after-school part of the day for the most supervision, referencing how some students stay after school for neither tutoring nor an activity. “There should be stricter rules for staying after school. People should be staying after school for an activity or tutoring, not just for no reason,” Harris said.
Before the Columbine shooting of April 20, 1999, the town of Littleton had absolutely no security cameras on campus. Since then, the schools have installed more than a thousand cameras, some even with the potential to alert staff of unusual activity. By 2015-2016, about 81% of schools had security cameras installed.

Juniors Jacob Levy and Morgan Kinran focused more on a teacher approach. “Teachers, with correctly done background checks, should have access to guns,” Levy said, “This would make sure that the people of authority have a source of protection.”

Kinran said there should be more than one resource officer, because “in the case of a school shooter, just one person isn’t enough, considering how many students are at this school.”
Corporate representatives at the Security Industry Association adopted a number of new forms of school security, including surveillance cameras with facial recognition capabilities, gunshot detection sensors, automated door locks, and a type of software that scans the social media platforms of people entering and leaving a school. The possibility of door locks that open with a smartphone, motion detectors that alert the faculty before a visitor reaches the building’s proximity, and cameras that track the visitors that roam around the campus could be in the making
It will ultimately be the school’s decision on how they will approach this escalating need for school safety, but students feel that action needs to be taken immediately.