Archive--Columbine

Opinion

04/21/00

Who's to blame for school violence?

By Georgia Reeder

It has been one year since the tragic high school shootings in Littleton, Colo., and yet our schools are still widely perceived to be just as dangerous as that day at Columbine High School.

On April 20, 1999, two students at Columbine, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, killed 13 classmates and left 23 people injured before they killed themselves. The disaster left the American people in disbelief that such a nightmare could happen in their own country's schools.

Unfortunately, the shooting at Columbine was just the beginning of the dozens of shootings in public schools around the United States, from Bethel, Alaska, to Conyers, Ga.

Just days before the one-year anniversary of Columbine, a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll found that 70 percent of Americans believed such a shooting could occur at a school in their own community.

So, why aren't our schools any safer, and how can parents take action?

Tahira Simon, a student from Youth Radio, a nonprofit organization based in Berkeley, Calif., told a CNN special report on school safety, "Parents are given too much slack these days for not parenting. They argue that their kids are out of control and won't listen. And as long as the kids aren't breaking any laws, the parents are, in turn, excused by the community. I mean, how do you not know that your kid knows how to make explosive devices or that they've created a gang at school? How could this happen?" (http://cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/schools/school.essays/)

Some say that our quaint little towns in America can point the fingers at parents for "slacking" in the parenting field. Is it really hard for parents to sit down each day for half an hour and ask their kids, "how was your day?"

I'm sure it would not be surprising to hear that what might be going on inside isn't what's portrayed on their faces.

We can expect to see politicians argue about gun laws each election with no results in the end, or as parents we can take control in our own homes. It isn't up to teachers, government or neighbors to parent our children; it's in the parents' job description.