Shootings now compete with the ringing of the school bell as another year begins. Iowa needs to do more than have more shooting drills.
As the school year began with the ringing of the bell, Iowa policymakers should be called upon to do something during this campaign season. We can address the gun violence crisis and safeguard our communities and schools, ensuring a safer future for all.
The shooting in Perry remains part of a troubling national pattern, echoing shooting incidents in Georgia and Kentucky, and the attempted attack on Donald Trump. These acts highlight the public health need to address gun violence and its political, social, and psychological roots to ensure community safety. Iowa candidates can do something this fall and push for solutions.
Now, with the recent shootings in Georgia, school shootings have unfortunately returned to our schools just as the fall semester started. Candidates at the state and local levels should respond with policy proposals to address school shootings. I can debate the merits of gun control and state and federal candidates should.
There are options our governor and legislature have failed to address, but candidates this fall can campaign on. We can build upon strengths in our communities, but our communities need state help and federal actions.
Strength of Perry. Legislative actions to arm school staff fall short and will not effectively prevent school violence. People can disagree about arming school personnel; legislators were short-sighted in not providing broader solutions. ‘Hardening’ schools will not prevent all violence; school resource officers and some brick-and-mortar solutions can help. Citizens and school boards should lead in those discussions.
I do not doubt the community of Perry and those with close ties to Perry will recover with strength and resilience. As happens with a mass shooting, there will be talk of what might have prevented it, the best way forward, and what policies could be enacted to stop future tragedies. However, as with other shootings, our Iowa leaders did not focus on keeping weapons out of the hands of young people, especially young people in pain or suffering.
Perry Community School educators and staff were heroes during the shooting; they were heroes before and after the shooting. In recent years distorted and false generalizations about teachers and public schools have filled political talking points and seeped into households, many dependent on public education.
Humanity and heroes in Perry. Perry Schools staff and administrators followed training protocols and protected children in a terrifying situation with no local precedent. It is the most extreme and dangerous example of how our public school teachers have been given responsibilities far beyond teaching.
Everyday challenges continue. Counselors are a fundamental part of the staff because some children come to school overwhelmed by personal circumstances. Our governor and legislature have the resources and authority to direct additional mental health dollars to all our schools and to beef up, not diminish, our Area Education Agencies. AEA staff were among the first professionals at the scene. AEA and school mental health resources have been weakened, not strengthened by 2024 legislative actions.
We can do better for Perry and all of Iowa. On the day of the shooting, we heard Gov Reynolds at a press conference praising teachers and announcing all the resources available to victims. Yet, no one has done more to decrease funding levels for public education their teachers than Republican leaders. I attended 12 years of public schools on the south side of Chicago. I have no problems with accountability for poorly functioning or unsafe schools. Underfunding public schools has only one result – weaker schools, reduced on-site mental health services, and a disproportionate impact on rural schools, which especially feel the financial effects of the private voucher programs.
Perry and Iowa public schools deserve the support of the governor and legislature. Our elected officials should be held to account for their neglect in not doing the following:
—Enacting model Red Flag laws in the country.
—Proving greater resources to schools, repealing the 2024 act reorganizing the AEAs, and expanding AEA service to deal with mental health crises. The governor went in the opposite direction with cuts. By the time a student is caught or seen in a hallway with a weapon, we have already failed at preventing greater violence.
—Allocation taxpayer dollars to ensure Iowans have access to mental health care, especially in rural areas. The current re-organization proposals by the governor do not lend themselves to easy translation into greater services, at least in the near term. Private insurance simply does not cover mental healthcare needs across the state. We have healthcare deserts in Iowa, especially in rural Iowa, for both mental and physical healthcare.
The above proposals should be agreed upon by all candidates. Then we can move on to other measures to deal with shootings in our society.
~by Ralph Rosenberger for PRO Iowa 24 ~PRO Iowa 24, a group of concerned Iowans sharing progressive values from Greene, Guthrie, Boone, Story, and Dallas counties.
