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Nashville Private School Shooting
Nashville Private School shooting: A heavily armed assailant stalked the halls of The Covenant School as an alarm sounded and lights flashed.
Several well-known security measures, including the double set of locked glass doors the shooter shot their way through before killing three children and three school employees, were visible in the surveillance video of the shooting Monday at the private Christian school in Nashville.
Nashville Private School Shooting: George Grant Statement
George Grant, a leader with the Nashville Presbytery, which is associated with the school, said that it was “just about impossible to stop someone with an AR-17 coming through the door.” Grant stated that although the Presbytery’s churches and institutions lack a formal security program, members have collaborated to share best practices and enhance safety.
Private schools in the United States typically do not have to comply with as many security plan development standards as public schools. According to a statement sent via email from the state Department of Education, private schools are exempt from Tennessee laws that mandate that schools create fire safety plans.
Even though private schools are sometimes qualified for state funding to bolster security with personnel, tools, and technology, government programs to do so are not always accessible to them. Private schools can also apply for government grants for security assistance.
Nashville Private School Shooting: Statement of Mo Candy, head of the National Association of School Resource Officers
According to Mo Canady, executive head of the National Association of School Resource Officers, private schools typically do not have access to the police officers that many public schools have stationed on their campuses. Several private institutions, he claimed, have made arrangements to hire recently retired officers.
“I would imagine that there may be more attempts by private schools to try to not only bolster security but also to get school resource officers after this horrific situation in Nashville,” said the author.
However, despite pervasive worries about mass shootings, experts claim private schools have made investments in violence prevention on par with public schools.
Private schools were among the organizations that made the biggest security investments in the wake of the 2012 Connecticut Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, which left 26 people dead. According to Michael Dorn, the executive director of Safe Havens International, a nonprofit school safety center, who has been involved in evaluating security at thousands of schools, private schools now employ some of the highest-paid security experts, including former federal agents.
According to Myra McGovern of the National Association of Independent Schools, security procedures for private schools are comparable to those for public schools, but they are more specifically tailored to the location and conditions of each school.
Private schools, which also have to take into account boarding students and, in some cases, the children of leaders of the state to look after, may not have security measures like metal detectors that are as obvious, she said.
Although security attention is comparable, McGovern suggested that it might manifest differently.
As with public schools, the quality of safety plans varies greatly for private institutions as well, according to Dorn.
He observed that some institutions were exceptional while others lagged behind.
Also, Read ” Nashville School Shooting Case: Latest update“
Nashville Private School Shooting: Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee issued an executive order
Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee issued an executive order on school safety measures last year that instructed the state to perform a report on the use of armed guards in nonpublic schools and evaluate those institutions’ need for active-shooter training.
The majority of school districts in the United States hold lockdown and active-shooter drills, and the Nashville school had both in 2022, which, according to city police spokeswoman Brooke Reese, prevented additional casualties from the shooting on Monday.
Private or not, Covenant Elementary School is less likely to have assigned security officers than middle and high schools, where shootings are more prevalent. Additionally, educators are cautious of upsetting young students with more intrusive security measures.
From preschool through sixth grade, there are about 200 pupils enrolled at the Covenant School. The Nashville Presbytery, which comprises congregations in the Presbyterian Church in America across Middle Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky, is affiliated with the university and the Covenant Presbyterian Church.
The majority of our churches have received instruction and have carefully examined their security measures, according to Grant, the Nashville Presbytery’s most recent moderator. It has simply developed out of relationships and is not an official presbytery-wide project.
Grant claimed that lockdown protocols and security codes are in place at Franklin Classical School, a facility under the spiritual direction of his church, Parish Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee. When classes are in session, a retired police officer is always present at the school. The existence of a security guard at The Covenant School is unclear.
According to Grant, the security staff at his church has requested a review of security procedures and has already scheduled training for the week following Easter.
We live in a broken, fallen world, and this is just a nice reminder of that, he said. And we must exercise caution to take the greatest possible care of one another.
Reporting from Washington, D.C., was _ Ma. This article was written by Associated Press reporters Jonathan Mattise in Nashville and Michael Melia in Hartford, Connecticut.
The Carnegie Corporation of New York provides funding to the Associated Press teaching staff. All material is the sole responsibility of the AP.
