The sad truth is that most schools do not emphasize school safety or prevention efforts any longer. Yes, there are mandates but schools don’t receive adequate money to enforce those mandates and the state no longer sees to it that things are done correctly for our kids and staff. It’s not just shootings, it’s emergencies in general. Could be a fire, collapsed building, flood, and so on. Here in our community we used to have a stellar safety program. Our schools worked hard and had dedicated individuals that were trained in the incident management system. They REGULARLY did full drills with both counties of law enforcement/fire agencies at all school sites. LTUSD was the lead on monthly safety meetings with all entities which included Barton, counseling agencies, the courts, etc. It was taken seriously to protect our kids and to be an effective element in the community when a disaster struck in the community rather than another layer of confusion. Safety is being copy-pasted as this article demonstrates. There is no true school safety plan here for our district that is relevant; it’s simply rhetoric. This has been brought to the attention of Board members over the years, some of which are now presently on the Board. I hope our schools and our community learn from other peoples’ heartbreaks throughout this country. Prevention is ALWAYS the best and least expensive path to go. Our kids, our staff, and our community deserve better.