At the start of the school year, Eva Mireles wrote an eager, but now haunting, message: “We have a wonderful year ahead of us.” On their last day of school, Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles were fourth grade teachers who tragically died during the Uvalde shooting alongside 19 children. Garcia and Mireles’ courage will be remembered. Both teachers were seen trying to shelter their students from the bullets. Garcia was found by officers “embracing children in her arms pretty much until her last breath.”
Being a teacher is a tough job for several reasons. Challenges such as student behavior and the technical challenges wrought by a shift to “remote” teaching, for instance, have only accelerated after the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, low pay and plummeting school funding have contributed to the loss of 40,000 aspiring teachers, a decline of nearly one-third since 2010. Nearly one-third of new teachers, including all the teachers interviewed by the HPR, have taken up several jobs along with teaching. In recent years, another challenge has arisen: the rising number of school shootings in the United States. Teachers are one of the groups who are most affected by school shootings and it is more important than ever to highlight their voices — voices which are calling for meaningful safety measures, tighter gun control, and increased investment into the education system. Teachers are calling for help against a war.
Fighting a War Within a Classroom
The Memorial to Fallen Educators was installed in 2013 to honor educators who have died protecting their students. The memorial honors fallen educators “who had lost their lives ‘in the line of duty,’” a line that seemingly belongs on a memorial honoring soldiers. In recent years, the rise of school shootings has called teachers to this grave responsibility: fighting a war against school shooters.
The Sandy Hook school shooting occurred in 2012, which was also the year that Brittany Ratcliff began her teaching career at Holy Name Catholic School in Indianapolis. In an interview with the HPR, Ratcliff stated that after the Sandy Hook tragedy, “I kept thinking to myself, ‘Could I fit all 30 of my students in that closet? And could I keep my students all quiet?’ My students were nine and 10-year-olds and so little.” In an interview, Ratcliff drew a comparison to Garcia and Mireles, who also taught 4th graders. Ratcliff states that after moments like Uvalde, “The question I had to ask was would I literally protect my students with my life because if not, I couldn’t be in this role.” Like many teachers, Ratcliff knew her answer: “Unequivocally yes.”
This was also the answer of Sierra Horvath, who nearly 10 years ago became a teacher at Wando High School, a large public high school in South Carolina. Horvath told the HPR, “As a new mom, I can’t imagine sending my child to school and then getting a call that my child didn’t make it.” She expressed concerns that school shootings could occur anywhere at any time. Horvath’s belief that change is needed is held by teachers more broadly. Sixty percent of educators are worried that a school shooting could happen at their school. Teachers have been called upon to stand in the face of unimaginable violence — a task that has now become part of their job description.
Varying Calls for Change
Teachers are unified in their experience of school shootings, and they identify many different and interacting root causes of the violence they experience within their classrooms. For Horvath, the violence is a product of lax gun laws. However, when Horvath reached out to her senators, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), she said she received an automatic email response: “I do not support universal background checks or bans on guns/assault weapons.” Horvath expressed frustration that senators in her state were not representing the view of the majority of educators and the American people. Ninety-nine percent of educators favor universal background checks, and 85% support banning assault weapons. More than half of Americans believe firearms sales should be stricter and roughly 85% of Americans support universal background checks.
These measures have already demonstrated their efficacy in other parts of the world. Ratcliff explains that a “school shooting happened in Scotland years ago and strict gun laws were put in place immediately and there have been zero since. Zero.” Scotland’s deadliest school shooting took place in 1996 at Dunblane Primary School, which ended in the death of 16 children and one teacher. After the incident, the U.K. placed some of the world’s strictest restrictions on gun ownership, which have resulted in zero school shootings since 1996. The United States, meanwhile, has seen 27 school shootings and more than 400 mass shootings in just 2022 alone.
However, other educators such as John Berry, a former teacher at Emmerich Manual High School in Indianapolis, believe that tougher gun control might not be the answer to the rising number of school shootings. Berry told the HPR that “the issue is not the gun that was used, the real issue is to change the educational system to help the students learn how to deal with emotions to keep this from happening again.” Nearly 97% of teachers believe that increasing funding and resources for mental health counseling in schools and communities would help diminish the number of school shootings. Given that research has shown that a majority of perpetrators have been victims of bullying, possess low self-esteem, lack coping skills, display ineffective anger management skills, and have poor problem-solving skills, Berry asserted that investing in schools is the best possible solution to combating the rising number of school shootings in the United States.
Berry ended his interview by stating, “I find it hard to not see the correlation between these budget cuts and the rise of school violence but school administrators continue to get a free pass … the education system has forgotten that students are people and not just a graduation rate percentage.” Even that graduation rate tells a story of struggle: Emmerich, Berry’s former workplace, saw its graduation rate fall from 78% in 2019 to 57% in 2020. American high schools are unfunded by $150 billion annually, and resources aimed at improving graduation rates and mental health are the most affected. A holistic solution, then, not only implements gun safety regulation, but also provides assistance to the students who think those guns are their only answer.
In a world where the threat of school shootings is always looming, teachers must learn to build healthy relationships with students, recognize trauma and bullying, and create safe classroom environments on top of teaching curriculum and managing a classroom. Horvath stated that she attends professional development days devoted to learning about active shooters, how to recognize alarming behaviors in students that could lead to shootings, and what authorities to contact regarding troubled students.
Ratcliff expressed concern that teachers had grown numb and unresponsive to school shootings. Ratcliff stated that teachers must “put on their brave face and remind kids that they will protect them always, but know in their heart they may not be able to.” She remains a teacher after the Sandy Hook tragedy. “The fact that babies are being shot in their first-grade classroom is not a final straw, but that we are still discussing it [Sandy Hook] 10 years later makes me sick to my stomach.”
A Wave of Resignation
Horvath decided two years ago to quit her decade-long profession based on several factors in addition to the rise of school shootings. Some factors were bureaucratic: Mounds of unnecessary paperwork required by the Department of Education. Others were political: With the rise of legislation such as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, Horvath highlighted that “teachers are constantly accused of indoctrinating students and not trusted to teach the content they have degrees in.” Other challenges such as the coronavirus pandemic challenged teachers by introducing unprecedented ways of teaching, such as synchronous and asynchronous instruction. The threat of school shootings is only one of many factors that have created frustration among teachers.
With the increasing difficulty of the job, teachers share a wide range of responses with prospective teachers.
Ratcliff offered the following word of advice: “Remember why you started. You have the gift and ability to literally change the lives of other humans every day.” She explained that during her normal school day, the reality of school shootings is seemingly trivial. During her interview with the HPR, she recalled her personal experience: “You will get a card from a family or a child that you will read on bad days that will keep you there. Do you want to know what mine says? ‘I always thought I was dumb before I was in your class, but now I know I’m not and you helped me realize that.’” On her social media, Uvalde teacher Irma Garcia displayed her dedication to her career and students, stating that she strove to “challenge my future students to be independent learners.”
However, for other teachers, the cost-benefit analysis of joining the education profession tilts in the other direction. Horvath said, “Every time someone says they want to be a teacher, I try my hardest to talk them out of it.” She explained that despite her 10 years as a teacher, she doesn’t agree with how the current education system is functioning. She stated, “No one is listening to the teachers, the ones in the thick of it.” With regard to the school shooting at Uvalde, she noted, “We are often the sacrificial lambs.” Teachers are at the forefront of school shootings, and their voices should be heard at the discussion table.
When asked about what advice he had for prospective teachers on dealing with their emotions surrounding the growing dissatisfaction with teaching, Berry suggested that new teachers should “develop your own opinion on the matter by doing your research. Look at all sides of the issue and then make up your own mind.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 600,000 teachers in public education quit between January 2020 and today. While the number of teachers keeps decreasing, the reasons to leave the profession are only growing and school shootings are just one of many that have pushed teachers to their limits.
School shootings have been on the rise for the past 20 years. With states across the country, specifically in Texas where the Uvalde shooting occurred, relaxing gun laws, it does not seem like the problem of school shootings is going away anytime soon. American teachers are dealing with the fear of increased shootings at schools, alongside the burdens of curriculum restrictions, low pay, and high workloads. Increasingly, teachers are worried about keeping their students — and themselves — safe from school shootings and other forms of violence.
Image by CDC is licensed under the Unsplash License.
