What Is Going on in Our Schools?

A look at troubling issues from elementary to higher education.

Photo by Taylor Flowe on Unsplash

The mission of Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, is stated clearly at the top of its website:

The staff and community of Richneck Elementary School believe that all children can achieve academic success and become productive citizens. We will choose appropriate strategies to help all children learn in a safe, orderly and inviting environment.

That mission was tested with a single bullet on Fri., Jan. 6. As first-grade teacher Abigail Zwerner, 25, taught a lesson, one of her students, age 6, pointed a gun at her. Zwerner held up her hand to defend herself. The bullet went through her hand and into her chest. Currently, Zwerner is still hospitalized but said to be improving.

Even if the six-year-old who fired the gun didn’t understand the meaning of “safe, orderly and inviting,” his teacher did. Right after she was shot, Zwerner led the rest of her first-graders outside of the classroom to protect them. She didn’t exit the classroom until all of her students had been evacuated.

Local police have said the shooting was “intentional.” This suggests that the gun didn’t accidentally go off while the student was holding it; rather, the student pointed the gun at Zwerner and fired. Police also said the student got the gun from his mother’s home and that it had been legally obtained by her.

This is all shocking and absurd, but it’s even more infuriating when you consider this: At least one administrator at Richneck Elementary had been warned earlier in the day that the child might have a weapon. The child’s backpack was searched, but no weapon was found. It’s unclear how the administrator was alerted about a possible gun, or where the child was keeping it since it wasn’t in the backpack.

The Newport News police said that, "a school employee was notified of a possible firearm at Richneck Elementary before the shooting occurred. The Newport News Police Department was not notified of this information prior to the incident."

In response to the shooting at Richneck Elementary, all schools in the Newport News district will have metal detectors installed.

Questions naturally arise about how to handle such a case. What is the appropriate way to discipline the child? Should the mother face charges? Does the administrator who checked the child’s backpack bear some responsibility? According to the Washington Post, a child bringing a gun to school and shooting someone isn’t unheard of, but administrators and law enforcement still struggle with how to handle this type of situation.

A couple of months earlier, in a middle school classroom in New Jersey, danger came not at the hands of a student but of a teacher. Frank Thompson, an art teacher at Roosevelt Intermediate School in Westfield, apparently overdosed on fentanyl in front of his students. The 6th-8th graders watched as Thompson became unresponsive during their 9 AM class and eventually was revived with Narcan, which is used to reverse fentanyl overdoses.

Responding investigators found drugs and drug paraphernalia in Thompson’s classroom closet. In January, he was charged with possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and endangering the welfare of children.

Is it any wonder that by the time they reach high school, some students have lost any sense of innocence and have become weary from what they’ve witnessed inside and outside their classrooms? Once tragedy strikes, these young people are subject to trauma that can last a lifetime.

On January 10, Pierre McCoy, 18, was waiting for a bus outside of John Adams College and Career Academy in Cleveland when he was struck and killed by a bullet. The incident occurred around 3 PM with about 25 other students at or near the bus stop. Police believe that McCoy was the sole target of the at-large assailant, who wore a ski mask.

Students filed back into John Adams College and Career Academy three days later, but the incident weighed heavy on many of their minds. “That’s somebody’s son at the end of the day, so I feel bad about that. He didn’t deserve it,” John Adams senior Davonte Holeman told a local news station. In the end, Holeman didn’t feel comfortable at school and called his dad for a ride home.

“They feel that person could come back any day, and I guess like I’m really just trying to get home and be safe, be with my parents,” he said.

McCoy was the third student murdered near a Cleveland school in the last six months. Devonte Johnson, 16, was shot and killed August 17, 2022 near the city’s Glenville High School. A month later, Andre D. Wells, 16, was shot as he walked to James Ford Rhodes High School on the city’s west side. He died two days later.

Even as more children experience trauma and grief in grades K-12, some higher education institutions seem to consider words and images just as harmful to young adults as murderous weapons. The University of Southern California School of Social Work, for example, recently announced that it is removing the word “field” from its curriculum. Instead, students will enter a “practicum of study.” A letter published by USC’s School Social Work explained the reason for the change: “Language can be powerful, and phrases such as ‘going into the field’ or ‘field work’ maybe have connotations for descendants of slavery and immigrant workers that are not benign.”

A quick search of the word “field” in the dictionary shows that its meanings range from “an expanse of open or cleared ground, especially a piece of land suitable or used for pasture or tillage” to “the area in which field events are held” and “a region or space in which a given effect (such as magnetism) exists.” What’s more, the word “field” has been used since the 12th century to describe “an open land area free of woods and buildings.”

Meanwhile, a professor at Hamline University in Minnesota was fired for showing her class images of the prophet Muhammed. Ironically, adjunct professor Erika López Prater’s course focused on Islamic art. Prater is said to have prefaced the course by warning students on the syllabus that images of religious figures like Muhammad would be shown in class. (Many people of the Muslim faith believe it is forbidden to show images of Muhammed.) She also asked students to approach her with concerns. None of them did; however, a Muslim student complained outside of class and got other Muslim students to do the same.

Prater apologized to the student, but it was too late. Hamline Associate Vice President of Inclusive Excellence David Everett told students in an email that Prater’s decision to show images of Muhammed was “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic." Prater then lost her job.

A number of Muslim professors have come to Prater’s defense, pointing out that the image she showed her class illustrates the angel Gabriel appearing to Muhammed during his first revelation. Amna Khalid, a history professor at Carleton College in Minnesota, said that “this image is considered a masterpiece by art historians.” Khalid also said that she was upset with Hamline’s decision on the matter for many reasons, among them that “they're endorsing a particular view of Islam, and in doing so, they're silencing billions of Muslims who do not subscribe to that view.”

Going back to the idea of a school being “a safe, orderly and inviting environment,” is that actively being done in some of our schools today, or is it just a feel-good phrase? Is it possible to keep young children out of danger inside and outside of the classroom? Can we expect instructors to risk their lives teaching first grade? Are we expecting students to live with the trauma of witnessing drug overdoses and murders and somehow emerge unscathed and ready to be productive adults?

Are we putting kids through metal detectors, live-shooter drills and police investigations while they’re young but then swaddling them as young adults to protect them from words or images that are deemed offensive by a few people?

What is going on in our schools? Is there an opportunity for real change?

What do you think?