After recent gun incidents in North Texas schools, NBC 5’s Wayne Carter talked to school leaders in the area about how they are working to make safety improvements for students.
What used to be the unthinkable, has become the "how bad was it this time?"
North Texas schools have had at least three gun incidents involving high school students in about three weeks.
A fist fight, another person's upset, two guys arguing over a girl... these things are nothing new in high school but guns are and increasingly arguments that young kids aren't mature enough to handle are ending with guns.
School leaders everywhere are asking what can we do? How do we keep students safe?
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"Our students, our staff, have to have this type of thing in the back of their mind, you know, what if, if this than this, as superintendents, we prepare, you know, we make sure that we're training and students are aware staffs aware of how to, you know, respond in any event like this?" asked, Felicia Donaldson, Superintendent, Everman ISD.
Not even three years on the job as Superintendent, and she's already got the experience dealing with school safety concerns, after threats of a mass shooting on her campus.
She says superintendents are doubling down on safety as much as they can, but it's the phone call they fear daily.
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"It's tough and you do feel powerless," Donaldson said. "You know, no matter how much you plan, no matter how much you have prepared to prevent this. As all the districts are doing, it still happens and then that's what makes it scary."
Schools have tried everything from metal detectors to protective film to clear backpacks and the guns still show up, still become a threat. One of the latest ideas in Texas has been arming teachers so that they could protect kids.
Jeff Sellers started a program to train and arm teachers, which has become popular in more rural parts of the state.
"My wife is a teacher, she said I know you've been working on something to combat active shooters you need to put the gas pedal on, so we did," said Sellers.
"We've seen neighboring school districts put out the sign in front of schools saying some of our staff are armed, we use force to protect our students. That kept me up at night," said John Kuhn, Superintendent, Mineral Wells ISD.
It's not a path a lot of schools have been willing to go down, but as the incidents keep increasing, schools are asking themselves what can they do to slow or dare we even say stop all this. They're promising to work together, and try.
School safety experts have told us time and again, that they can't truly stop it, but can just prepare schools to better handle it. Superintendents tell us they're trying to work together, but even their confidence gets rattled.
