A Real Defense or Just a Disturbance?
Hawken built its new campus to be an “open” and “inviting” space just three years ago. We built it to have many windows as well as several wide exposed areas to make us feel more welcome and freer to move, but now this very progressive outlook to learning has created a threat to our security.
Today, we live in a world where school shootings are a constant threat to American youth. While this should not be true, until serious gun control or some other change is enacted in American legislation, students and faculty alike will have to live with a slight fear deep in their chest each day that their place of study will be the next victim of massacre.
So Hawken, built to be open, free, inviting, will have to adapt and become a little bit more vigilant in its openness.
Hawken’s new security measures include additional surveillance cameras, swipe card entry, and security film on glass to prevent the ability to punch through it. This, of course, is only a pilot measure as it is impossible to predict how these soon-to-be implemented measures will affect the efficiency of Hawken life, but it is difficult for many students to see the effectiveness of such measures.
Conversing with a group of juniors on this topic, they all erupted in laughter. Potentially, this is due to the sardonic nature of high-schoolers responding to the potential of a school shooting, but they also brought up valid points on the effectiveness of what we know about these security measures.
On discussion of the new protection on the glass, one student explained that “if a school shooter comes to a school to kill a bunch of kids, the school shooter isn’t going to have any remorse. They’re just going to unload their entire clip.” I agree with this being a fair point. What is a punch-proof window going to do but trap those without a gun inside?
Also, when notified about the upcoming key cards, various students brought up the point that if there is a shooter, “it will probably be a Hawken student.” According to Campus Safety Magazine, a magazine dedicated to informing those in charge about better securing their school campuses, 95% of school shooters are current students. While this seems an impossibility at Hawken, statistics still reveal the existence of the threat, and it is still something many students feel the administration needs to address.
There is also the issue of the irresponsibility of Hawken students. How many of us will actually be able to keep track of their key cards? Most students I spoke to believe it will be more than a nuisance than a protection.
Overall, though, most of the students I spoke to believe that anything is better than nothing. As much as students love Hawken, most of us agree that it is not the safest environment for the currently imminent threat of attacks on schools. While security cards, cameras, and stronger glass might not be as protective as some other schools’ clear backpacks and metal detectors, I am not certain the Hawken community in the foreseeable future would ever be willing to give up its freedom for such invasive, time-taking measures.
So, for now, we will just have to wait and see how the new security measures go. Will they be nothing more than a nuisance? Will they prevent invasion or attack on our school? As much as anyone can speculate, in truth, we will simply have to wait and see what the future holds.