Letters to the Editor: Students respond to this week’s events
Caitlyn Serra
Dear Stampede’s Editor in Chief,
I am writing in light of the occurrence that surfaced this week at Metea Valley High School. I feel compelled and encouraged to voice my position on the threats that students made regarding a possible school shooting and what the administration is and can be doing to handle crisis prevention. For the past 20 years, students, parents, and teachers across the country have lived with the reality of school shootings. Because school shootings are difficult to predict, I feel that Metea Valley needs to put in place better prevention practices that will lessen the anxiety of students walking into the school to receive an education.
While I applaud the current efforts that the administration has put in place as far as how to respond if a shooting does take place, I feel that prevention is the critical key factor. Currently, students and staff have been trained in emergency management plans such as lockdowns and evacuations but I am writing to express my concerns over what has not been done. Further safety measures that will better protect the students and staff need to be implemented. Metal detectors, armored classroom doors that automatically lock in emergency situations, and more resource officers on campus daily are just a few ways that can not only prevent a shooting from happening, but can better protect the students and staff if one does. I realize that the cost to implement these safety measures is a factor, but I know there is funding available for schools around the country and bills that are currently in the works to provide even more funding to safeguard schools. There should never be a price tag put on the safety of students.
Threats are typically just that…a threat. However, these threats could surface into reality at any given time. The heightened anxiety that swept through our school this week has been immeasurable. The administration stating that “we have things under control” or “we do not feel that these threats have any credibility” does not hold any validity to me in terms of feeling safe in a place that all students should feel safe at. I encourage our staff, administration, and other students to use their voice to make some changes. I think that if we all collaborate together we might just see some positive results.
Sincerely,
Caitlyn Serra
Ashrita Gottumukkula
Dear Editor in Chief of Metea Media,
The past few days Metea has faced several threats of a school shooting. I’m sure several students have expressed their frustration at the gun culture of America and their anger that nothing has changed since Sandy Hook. I am no less outraged, but I trust that Metea Media will publish articles and opinions.
Other than the fear and anger towards the threat itself, there was something else that upset me: the lack of transparency between the school and the students. Parents received calls and emails on December 3rd & 4th. They were informed of the message in the school bathroom, but this courtesy was not extended to the students themselves. I was unaware of the message from December 3rd until a friend told me his parents had gotten a call the day before. What I know about the threats has largely been hearsay and rumors because of the lack of communication with students. My own well-being is at stake and I would like to be informed of a potential risk.
Furthermore, not a single one of my teachers has addressed the issue, and I find that this has generally been a trend at Metea Valley.
I believe Metea’s lack of transparency with its students causes a lack of communication and trust in the institution. I hope this issue is something you would consider looking into, because I believe it is something that should be solved.
Zachary Pearce
Dear Editor,
I’d like to talk about the recent unfortunate events that have taken place in our own school. The threats written on our bathroom walls have sparked fear and a feeling of uneasiness in everyone who enters the school from now on. The questions we have to answer as a school is how we will respond? How will we change as a school? When facing fear the best way to overcome is to come together. Becoming one and having trust in the administrators that have put forth their best effort in everything they do to keep us safe. Other questions could come to mind such as what kind of new safety will our school take part in? Will we have a search in backpacks? Personally I would not mind having more security. A metal detector or random backpack search would do nothing but save lives and assure safety. Although costly this could be the answer to safety in our school and other schools nationwide. The state of Illinois could enforce this rule and it would ensure safety in schools as well as create more jobs and increase the economy. Overall we can take many learning experiences away from the scary events from the past week. We’ve learned that our school cares. They have gotten right to an investigation to keep us safe. We have also learned the harsh reality of the world today. You can hear about shootings on the news but everything changes when you could be affected. This is no joking matter in fact it is not funny at all. Learn that every life is important and if you notice anything that is out of the norm it is not a bad idea to tell someone. Learn that we can move on and grow as a school to become better and to create better learning environments for everyone.
Krishna Vasudev
This past week has been a turbulent one to say the very least. I came back from Thanksgiving Break feeling thankful for what my family and friends have done for me. Then, the environment turned surreal. I remember a classmate telling me that there has been a threat made to shoot up the school. I promptly asked if it was reported to the deans. Two people had already voiced their concerns to them by the time I knew of the incident. The day went by normally. I had practice after school and then I went home.
I promptly broke down thinking about what could happen. I didn’t want my defining moment in high school to be a school shooting. Thankfully it was not that. I know that the majority of the student body in MVHS felt the same way after word spread of the threats. It is absolutely insane that a few students think that they can make these kinds of comments at a school in this day and age. Decades ago, this probably would’ve been fine. However, we are in 2019 and there are incidents like these that actually play out almost every day in the year in this country.
The reason why this is important is because we need to set a precedent. As a student body we need to hold ourselves accountable to our actions. That not only includes each individual. It includes everyone who goes to MVHS. MVHS does not stand for making threats and we need to hold ourselves accountable as a student body to those who detract from what this school stands for. Holding ourselves accountable does not mean that everyone should receive consequences. It means that we as a student body ensure that another incident like this does not happen again. Threats do not belong anywhere. By posting a news article about this incident, we establish what is acceptable in a school and circumvent future threats from occuring again.
Sincerely,
Krishna Vasudev
Emily • Dec 9, 2019 at 9:53 am
I agree with the statements above because of the amount of concern I constantly feel with school shootings being a casual topic in America. I remember marching for this cause during my freshman year. The first statement about the school not doing enough is one that I particularly relate to. During our single lockdown drill this year, the class was continued being taught and my teacher sat at the front of the class and made jokes about the whole thing as my class joined in. Thursday I made the decision to come to school and I was terrified of what could happen. Teachers continued to make jokes all day probably unaware of the tears shed by terrified students. The fear continued into Collage both nights. Students totally spread rumors and blow things out of proportion but fear is legitimate. I had my alumni sister call me crying Wednesday night scared for my life and I was unable to focus the entire day in my near-empty classrooms. The school needs to train teachers and students more and teach everyone how to properly react when threats do come up.
Nice article • Dec 8, 2019 at 8:04 am
“Threats are typically just that…a threat.” Exactly. While I don’t know the probability of a school shooting given a threat, I imagine it’s fairly low given that threats don’t seem that common (this is a guess), and that school shootings are very rare (in terms of, “how likely am I to die if I go to school today?”). We can “put a price tag” on students’ safety if the risk to students’ safety is more or less negligible. While maybe this threat indicates something more sinister, I suspect (but am not entirely sure) that the risk of a shooting or terrorism is still very low, even knowing that we have had a threat. “The cost to implement these safety measures is a factor” and even if we can get funding for these, it would be a waste of money, in my opinion at least, to prevent something which is not very likely at all to happen.
However, it was definitely scary, and the mental consequences of a threat could justify some changes to the school. Or it might have been more or less a fluke, and in the future the risk of a threat being made would remain pretty low.c
We (probably) don't need more prevention measures • Dec 6, 2019 at 2:24 pm
School shootings are extremely rare. While they are obviously a bad thing, justifying some prevention, it costs resources to implement prevention measures, which in some cases might not even be effective. Given the likelihood of a school shooting is, as scary as a threat is (which we have dealt with / are dealing with to a legal extent), spending more resources in things like armored doors that automatically locked are probably not justified (though personally I am ignorant of how much resources are actually required to implement such things). These physical prevention measures also don’t prevent a threat from being issued — seeing as even just threats themselves can cause high anxiety, maybe prevention measures should be more focused on preventing these threats from being made (i.e. mental health? or improved school climate, though helping the school in general might not make a difference for the type of person who would make such a threat).
Granted, given that there has been a threat incident, that might suggest that Metea or the areas that have students in Metea is slightly predisposed to an event like a school shooting, or at least a threat; or it might lead to copycats. But the chance is still low.