NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — OneNashville, a group made up of community leaders and educators, gathered Saturday afternoon to discuss how Nashville can increase school safety following the deadly shooting at Antioch High School last month.
“There’s no educator today, no young person today that goes through a college education program that doesn’t think, ‘Am I going to die in a classroom on a campus?'” Dr. Scott Davis, an educator at Hillsboro High School, told News 2.
The OneNashville community awareness partners are advocating for the use of metal detectors on school campuses in addition to the new concealed weapons detection system, Evolv, which was put in place at Antioch High after the shooting.
Critics of metal detectors have said they don’t want public school to feel like prison, but Davis argued metal detectors have become commonplace.
“Nobody goes on vacation, they don’t go to BNA airport and fly and go through a metal detector and they don’t feel like they’re going to a prison when they go through a metal detector,” he added.
The group also discussed requiring students to wear clear backpacks and creating a reward system for students who come forward about suspicious things they see at school or online.
Public school teacher Lamekia Primm also said checking in with students’ mental health matters.
“Students come to school and they don’t have anyone to talk to, so they hold it in, so if a teacher or custodian or anyone that’s an authority figure in the school system can be an ear, be an active listener, that would go a long way with our students,” Primm explained.
According to Dameon Thomas, a OneNashville community partner who said he’s a former gang member, creating a mentorship program for at-risk students could also help build students’ trust in adults on campus.
“I can relate to how they feel: the abandonment, the loneliness, not having anyone to identify with except for the product from which you come from…Somebody just needs to listen to them and help guide them out of their pitfall,” Thomas told News 2.
School safety will be discussed at the Metro Nashville Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 11. The board is set to vote on a proposal to expand concealed weapons detection systems to all of Metro Nashville Public Schools’ high schools.
