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So we now know that what happened is the culmination of a series of failures:

Dad, mom, grandparents, schoolmates of killer, teachers of killer, cops who responded to the initial shooting of grandma, citizen bystanders, teachers at school where murders happened, more cops, and law enforcement administrators. FAIL, FAIL, FAIL.

Followed by grandstanding politicians and clueless media personalities. MORE FAIL.

There are probably potential scenarios like this one every day. But this one happened because almost everyone who could have done something different failed.

Did anyone learn anything? Doesn’t look like it. Certainly not the parents.

There is absolutely no excuse why children should be sitting ducks for any insane and disgruntled person who decides to take out his frustrations with life by murdering them.

BILLIONS are spent every year on public education, which is COMPULSORY. It would only take a small amount of the budget to insure that kids are safe from random mass-murdering gunmen.

I’ve worked several years in technology for my local school district where we shared a building with the ISD police department. I’ve been responsible for sending out text messages to parents when we’ve had lockdowns. My coworkers supported card-key door access and security cameras.

Schools need to all have police or security directly connected with access and control of access to campuses. A central dispatch with security monitors and remote door locks could make a big difference. But, considering what has been happening, I’d recommend requiring every person on campus to wear or carry a passive RFID tag that allows police/security to monitor the location of everyone on campus and identify anyone who is where he does not belong. It should be possible to send this tracking information to officers using bird’s eye view shot-plot type of diagrams that they are trained to locate without delay. (The idea is to immediately identify anyone without an RFID or the proper clearance for their location.)

Doors could be unlocked for students, faculty, and visitors (issued temporary tags) based on the permissions connected to their IDs. Police/security could remotely unlock doors for individuals on a case-by-case basis and also lock down campuses to prevent access to anyone who does not belong.

Faculty and students need to be trained on a clear plan on how to recognize dangers, what to do about them, and how to respond in various lockdown scenarios. They need to practice them regularly. I’ve trained students on safety measures when evacuating school buses. I’ve trained on procedures with the local SWAT team equivalent on how to respond if a criminal attempts to take control of a bus with children. (There are processes designed to foil such attempts. For example, drivers are taught to toss their keys out the window so that a bus is immobilized. In a hostage situation SWAT will act swiftly once any shots are fired or students are injured, because the assumption is that delay will be more harmful than the risks of action.)

Safety and security can no longer be an afterthought for public schools. With proper planning students can be safe from these kinds of attacks so that they never happen again.