Recently on December 9, the Algonquin Regional High School Newspaper, The Harbinger released an article informing students of recent threats involving the school. The article mentioned how multiple threatening notes had been found within the last three weeks. The notes gave a threat of a bomb hoax and destruction of property.

Although there was no action from the threats, you can imagine the distress students must have been feeling within these past weeks. In The Harbinger, one of the Algonquin assistant principal tells students that Algonquin is a safe school and that there is nothing to worry about. However, in the article, a guidance counselor says this there is always a worry with students now that a threat has been made.

In 2019 there were 45 school shootings in just 46 weeks. This statistic shows that there has been a school shooting almost every week during this time. The number of shootings keeps increasing each year. Because of the drastic numbers that continue to increase, students worry if an event like this will happen at their own school. Students should not be scared to go to school.

The FBI defines an active shooter as “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” As most know, these terrible events are emerging in many schools across the United States.

Because of the number of threats and shootings that happen at schools every year, we decided to ask students from the freshman class of WHS, Danielle Shifman and Lena Nowak, how they feel about school shootings.

Nowak shared that she was not aware of the Algonquin threat. Even though Algonquin is so close to Westborough, not many people heard about the recent threats. When we asked about school shootings in the United States, Nowak was very aware of the increasing statistics of school shootings. She said she has heard of threats and shootings in places like Texas.

Nowak said that she feels safe here in Westborough because she’s never heard of anything bad happening in Westborough and she feels secure in school. Although she feels this way she does admit that it is “pretty scary.” When asked what the school could do better to protect from threats, Nowak said that she felt that there wasn’t much to improve upon.

When interviewing Shifman we got some different answers. When asking about the recent threats at Algonquin, Shifman was very aware. She said how she is very informed of the number of shootings that have occurred. She also shares with us how the recent shooting in Texas was near her old town where she had lived from seventh grade and younger. She tells us how she does not feel as secure and safe at school as she should. She tells us how she thinks that school shootings have become a lot more frequent and common. She feels that although Westborough is a very safe town, there is always a risk and always a question, could it happen?

The solution to stopping the shootings in schools is still unknown. The hope is that in the future we won’t have to wonder if our schools are safe and learning is the main focus. For now, we should work on solving the problem at hand and try to at least decrease or stop the increase of school shootings.

Citations:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/schools-shootings-common-incidents-radar-2019/story?id=67040402

Administration holds meetings to inform students about recent threats

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/15/us/2019-us-school-shootings-trnd/index.html