Blog #467: My Neurodivergent Reaction to the Apalachee High School Shooting
- Jeffrey Snyder
- Sep 10, 2024
- 3 min read
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When is enough going to be enough?
That is the question that many people, including myself, have been asking with the latest school shooting in our country. This time, it happened last Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia outside of Atlanta. Two students and two teachers were gunned down by a 14 year old armed with an AR-15 style rifle with one of the victims being neurodivergent.
Looking at this latest school shooting, I first heard of what happened last Wednesday shortly after I arrived in Cape Cod for a five day sabatical. When I learned that special education student Mason Schermerhorn was amongst the victims, my gut reaction told me that this was not just an attack on a high school, but also an attack on the neurodiversity community.
Anytime that we hear of a school shooting in the neurodiversity/special education community, the first reaction that comes to mind is the students themselves. I can only imagine the horrors of what Mason was going through in his final moments and it’s because of students like him that something needs to be done.
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What I mean by that is that it all needs to start with the schools themselves. I was reading a post on LinkedIn from a school safety expert that I follow, and he says that the first thing that needs to happen is that all schools need to have their doors locked during the 6-hour school day. It’s not rocket science to say that keeping doors locked can sometimes make all the difference. Will it solve the entire problem? No, but it’s a start.
The other factor stems from the fact that students and teachers should NOT have to fear going to school every day without the thought of being killed. It is shootings like this recent one that continues to stem fear into students and teachers that going to either teach or be taught is dangerous when it should not have to be dangerous.
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Now, this also brings up a question in regard to special education students is what would happen if the real thing were to happen? What if it’s not a drill and the student is suddenly at the mercy of a monster like a 14 year old boy was at Apalachee High School? Its something that I often struggle with because what I do is train teachers ways to try and take the edge off of students during school safety drills. I’ve yet to do a training for when the real thing happens, and special education students need to know what to do.
At this point, something needs to be done by the higher power in terms of trying to come up with a way to keep our schools safer. It seems like the more that these types of shootings happen, the more I grow frustrated with the fact that this is the world that my three nieces are going to be growing up in. It’s scary and it shouldn’t have to be scary. We go to school to learn, build connections with teachers and peers and grow our minds.
We should have NO FEAR to be in a school and I still stand by that statement.
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Catch you all later!!
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