Giving Compass' Take:

• Lawmakers and advocates trying to make safer schools must take into consideration the gun violence that happens to young people of color.

• Why is it important to think about the implications of arming teachers or police officers in schools?  What are the effects of that decision on students and particularly students of color?

• Read about other ideas on how to build a national model for school safety. 

Even as the country grapples with how to combat a recent spate of mass school shootings, it also must address the much more common gun violence that plagues young people of color, lawmakers and advocates said at a panel discussion.

“While devastating tragedies, mass shootings, do require action, we know that every day in our communities, our children are suffering from gun violence,” said Becky Pringle, vice president of the National Education Association.

Panelists discussed a variety of interventions to combat gun violence, from formal mentoring programs to wraparound services to more teachers of color.

One thing officials shouldn’t do, Pringle said, is try to make schools safer by increasing police presence without considering impacts on students of color and the school-to-prison pipeline.

“We also know that if we are not careful and if we are not thoughtful, there will be folks who will rush to make our schools safer by eviscerating the civil rights protections for our students of color and those with disabilities. We cannot, we cannot worsen the racial inequities that already plague our system and result in students of color disproportionately falling victim to zero-tolerance discipline policies that throw them into the school-to-prison pipeline,” she said.

The event comes as lawmakers finalized a compromise Thursday on next year’s federal funding bill that Appropriations Committee leaders said does not include a ban on using federal funds to purchase guns or train teachers. The NEA, the National PTA, and others had called on Congress to include language blocking the funding from being used in that way, as it has with other school safety grants.

DeVos has since said, in response to letters from members of Congress, that she wouldn’t issue rules either explicitly allowing or disallowing the funding to be used for guns, permitting states and school districts to make that call themselves.

Read the full article about gun violence in schools by Carolyn Phenicie at The 74