On September 4th 2024, Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia received a phone call from the mother of a student at the school. The mother warned that there was an “extreme emergency” and asked for administrators to take her son out of class immediately. That student was Colt Gray, and about 30 minutes later he shot and killed 4 people, and wounded 9 others. 

The school staff’s number one priority is the student’s safety. In most cases this is true including West Potomac and how they handled the bomb threat, but with how many of these incidents are happening, how big is that priority?

Mr Bishop, Dean of Students says “Aside from the lockdown, there are a whole bunch of mitigating measures to make sure this doesn’t happen to West Po, such as the one roof policy and we are also working with students to make sure they don’t open the door for anybody.”

After this recent incident, parents have become much more concerned over sending their children to school. Students should be focused on their grades, not going into school being afraid about not returning home. It begs the question, when will this end? 

Dr. Runion, West Po psychologist says “I think this is a concern for not just students but everyone in this country, so I think everyone has a mental health reaction to these types of things and especially students who are worried of this happening everyday.”

With the lockdown drill happening only a few days after the Apalachee shooting, students weighed in on the root causing these problems.

Burren, a sophomore says “I think the root of this problem in our country is that we don’t keep guns out of students hands and we don’t help students enough with mental health problems at home.”