presentation about school shootings

School shootings: What we know about them, and what we can do to prevent them

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, robin m. kowalski, ph.d. robin m. kowalski, ph.d. professor, department of psychology - clemson university @cuprof.

January 26, 2022

On the morning of Nov. 30, 2021, a 15-year-old fatally shot four students and injured seven others at his high school in Oakland County, Michigan. It’s just one of the latest tragedies in a long line of the horrific K-12 school shootings now seared into our memories as Americans.

And we have seen that the threat of school shootings, in itself, is enough to severely disrupt schools. In December, a TikTok challenge known as “ National Shoot Up Your School Day ” gained prominence. Although vague and with no clear origin, the challenge warned of possible acts of violence at K-12 schools. In response, some schools nationwide cancelled classes, others stepped up security. Many students stayed home from school that day. (It’s worth noting that no incidents of mass violence ended up occurring.)

What are the problems that appear to underlie school shootings? How can we better respond to students that are in need? If a student does pose a threat and has the means to carry it out, how can members of the school community act to stop it? Getting a better grasp of school shootings, as challenging as it might be, is a clear priority for preventing harm and disruption for kids, staff, and families. This post considers what we know about K-12 school shootings and what we might do going forward to alleviate their harms.

Who is perpetrating school shootings?

As the National Association of School Psychologists says, “There is NO profile of a student who will cause harm.” Indeed, any attempt to develop profiles of school shooters is an ill-advised and potentially dangerous strategy. Profiling risks wrongly including many children who would never consider committing a violent act and wrongly excluding some children who might. However, while an overemphasis on personal warning signs is problematic, there can still be value in identifying certain commonalities behind school shootings. These highlight problems that can be addressed to minimize the occurrence of school shootings, and they can play a pivotal role in helping the school community know when to check in—either with an individual directly or with someone close to them (such as a parent or guidance counselor). Carefully integrating this approach into a broader prevention strategy helps school personnel understand the roots of violent school incidents and assess risks in a way that avoids the recklessness of profiling.

Within this framework of threat assessment, exploring similarities and differences of school shootings—if done responsibly—can be useful to prevention efforts. To that end, I recently published a study with colleagues that examined the extent to which features common to school shootings prior to 2003 were still relevant today. We compared the antecedents of K-12 shootings, college/university shootings, and other mass shootings.

We found that the majority of school shooters are male (95%) and white (61%) –yet many of these individuals feel marginalized. Indeed, almost half of those who perpetrate K-12 shootings report a history of rejection, with many experiencing bullying. One 16-year-old shooter wrote , “I feel rejected, rejected, not so much alone, but rejected. I feel this way because the day-to-day treatment I get usually it’s positive but the negative is like a cut, it doesn’t go away really fast.” Prior to the Parkland shooting, the perpetrator said , “I had enough of being—telling me that I’m an idiot and a dumbass.” A 14-year-old shooter stated in court, “I felt like I wasn’t wanted by anyone, especially my mom. ” These individuals felt rejected and insignificant.

Our study also found that more than half of K-12 shooters have a history of psychological problems (e.g., depression, suicidal ideation, bipolar disorder, and psychotic episodes). The individuals behind the Sandy Hook and Columbine shootings, among others, had been diagnosed with an assortment of psychological conditions. (Of course, the vast majority of children with diagnosed psychological conditions don’t commit an act of mass violence. Indeed, psychologists and psychiatrists have warned that simply blaming mental illness for mass shootings unfairly stigmatizes those with diagnoses and ignores other, potentially more salient factors behind incidents of mass violence.) For some, the long-term rejection is compounded by a more acute rejection experience that immediately precedes the shooting. While K-12 school shooters were less likely than other mass shooters to experience an acute, traumatic event shortly before the shooting, these events are not uncommon.

Many shooters also display a fascination with guns and/or a preoccupation with violence. They play violent video games, watch violent movies, and read books that glorify violence and killing. Several of the shooters showed a particular fascination with Columbine, Hitler, and/or Satanism. They wrote journals or drew images depicting violence and gore. The continued exposure to violence may desensitize individuals to violence and provide ideas that are then copied in the school shootings.

To reiterate, however, there is no true profile of a school shooter. Plenty of people are bullied in middle and high school without entertaining thoughts of shooting classmates. Similarly, making and breaking relationships goes along with high school culture, yet most people who experience a break-up do not think of harming others. Anxiety and depression are common, especially in adolescence, and countless adolescents play violent video games without committing acts of violence in real life. Even if some commonalities are evident, we must recognize their limits.

What can we do?

Understanding the experiences of school shooters can reveal important insights for discerning how to prevent school shootings. So, what might we do about it?

First, the problems that appear to underlie some school shootings, such as bullying and mental-health challenges, need attention—and there’s a lot we can do. School administrators and educators need to implement bullying prevention programs, and they need to pay attention to the mental-health needs of their students. One way to do this is to facilitate “ psychological mattering ” in schools. Students who feel like they matter—that they are important or significant to others—are less likely to feel isolated, ostracized, and alone. They feel confident that there are people to whom they can turn for support. To the extent that mattering is encouraged in schools, bullying should decrease. Typically, we don’t bully people who are important or significant to us.

Second, because most of the perpetrators of K-12 shootings are under the age of 18, they cannot legally acquire guns. In our study , handguns were used in over 91% of the K-12 shootings, and almost half of the shooters stole the gun from a family member. Without guns, there cannot be school shootings. Clearly more needs to be done to keep guns out of the hands of youth in America.

Third, students, staff, and parents must pay attention to explicit signals of an imminent threat. Many shooters leak information about their plans well before the shooting. They may create a video, write in a journal, warn certain classmates not to attend school on a particular day, brag about their plans, or try to enlist others’ help in their plot. Social media has provided a venue for children to disclose their intentions. Yet, students, parents, and educators often ignore or downplay the warning signs of an imminent threat. Students often think their peers are simply expressing threats as a way of garnering attention. Even if the threats are taken seriously, an unwritten code of silence keeps many students from reporting what they see or hear. They don’t want to be a snitch or risk being the target of the would-be shooter’s rage. With this in mind, educators and administrators need to encourage reporting among students—even anonymously—and need to take those reports extremely seriously. Helpful information for teachers, administrators, and parents can be found at SchoolSafety.gov . In addition, Sandy Hook Promise provides information about school violence and useful videos for young people about attending to the warning signs that often accompany school shootings.

Fourth, school leaders should be aware that not every apparent act of prevention is worth the costs. Some people believe that lockdown drills, metal detectors, school resource officers, and the like are useful deterrents to school shootings and school violence more broadly. However, researchers have also demonstrated that they can increase anxiety and fear among students . Students may also become habituated to the drills, failing to recognize the seriousness of an actual threat should it arise. Additionally, most K-12 shooters are students within the school itself. These students are well-versed in the security measures taken by the school to try to deter acts of violence by individuals such as themselves. While few would suggest getting rid of lockdown drills and other security measures, educators and administrators need to be mindful of the rewards versus the costs in their selection of safety measures.

Ultimately, our goal should be creating an environment in which school shootings never occur. This is an ambitious aim, and it will be challenging work. But addressing some key issues, such as mental health, will go a long way toward preventing future tragedies in our schools. As so aptly demonstrated in the Ted Talk, “ I was almost a school shooter ,” by Aaron Stark, making someone feel that they have value and that they matter can go a long way toward altering that individual’s life and, consequently, the lives of others.

What We've Learned From School Shootings

When school shootings happen, experts work backwards to connect the dots. After the tragedies at Columbine High School and Virgina Tech, a number of studies have been conducted to identify potential threats. The disclaimer is always the same: every case is different.

Dr. Park Dietz, forensic psychiatrist and criminologist Roger Depue, former chief of the FBI's Behavior Science Unit

What This Week’s Mass Shooting Can Teach Us About School Safety

The mass school shooting this week in Oxford, Mich., marks the deadliest such incident in the United States since the 2018 shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, in which 10 people died. And it marked a grim milestone: 2021 will go down as the year with a record number of shootings—29 and counting—since Education Week began tracking the phenomenon three years ago.

Four students were killed when a 15-year-old sophomore opened fire Nov. 30 on Oxford High School; seven other people were injured, including one teacher.

Local media recounted harrowing stories from students who had barricaded themselves in classrooms, tearfully texted loved ones, and armed themselves with scissors against a gunman who reportedly impersonated law enforcement while on his rampage.

Recent Data: School Shootings

In 2018, Education Week journalists began tracking shootings on K-12 school property that resulted in firearm-related injuries or deaths. There is no single right way of calculating numbers like this, and the human toll is impossible to measure. We hope only to provide reliable information to help inform discussions, debates, and paths forward. Below, you can find big-picture data on school shootings since 2018. (This chart will be updated as new information becomes available.)

See Also: School Shootings This Year: How Many and Where

While much remains unclear about exactly what took place this week, Oxford is likely to join the list of locations—like Parkland, Fla., Littleton, Colo., and Sandy Hook, Conn.—that have become shorthand for school violence.

There is no balm for the wrenching grief and difficult questions that the Oxford school community serving some 5,500 students will face in the days, months, and years ahead. At least initially, parents, teachers, and students joined vigils to remember the slain.

According to the Associated Press, Madisyn Baldwin, 17, was a talented artist who loved to draw, read and write; Tate Myre, 16, played on the school’s varsity football team and was an honor student, the football team’s tribute to him on Twitter said; Hana St. Juliana, 14, was remembered for her passion and commitment to athletics; Justin Shilling, 17, was described on the Facebook page of a restaurant where he was employed as a “devoted friend and co-worker... and simply a pleasure to be around.”

Grieving will give way to hard questions—and then to demands for answers.

“My guess this morning is that the Oxford High School community is waking up, and one of the first questions on their mind is: How did this happen here? Much like we woke up Feb. 15, wondering how could the tragedy have unfolded in Parkland the way it did,” said Ryan Petty, whose daughter, Alaina, was among 17 people killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.

And as happened in Parkland, those agonizing questions have the potential to tear a traumatized community into two camps—those who will seek answers to what specifically might have prevented the bloodshed at the high school, and those who will resuscitate calls for more general solutions like gun control.

So far, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has said it’s too early to comment on what school safety steps the state should consider.

Details have yet to emerge about what precipitated the shooting in Michigan. But nationally, the last few months have been unusually violent both generally and in the view of many school officials and parents, also in K-12 schools. Below are some of the school safety implications that are likely to emerge.

Violence in schools seemed on an uptick before the Oxford shooting

Around the country, teachers, district leaders, and students have been frightened by what appears to be an increase in violence roughly paralleling the return of most students to in-person learning this school year. District leaders have been under pressure to address these outbreaks and respond to a mental health crisis among youth.

Empirical data on school violence trends are hard to come by, but homicides have generally risen during the pandemic, and some kinds of violent crime in schools were on the rise even before COVID-19 hit schools .

EdWeek’s overall trends on school shootings, meanwhile, are paralleled by other collections, such as those maintained by the Gun Violence Archive and Everytown for Gun Safety , both of which have more expansive criteria.

Some criminologists said that the Oxford attack comes as another signal that the U.S. has grievously misjudged its school safety policies.

“We have really failed this generation of kids. Basically we’ve put this problem on their backs. We’ve said you need to go through active shooter drills and metal detectors and have police in your schools in order to feel safe, because we’ve failed to act on other things that would keep guns out of schools in the first place,” said James Densley, a professor and department chair of criminal justice at Metropolitan State University in Minnesota, who studies mass shootings.

Gun sales surged during the pandemic. Is that a factor in the shooting?

Among the only clear details yet on the Oxford shooting is that the semiautomatic pistol used in the attack was purchased by the alleged gunman’s father days before the incident. It is not yet clear how the son obtained the gun.

There is no national database of U.S. gun sales; most estimates are based on the number of background checks conducted via the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check system. Those estimates, though, point to a huge boom in 2020. (Gun sales tend to spike during periods of economic or social instability, according to sociologists.)

By some estimates, nearly 40 million guns were sold in 2020 alone. Gun sales have slowed down in 2021 compared to 2020, but have generally remained above 2019 levels, according to Small Arms Analytics Forecasting , a consulting organization.

“School shooters tend to be children, and by virtue of their age, the only way they can get firearms is either illegally, or from parents and families who have stored them unsafely,” Densley said. “There is just kind of a mathematical formula here: More guns increases the likelihood that guns fall into the hands of kids.”

Little is known about the Michigan shooter, but some details are familiar

The alleged shooter, a sophomore, exercised his 5th Amendment right not to speak to police, and his parents have hired an attorney.

Some news reports quoted parents who said rumors were floating about a possible violent incident at the high school, but county law enforcement has urged caution about leaping to conclusions before detailed investigations are conducted.

While there is no profile of school shooters, analyses suggest that, as in this case, they are almost always men who act alone.

The U.S. Secret Service, in a 2019 report, also noted that most shooters telegraphed their plans, and all were experiencing extreme mental stress.

Oxford High School had taken steps to improve safety

The Oxford district had trained staff and students in lockdown procedures by the ALICE Training Institute, an approach that includes active-shooter simulations, among other pieces. Law enforcement has so far credited this with preventing more bloodshed, though it is likely to be closely scrutinized.

“It is ... evident from the scene that the lockdown protocols, training, and equipment Oxford schools had in place saved lives as well,” Oakland County, Mich., Sheriff Michael Bouchard said in a statement.

Such training is not without controversy. Some school safety experts say it is not research-based and can frighten students. Teachers have reported being shot with Nerf balls during the training. In one Indiana district, teachers participating in the training were hit by plastic pellets, leading to a civil lawsuit. (ALICE Training uses a train-the-trainer model so there is much variation in how programs are designed.)

The Oxford district had also established a tip-line program for reporting threats, an intercom controlled-access entryway system, and taken other safety steps, though apparently the school did not use metal detectors.

The shooting potentially raises new questions about school-based law enforcement

Media reports indicate that a law enforcement officer worked in Oxford High School and disarmed the shooter. (It was not immediately clear whether the officer had had extra training on how to interact with youths, the defining criteria of a school resource officer .)

After the Parkland and Santa Fe tragedies, many districts brought on SROs or were required to hire them by changes in state law. That trend crashed headlong against the movement to remove school police following George Floyd’s 2020 murder ; some districts that removed officers in the wake of those protests have since restored them, citing concerns about school safety.

A police officer walks down a hall inside a school

Recent research on SROs indicates that their presence does mitigate some kinds of violence but also can lead to unintended consequences—including higher rates of discipline and referral into the juvenile justice system that fall disproportionately on Black children.

To date there is also little firm evidence to suggest that they prevent mass shootings in school, so the role of the school-based officer in Oxford is likely to attract much attention in coming days.

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Five Facts About Mass Shootings in K-12 Schools

Preventing mass shootings in the United States, particularly those occurring in school settings, is an important priority for families, government leaders and officials, public safety agencies, mental health professionals, educators, and local communities. What does the evidence say about how to detect, prevent, and respond to these tragic events? Here’s what we’ve learned through NIJ-sponsored research: [1]

1. Most people who commit a mass shooting are in crisis leading up to it and are likely to leak their plans to others, presenting opportunities for intervention.

Before their acts of violence, most individuals who carry out a K-12 mass shooting show outward signs of crisis. Through social media and other means, they often publicly broadcast a high degree of personal instability and an inability to cope in their current mental state. Almost all are actively suicidal.

Case studies show that most of these individuals engage in warning behaviors, usually leaking their plans directly to peers or through social media. [2] Yet most leaks of K-12 mass shooting plans are not reported to authorities before the shooting.

Research shows that leaking mass shooting plans is associated with a cry for help. [3] Analyses of case reports from successfully averted K-12 mass shootings point to crisis intervention as a promising strategy for K-12 mass shooting prevention. [4] Programs and strategies found to prevent school shootings and school violence generally could hold promise for preventing school mass shootings as well.

2. Everyone can help prevent school mass shootings.

Most individuals who carry out a K-12 mass shooting are insiders, with some connection to the school they target. Often, they are current or former students.

Research suggests that communities can help prevent school mass shootings by working together to address student crises and trauma, recognizing and reporting threats of violence, and following up consistently.

Two-thirds of foiled plots in all mass shootings (including school mass shootings) are detected through public reporting. Having a mechanism in place to collect information on threats of possible school violence and thwarted attempts is a good first step.

The School Safety Tip Line Toolkit is one resource to consider for developing and implementing a school tip line. [5] The Mass Attacks Defense Toolkit details evidence-based suggestions for recognizing warning signs and creating collaborative systems to follow up consistently in each case. [6] The Averted School Violence Database enables schools to share details about averted school violence incidents and lessons learned that can prevent future acts of violence. [7]

3. Threat assessment is a promising prevention strategy to assess and respond to mass shooting threats, as well as other threats of violence by students.

For schools that adopt threat assessment protocols, school communities are educated to assess threats of violence reported to them. [8] Threat assessment teams, including school officials, mental health personnel, and law enforcement, respond to each threat as warranted by the circumstances. An appropriate response might include referral of a student to mental health professionals, involvement of law enforcement, or both.

Emphasizing the mental health needs of students who pose threats can encourage their student peers to report on those threats without fear of being stigmatized as a “snitch.” In an evaluation study, educating students on this distinction increased their willingness to report threats. [9]

Many educational and public safety experts agree that threat assessment can be a valuable tool. But an ongoing challenge for schools is to implement threat assessment in a manner that minimizes unintended negative consequences. [10]

4. Individuals who commit a school shooting are most likely to obtain a weapon by theft from a family member, indicating a need for more secure firearm storage practices.

In an open-source database study, 80% of individuals who carried out a K-12 mass shooting stole the firearm used in the shooting from a family member. [11] In contrast, those who committed mass shootings outside of schools often purchased guns lawfully (77%).

K-12 mass shootings were more likely to involve the use of a semi-automatic assault weapon than mass shootings in other settings, but handguns were still the most common weapon used in K-12 mass shootings.

Explore more information about the backgrounds, guns, and motivations of individuals who commit mass shootings using The Violence Project interactive database. [12]

5. The overwhelming majority of individuals who commit K-12 mass shootings struggle with various aspects of mental well-being.

Nearly all individuals who carried out a K-12 mass shooting (92%-100%) were found to be suicidal before or during the shooting. [13] Most experienced significant childhood hardship or trauma. Those who commit K-12 mass shootings commonly have histories of antisocial behavior and, in a minority of cases, various forms of psychoses.

Despite the prevalence of mental well-being struggles in these individuals’ life histories, studies suggest that profiling based on mental health does not aid prevention. [14] However, research on common psychological factors associated with K-12 mass shootings, along with other factors that precipitate school violence, can help inform targeted intervention in coordination with crisis intervention, threat assessment, and improved firearm safety practices.

Learn more from these NIJ reports:

Understanding the Causes of School Violence Using Open Source Data
A Multi-Level, Multi-Method Investigation of the Psycho-Social Life Histories of Mass Shooters
The Causes and Consequences of School Violence: A Review
A Comprehensive School Safety Framework: Report to the Committees on Appropriations

[note 1] National Institute of Justice funding award description, “Student Threat Assessment as a Safe and Supportive Prevention Strategy,” at the Rector & Visitors of the University of Virginia, award number 2014-CK-BX-0004 ; National Institute of Justice funding award description, “Understanding the Causes of School Violence Using Open Source Data,” at the Research Foundation of the City University of New York, award number 2016-CK-BX-0013 ; National Institute of Justice funding award description, “Mass Shooter Database,” at Hamline University, award number 2018-75-CX-0023 , and National Institute of Justice funding award description, “Improving the Understanding of Mass Shooting Plots,” at the RAND Corporation, award number 2019-R2-CX-0003 .

[note 2] Meagan N. Abel, Steven Chermak, and Joshua D. Freilich, “ Pre-Attack Warning Behaviors of 20 Adolescent School Shooters: A Case Study Analysis ,” Crime & Delinquency 68 no. 5 (2022): 786-813.

[note 3] Jillian Peterson et al., “ Communication of Intent To Do Harm Preceding Mass Public Shootings in the United States, 1966 to 2019 ,” JAMA Network Open 4 no. 11 (2021): e2133073.

[note 4] Abel, Chermak, and Freilich, “Pre-Attack Warning Behaviors”; and Jillian Peterson and James Densley, The Violence Project: How To Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic (New York: Abrams Press, 2021).

[note 5] Michael Planty et al., School Safety Tip Line Toolkit , Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International.

[note 6] RAND Corporation, “ Mass Attacks Defense Toolkit: Preventing Mass Attacks, Saving Lives ."

[note 7] National Police Foundation, Averted School Violence (ASV) Database: 2021 Analysis Update , Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

[note 8] Dewey Cornell and Jennifer Maeng, “ Student Threat Assessment as a Safe and Supportive Prevention Strategy, Final Technical Report ,” Final report to the National Institute of Justice, award number 2014-CK-BX-0004, August 2020, NCJ 255102.

[note 9] Shelby L. Stohlman and Dewey G. Cornell, “ An Online Educational Program To Increase Student Understanding of Threat Assessment ,” Journal of School Heath 89 no. 11 (2019): 899-906.

[note 10] Cornell and Maeng, “Student Threat Assessment.”

[note 11] Jillian Peterson, “ A Multi-Level, Multi-Method Investigation of the Psycho-Social Life Histories of Mass Shooters ,” Final report to the National Institute of Justice, award number 2018-75-CX-0023, September 2021, NCJ 302101.

[note 12] The Violence Project, “ Mass Shooter Database .”

[note 13] Peterson, “A Multi-Level, Multi-Method Investigation.” 14Dewey G. Cornell, “ Threat Assessment as a School Violence Prevention Strategy ,” Criminology & Public Policy 19 no. 1 (2020): 235-252.

[note 14] Dewey G. Cornell, “Threat Assessment as a School Violence Prevention Strategy,” Criminology & Public Policy 19 no. 1 (2020): 235-252, https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12471.

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School shootings are becoming more frequent, after a lull during the pandemic.

The deadly gunfire in Oxford, Mich., added one more episode to a growing list of fatal shootings on school property in the United States this year.

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By Jacey Fortin

Nov. 30, 2021

The deadly gunfire in Oxford, Mich., on Tuesday added one more episode to a growing list of fatal shootings on school property in the United States this year, following a lull in shootings earlier in the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the news outlet Education Week , there have been 28 school shootings resulting in injury or death so far in 2021, with 20 of them reported since Aug 1. The publication says that at least nine people have been killed by gunfire on school property this year, including two people who were shot by police officers.

Before Tuesday, none of the shootings in the publication’s list involved more than one death.

School shootings are tallied in different ways by different organizations, but the trends are similar. Everytown for Gun Safety , a gun-control advocacy group that uses news reports to track gunshots being fired on or into school property, recorded 138 such episodes in 2021 through mid-November.

The Everytown organization’s spokesman, Noah Levine, said that there were 32 reported incidents of gunfire on school grounds in September and another 32 in October, the most for a single month since the group began counting in 2013.

Last month, a shooting that the authorities said happened during a fight at a high school in Arlington, Texas, left four people injured.

In September, a student was fatally shot at his high school in Winston-Salem, N.C. In August, police officers fatally shot an 8-year-old girl outside of a high school football game in Sharon Hill, Pa., and a middle-school student killed another student in a lunchtime shooting in Albuquerque, N.M.

Large-scale shootings in all public places, not just schools, fell sharply in 2020. But other types of shootings — including homicides in which the killer knew the victim — appeared to have been more frequent in 2020 than in 2019. The Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an episode in which four or more people are injured or killed, not including the perpetrator, counted 611 such shootings in 2020, compared with 417 the year before. The group’s tally for 2021 is already over 650, with a month left to go in the year.

Preventing School Shootings

Comprehensive strategies are required to prevent school shootings. The good news is there are proven strategies and approaches ready to be implemented by schools and communities.

School shootings typically involve a mix of suicidal thoughts , despair and anger-- plus access to guns . Schools are the right place to identify students at risk and who are in despair. Often there are signs of distress from the perpetrator that, when ignored, may pave the way to an extreme act of violence.

Begin with School Climate

Building a cohesive and supportive school environment is key to preventing school shootings and traumatic events like other types of mass shootings. In this environment:

Students feel safe to talk to each other and to staff
There is mutual trust and respect among students and school staff
There is on-going dialogue and relationships with family and community members that interact with the school.
There is adequate support, training and resources for school staff (See “ Recommended Resources ” for examples of programs and resources)

Health Care Settings

"A cohesive and supportive school environment is key to preventing school shootings"

Health care providers can also help in preventing school shootings. They are positioned to identify young patients at risk. At CHOP, primary care and emergency care providers can utilize behavioral health screening tools to identify, assess and refer patients for mental health services to prevent mental illness from being left untreated or ignored. Medical professionals can partner with specific, local mental health providers to establish clear communication, consultation, and referral pathways for at-risk patients.

Addressing Risk of Violence with Programs and Policy

To reduce the risk for individuals with emotional and behavioral challenges to become violent, programs and policies should have the following aims:

Reduce the day-to-day aggression and the many forms it takes (e.g., physical, social, cyber) within schools and communities. Experts feel that this type of toxic school and community stress, combined with the vulnerabilities of youth, can lead youth with emotional and behavioral problems to be more at risk for future violence, delinquency, and even depression and suicidal acts. Many programs exist. One school-based program developed at CHOP is called PRAISE , which promotes positive school climate in elementary schools.
Decrease the isolation these children and youth often feel by actively integrating them into peer activities. Schools promoting an inclusive climate in which at-risk youth are also learning better problem-solving and conflict resolution skills are more likely to provide a safe and productive atmosphere.
Close gaps in mental health services for children with emotional and behavioral problems and to provide a broader continuum of mental health care, including exceptions to privacy protection policies to allow for better communication about the mental health needs of students.

For information on preventing school shootings, click here for sensible policy recommendations to reduce access to guns for youth, especially youth with mental illness.

School shootings in the United States - statistics and facts

Demographics of a school shooter, does increased school security prevent shootings, key insights.

Detailed statistics

Number of K-12 school shootings U.S. 1999-2024

School shootings in the U.S. as of December 2023, by victim count

Rate of school shootings U.S. 2008-2024, by state

Editor’s Picks Current statistics on this topic

Current statistics on this topic.

Violent Crime

Education & Science

Public K-12 teachers' views on how to effectively prevent school shootings U.S 2023

Crime & Law Enforcement

Share of teachers afraid of school shootings U.S. 2022, by location and student race

Recommended statistics

Premium Statistic School shootings occurring in G7 countries 2009-2018
Premium Statistic Number of shootings at K-12 schools and college campuses U.S. 2008-2024
Basic Statistic School shootings in the U.S. as of December 2023, by victim count
Basic Statistic Number of K-12 school shootings U.S. 1999-2024
Basic Statistic Number of K-12 school shootings by state U.S. 1966-2024
Premium Statistic Rate of school shootings U.S. 2008-2024, by state
Premium Statistic Share of students who have experienced school shootings U.S. 1999-2024, by race

School shootings occurring in G7 countries 2009-2018

Number of school shootings occurring in G7 countries between 2009 and 2018

Number of shootings at K-12 schools and college campuses U.S. 2008-2024

Number of shootings which occurred on school property, including K-12 schools, colleges, and universities, in the United States from 2008 to April 18, 2024

Number of victims of school shootings in the United States between 1982 and December 2023

Number of incidents where a gun is fired, brandished, or a bullet hits school property, regardless of the number of victims, time, day, or reason in K-12 schools in the United States from 1999 to April 18, 2024*

Number of K-12 school shootings by state U.S. 1966-2024

Number of K-12 school shootings in the United States from 1966 to March 15, 2024, by state

Number of school shootings per 100,000 residents in the United States from 2008 to March 6, 2024, by state

Share of students who have experienced school shootings U.S. 1999-2024, by race

Share of students who have experienced school shootings in the United States from 1999 to 2024*, by race

Shooter demographics

Basic Statistic Share of K-12 school shootings U.S. 1966-2024, by shooter affiliation
Premium Statistic Share of mass public shooters U.S. 1999-2024, by location/relation to shooting site
Premium Statistic Share of mass public shooters U.S. 1999-2024, by race and location of shooting
Premium Statistic Number of active shooters at U.S. schools and colleges 2000-2022, by age
Premium Statistic Number of active shooters at U.S. schools and colleges 2000-2022, by gender
Premium Statistic Number of guns used by active shooters in U.S schools and colleges 2000-2022, by type
Premium Statistic Share of school shootings U.S. 1966-2024, by end result

Share of K-12 school shootings U.S. 1966-2024, by shooter affiliation

Share of K-12 school shootings in the United States from 1966 to April 18, 2024, by relation of shooter to school

Share of mass public shooters U.S. 1999-2024, by location/relation to shooting site

Share of mass public shooters in the United States from 1966 to January 2024, by location and existing relationship to the shooting site*

Share of mass public shooters U.S. 1999-2024, by race and location of shooting

Share of mass public shooters in the United States from 1966 to January 2024, by race and location of shooting*

Number of active shooters at U.S. schools and colleges 2000-2022, by age

Number of active shooters in elementary and secondary schools and at postsecondary institutions in the United States between 2000 and 2022, by age

Number of active shooters at U.S. schools and colleges 2000-2022, by gender

Number of active shooters in elementary and secondary schools and at postsecondary institutions in the United States between 2000 and 2022, by gender

Number of guns used by active shooters in U.S schools and colleges 2000-2022, by type

Number of guns used in active shooter incidents in elementary and secondary schools and at postsecondary institutions in the United States between 2000 and 2022, by gun type

Share of school shootings U.S. 1966-2024, by end result

Share of school shootings in the United States between 1966 and April 18, 2024, by end result for the shooter

School demographics

Premium Statistic U.S. school shootings 2000-2022, by type of school
Premium Statistic Number of school shootings U.S. 1999-2023, by school type
Premium Statistic Share of school shootings in high/low minority schools U.S. 2009-2019, by situation
Premium Statistic Share of K-12 school shootings U.S. 2009-2019, by location and situation
Basic Statistic Number of K-12 school shootings by time of day U.S. 1966-2024
Basic Statistic Number of victims of K-12 school shootings U.S 1966-2024, by time of day
Basic Statistic Victims of K-12 school shootings U.S. 1966-2024, by location
Basic Statistic Victims of K-12 school shootings U.S. 1966-2024, by situation

U.S. school shootings 2000-2022, by type of school

Number of schools that had shootings in the United States between 2000-01 and 2021-22, by type of school

Number of school shootings U.S. 1999-2023, by school type

Number of shootings in private and public schools in the United States from 1999 to 2023*, by type of school

Share of school shootings in high/low minority schools U.S. 2009-2019, by situation

Share of shootings occurring at K-12 schools with 75 percent or more minority students and with less than 25 percent minority students in the United States from school years 2009-10 to 2018-19, by situation

Share of K-12 school shootings U.S. 2009-2019, by location and situation

Share of K-12 school shootings in the United States from school years 2009-10 to 2018-19, by location of shooting and situation

Number of K-12 school shootings by time of day U.S. 1966-2024

Number of K-12 school shootings in the United States from 1966 to March 15, 2024, by time of day

Number of victims of K-12 school shootings U.S 1966-2024, by time of day

Number of victims wounded or killed in K-12 school shootings in the United States from 1966 to March 15, 2024, by time of day

Victims of K-12 school shootings U.S. 1966-2024, by location

Number of victims wounded or killed by shootings in K-12 schools in the United States from 1966 to March 15, 2024, by location

Victims of K-12 school shootings U.S. 1966-2024, by situation

Number of victims wounded and killed by shootings occurring in K-12 schools in the United States from 1966 to April 18, 2024, by situation

Prevention and policy

Premium Statistic U.S. policies restricting guns in public locations 2024, by state
Premium Statistic Share of college students who prefer select gun policies on campus U.S 2023, by party
Premium Statistic U.S. teachers' reports of physical security measures at school 2022, by demographic
Premium Statistic Share of teachers who feel their school prepared them for an active shooter U.S 2023
Premium Statistic Share of public schools with armed law enforcement officers U.S. 2015-2020
Premium Statistic Share of agencies with sworn SROs carrying select equipment U.S. 2019, by agency type
Premium Statistic Share of agencies with training on de-escalation and force U.S. 2019, by agency type
Premium Statistic Share of agencies with sworn SRO law enforcement activities U.S. 2019, by agency type

U.S. policies restricting guns in public locations 2024, by state

Policies prohibiting carrying guns in public K-12 schools, college campuses, and bars in the United States in 2024, by state

Share of college students who prefer select gun policies on campus U.S 2023, by party

Share of current and prospective college students who say they would be more likely stay enrolled or choose to enroll at a college with various restrictions on gun ownership in the United States in 2023, by party

U.S. teachers' reports of physical security measures at school 2022, by demographic

Share of public K-12 teachers who report that various physical security measures were in place at their schools in the United States in 2022, by school demographics

Share of teachers who feel their school prepared them for an active shooter U.S 2023

Share of public K-12 teachers who say their school is doing an excellent or very good job providing them with the training and resources needed to deal with a potential active shooter in their school in the United States in 2023, by regional location

Share of public schools with armed law enforcement officers U.S. 2015-2020

Share of public schools with sworn law enforcement officers, including school resource officers (SROs), routinely carrying a firearm in the United States from school years 2015-16 to 2019-20

Share of agencies with sworn SROs carrying select equipment U.S. 2019, by agency type

Share of agencies with sworn school resource officers allowed to carry selected equipment on campus in the United States in 2019, by agency type

Share of agencies with training on de-escalation and force U.S. 2019, by agency type

Share of agencies that required training for sworn school resource officers on de-escalation and use of force in the United States in 2019, by type of agency

Share of agencies with sworn SRO law enforcement activities U.S. 2019, by agency type

Share of agencies that required sworn school resource officers to perform selected law enforcement activities in the United States in 2019, by type of agency

Concerns on campus

Premium Statistic Share of parents who say their child worries about select issues at school U.S. 2023
Premium Statistic Frequency of college students worrying about gun violence on campus U.S. 2023
Premium Statistic Share of K-12 parents who fear for their child's safety at school U.S. 2012-2023
Basic Statistic Parental concerns of gun violence at their children's school U.S 2023, by demographic
Basic Statistic Share of teachers afraid of school shootings U.S. 2022, by location and student race
Premium Statistic Share of K-12 parents who say their child has had school safety concerns U.S. 2012-23
Premium Statistic Top three reasons K-12 public school teachers fear for their safety U.S. 2023
Premium Statistic Share of K-12 parents concerned about a violent intruder at school U.S. 2023

Share of parents who say their child worries about select issues at school U.S. 2023

Share of parents who say that their child worries about gun violence, bullying, social pressures, or academic performance while attending school in the United States in 2023, by frequency

Frequency of college students worrying about gun violence on campus U.S. 2023

Share of associate and bachelor's degree students who worry about gun violence on their college campus in the United States in 2023, by frequency

Share of K-12 parents who fear for their child's safety at school U.S. 2012-2023

Thinking about your oldest child, when he or she is at school, do you fear for his or her physical safety?

Parental concerns of gun violence at their children's school U.S 2023, by demographic

Are you concerned about the possibility of gun violence at your children’s school?

Share of K-12 teachers who reported feeling afraid that they or their students would be a victim of attack or harm at school in the United States in 2022, by school locale and student racial composition

Share of K-12 parents who say their child has had school safety concerns U.S. 2012-23

Have any of your school-aged children expressed any worry or concern about feeling unsafe at their school when they go back to school this fall?

Top three reasons K-12 public school teachers fear for their safety U.S. 2023

What are the top three reasons you fear for your physical safety when you are at school?

Share of K-12 parents concerned about a violent intruder at school U.S. 2023

Share of K-12 parents who were extremely concerned or very concerned about a violent intruder, such as a mass shooter, entering their child's/children's school in the United States in 2023, by grade of child

Premium Statistic U.S. beliefs on what is more likely to reduce gun violence against children 2023
Premium Statistic U.S. opinion on policies to effectively reduce fatalities from school shootings 2023
Basic Statistic Support for teachers being equipped with firearms in the U.S. in 2022
Premium Statistic Public K-12 teachers' opinion on carrying firearms to increase school safety U.S 2022
Premium Statistic Public K-12 teachers who would carry a firearm at school U.S. 2022, by gender/ locale
Premium Statistic Public K-12 teachers' views on how to effectively prevent school shootings U.S 2023
Premium Statistic Share of Americans who support selected gun safety policies 2022
Premium Statistic Share of college students who think campus gun laws are important U.S. 2023, by party

U.S. beliefs on what is more likely to reduce gun violence against children 2023

Which of the following is more likely to reduce gun violence against children: tighter school security or fewer guns in the community?

U.S. opinion on policies to effectively reduce fatalities from school shootings 2023

Share of Americans who think various policy proposals would be very effective in reducing the number of students killed in school shootings in the United States in 2023

Support for teachers being equipped with firearms in the U.S. in 2022

Do you support equipping teachers and school staff with concealed firearms to respond in the event of a school shooting?

Public K-12 teachers' opinion on carrying firearms to increase school safety U.S 2022

Share of public K-12 teachers who believe that having teachers carry firearms for school security would make schools more or less safe in the United States in 2022

Public K-12 teachers who would carry a firearm at school U.S. 2022, by gender/ locale

Share of public K-12 teachers who would choose to carry a firearm if their school implemented a program allowing teachers to be armed in the United States in 2022, by gender and school location

Public K-12 teachers' views on how to effectively prevent school shootings U.S 2023

Share of public K-12 teachers who think that various strategies would be effective at preventing school shootings in the United States in 2023

Share of Americans who support selected gun safety policies 2022

Share of Americans who support various policies surrounding gun ownership in the United States in 2022

Share of college students who think campus gun laws are important U.S. 2023, by party

Share of current and prospective college students who say that policies regarding guns on campus are important to their college enrollment decisions in the United States in 2023, by party

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Pictures of victims are placed at the former Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on the first anniversary of the school shooting that killed 19 pupils and two teachers.

US school shootings double in a year to reach historic high

Figures for 2021-22 covering elementary and secondary schools show a total of 327 shootings, 188 of which ended with casualties

Schools in the United States are suffering an alarming rise in shootings, according to new federal data that shows the number of incidents reaching a historic peak for the second year running.

Data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) records that in 2021-22 public and private schools, spanning both elementary and secondary levels, incurred a total of 327 shootings – a record high. The incidents involved a gun being brandished and fired or a bullet hitting school property.

Of the 327 events, chronicled by NCES as part of its annual crime and safety report, 188 ended with casualties, and of those some 57 caused deaths.

The rash of shootings amounts to a doubling of incidents on the year before, which was itself higher than any year since records began 25 years ago. In 2020-21, covering the start of the pandemic, there were a total of 146 school shootings, 93 of which caused casualties (including 43 with deaths).

The number of shootings that led to no deaths or injuries also showed a startling increase. In 2021-22, there were 139 shootings without casualties, more than double the 53 registered the year before.

The rise in recorded shootings is so dramatic between the two most recent years for which figures have been compiled that the NCES warns that the data should be interpreted “with caution”. Yet the data is likely to heighten concern about the safety of American schools, and intensify calls for more rigorous gun controls.

The NCES report shows that public schools across the country have already ramped up extraordinary security measures over the past decade. Some 97% of schools now control access to their premises, 91% use security cameras, and 65% have security staff present at least one day a week.

The proportion of schools that provide mental health assessments to evaluate students for mental health disorders has also risen to more than half.

Sarah Burd-Sharps, of the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement that the new figures were distressing. “The threat of gun violence at our schools and in our communities has become a constant in our children’s lives, yet school shootings are not inevitable – they are the result of years of policy inaction.”

The new federal report stops short of providing figures for 2022-23, the year in which the mass shooting in the Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas , left 19 students and two teachers dead. Though the latest incidents have yet to be processed by the federal agency, shootings continue to occur in schools with troubling frequency.

On Tuesday, a student was killed and two others injured at St Helena high school in Greensburg, Louisiana, after an active shooter opened fire .

The report gives granular detail on the type of shooters involved and the situations in which the incidents occur. Almost all shooters were male, and by far the largest proportion of them were minors – more than 70% of active shooters were aged 12 to 18.

The most common scenario was an escalation of a dispute, accounting for 28% of the shootings lodged in 2021-22. Drive-by shootings amounted to 12%, illegal activity 9%, accidental firing of a weapon 5%, and intentional property damage also 5%.

US education
US politics

More active shooter drills. Safe rooms. Bulletproof backpacks. The American classroom is changing.

By Annette Choi, Tal Yellin, Selwyn Rocha and Curt Merrill, CNN

Published September 22, 2023

With the rising number of school shootings and a lack of meaningful legislation to curb gun violence , schools and parents are attempting to take safety into their own hands.

Gun violence has changed day-to-day life in and out of the classroom, with more time and resources being funneled into preparing for worst-case scenarios.

While some school districts invest in additional safety measures, such as easy-to-exit emergency windows, some parents are adding bulletproof backpacks to their children’s back-to-school shopping lists.

This year, at least 37 shootings were reported on K-12 school grounds, according to a CNN data analysis as of September 19. There were at least 16 others on university and college campuses.

With the exception of 2020 — when schools largely switched to online learning — school shootings have become more frequent nationwide. More than 300 have been reported since 2018, according to CNN’s analysis.

“I've come to terms with the fact that I might die in my classroom,” said Briana Takhtani, a seventh-grade teacher in Middlesex County, New Jersey. “School was a good place to be a kid, and it just feels like that's kind of changing.”

In light of rising gun violence, classroom fixtures — such as door locks and windows — have been upgraded to increase security.

Here are some items that educators across the country say have been installed in their schools that may seem ordinary but serve a hidden purpose .

Door window covers

The day after the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022, first-grade teacher Melissa Parrish said her school in Los Angeles conducted a lockdown drill. “They had us cover any windows that would be exposed in the classroom,” she said. “Then we just turned off the lights and just sat silently.”

Parrish said she did her best to both comfort her young students and be honest with them. “A lot of them were very scared. And I didn't feel comfortable saying, ‘Well, this will never happen here’ because you just don't know,” she said. “But they’re also 7 so you want to reassure them that they’re in a safe environment.”

Across the country in Raleigh, North Carolina, fourth-grade teacher Sara Andrews said her school also conducts drills with similar protocols including covering classroom windows with paper or cloth. “I tell my kids this is a really safe building, and we're doing these lockdown drills to keep [them] safe,” she said. “However, it's such a heavy burden to sit with 9- and 10-year-olds huddling against the wall.”

Whiteboard safe rooms

One Alabama school is test-piloting a new security feature in two classrooms – bulletproof whiteboards that turn into a safe room. These floor-to-ceiling whiteboards lie flat against the wall until the safe room needs to be deployed. Within seconds, the panels can be converted into a bulletproof room that can be locked from the inside.

The inventor, Kevin Thomas, told CNN that school safety was never a business he intended to get into.

“I can't make laws, I can't change legislation,” said Thomas, founder and CEO of KT Security Solutions. “But what I can do is build these panels, and I can have them installed in schools. And I can give [children] an opportunity to go home to their loved ones tonight.”

Bullet-resistant windows that double as emergency exits

In January 2017, a student at West Liberty-Salem High School in Ohio stepped onto campus and opened fire — shooting and seriously wounding a classmate. About 400 students evacuated through their classroom windows, West Liberty-Salem Local School District Superintendent Kraig Hissong told CNN. “They just kicked out or broke out those windows.”

Since then, the school has undergone a number of changes to upgrade security. The high school has removed window screens and installed emergency exit windows with levers that students can access from the inside — to make it easier to make another escape if necessary.

To protect students from an active shooter trying to get inside a classroom from outside the building, the district has also installed bullet-resistant film on classroom windows. “If somebody tries to shoot out a window [to get inside], the bullets will pass through, but they won't shatter the window,” he said. “It won't keep [the shooter] out forever, but two minutes allows the police or first responders to be able to get there.”

Bulletproof backpacks

Bulletproof backpacks, often made with polyethylene fiber — a flexible material that can provide ballistic protection when woven tightly — are becoming increasingly common. Yasir Sheikh, president of Guard Dog Security, a manufacturer of bulletproof backpacks, said sales have increased steadily over the past decade. “After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, we started getting some inquiries about school safety products,” said Sheikh. “Parents are looking for some sort of solution for their children.”

Kevin Lim, founder of Bulletproof Zone, a retailer specializing in body armor and bulletproof products like backpacks, said he noticed a similar trend after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. “Overnight there were a ton of orders for these ballistic backpacks.”

Several companies also sell bulletproof backpack inserts. A standard insert from Bulletproof Zone is 11 by 14 inches and weighs about 1.5 pounds.

Auto-locking doors

Andrews said propping doors open is a thing of the past at her school in North Carolina, where most doors now lock automatically.

“[Doors are] automatically locking and then you have a key card to get in,” she told CNN. “Stepping foot on campus in general has become a more complicated process.”

“Now you stand at the front door, you have the video camera look at you if you're a visitor, you get buzzed in by the secretary,” Andrews said.

Hannah Lee, a high school English teacher in Irvine, California, who started her career during the Covid-19 pandemic, said she thinks frequently about how she would barricade her door or what she would do if a shooter broke through her door lock.

“I'm a young teacher and sometimes I wonder, is it going to be the best right now?” she said. “Will it just get worse and harder?”

Lee isn’t the only one questioning her future as a teacher. With school shootings on the rise and pandemic-disrupted learning taking a toll on teachers who feel increasingly burned out, public education is struggling to attract — and retain — qualified school staff , said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in the country.

Gun rights activists have long proposed arming teachers to combat school shootings. Most educators, however, say putting guns in teachers’ hands isn’t the answer. More than half of US teachers believe being armed would make schools less safe, according to a recent survey from the RAND Corporation .

“I'm already a babysitter, a mother, a mental health counselor,” said Takhtani. “I don't want to be a police officer.”

Through incremental changes, this is how schools across the country have responded to the worsening gun epidemic. This is the new American classroom.

More than 370,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine

There have been 404 school shootings since 1999, according to post data.

There were more school shootings in 2022 — 46 — than in any year since at least 1999.

Beyond the dead and wounded, children who witness the violence or cower behind locked doors to hide from it can be profoundly traumatized.

[ Mass shootings: Tracking gun violence in the U.S. ]

The federal government does not track school shootings, so The Washington Post has spent years tracking how many children in the United States have been exposed to gun violence during school hours since the Columbine High massacre in 1999.

The Post pieces together its numbers from news articles, open-source databases, law enforcement reports, and calls to schools and police departments.

There have been 404 school shootings since Columbine

A 17-year-old male student and a 15-year-old were shot in the parking lot of the school just after dismissal.

A 14-year-old male showed a handgun and then it discharged following an altercation in the men's restroom.

A 15-year-old student shot and injured someone in the parking lot of the school following an argument.

A suspect fired a gun after a fight broke out near the end of the school day.

Gunshots were fired out of an unknown vehicle, injuring four people in a school parking lot.

The Post’s search for more shootings will continue, and it’s possible reporters will locate additional incidents from previous years.

Hundreds of outlets cover the deadliest attacks, such as the Feb. 14, 2018, rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Fla., where a 19-year-old man with an AR-style rifle killed 17 people.

Others are covered by a single newspaper, such as a 2001 shooting at Pearl C. Anderson Middle School in Dallas, where a 14-year-old boy held a revolver to a girl’s chest and asked her whether she was “ready to die” before a bullet fired, grazing her hand.

Across all such incidents, The Post has found that at least 203 children, educators and other people have been killed, and another 453 have been injured.

Even as the list of incidents has expanded, however, the trend lines have remained consistent.

School shootings disproportionately affect Black children

Among The Post’s most important findings: the disproportionate impact of school shootings on children of color.

Almost all the deadliest assaults were committed by White gunmen, a reality that has left much of the public with the false impression that school shootings almost exclusively affect White students. Children of color, however, are far more likely to experience campus gun violence: more than twice as much for Hispanic students and over three times as much for Black students.

At schools with majority Black student bodies, shooters typically target a specific person, limiting the number of people shot — and the subsequent media exposure.

Black students make up 16.6 % of the school population ...

... but they experience school shootings at twice that rate.

The Post has reviewed more than 180 shootings committed by juveniles since Columbine, and in cases where the source of the gun could be determined, 86 percent of the weapons were found in the homes of friends, relatives or parents.

The median age of a school shooter is 16

Children, The Post also determined, are responsible for more than half the country’s school shootings — none of which would be possible if those children didn’t have access to firearms.

The ranks of school shooters include a 6-year-old boy, who killed a classmate he shot on purpose, and a 15-year-old girl, who did the same to a friend for rejecting her romantic overtures.

School shootings on the rise

While it remains highly unlikely that any student will experience a school shooting, the number of incidents has risen rapidly in recent years. Through 2017, the country averaged about 11 school shootings a year, never eclipsing 16 in a single year. But starting in 2018, violent incidents started climbing.

In 2020, the novel coronavirus closed campuses for months, and the number of shootings declined. But with classes in session again, 42 K-12 schools experienced school shootings in 2021, and 46 endured one the next year — mirroring the nation’s broader rise in gun violence as it emerged from the pandemic.

About this story

The Washington Post spent a year determining how many children have been affected by school shootings, beyond just those killed or injured. To do that, reporters attempted to identify every act of gunfire at a primary or secondary school during school hours since the Columbine High massacre on April 20, 1999. Using Nexis, news articles, open-source databases, law enforcement reports, information from school websites, and calls to schools and police departments, The Post reviewed more than 1,000 alleged incidents but counted only those that happened on campuses immediately before, during or just after classes.

Shootings at after-hours events, accidental discharges that caused no injuries to anyone other than the person handling the gun and suicides that occurred privately or posed no threat to other children were excluded. Gunfire at colleges and universities, which affects young adults rather than kids, also was not counted.

After finding more than 200 incidents of gun violence that met The Post’s criteria, reporters organized them in a database for analysis. Because the federal government does not track school shootings, it’s possible that the database does not contain every incident that would qualify.

To calculate how many children were exposed to gunfire in each school shooting, The Post relied on enrollment figures and demographic information from the U.S. Education Department, including the Common Core of Data and the Private School Universe Survey. The analysis used attendance figures from the year of the shooting for the vast majority of the schools. Then The Post deducted 7 percent from the enrollment total because that is, on average, how many students miss school each day, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Reporters subtracted 50 percent from a school’s enrollment if the act of gun violence occurred just before or after the school day.

You can obtain the raw data here . To provide information about school shootings since Columbine that fit The Post’s definition, send us an email at [email protected] .

Research and reporting by John Woodrow Cox, Steven Rich, Allyson Chiu, Hannah Thacker, Linda Chong, Lucas Trevor, and Alex Horton. Production and presentation by John Muyskens, Monica Ulmanu, Leslie Shapiro and Reuben Fischer-Baum. Editing by Lynda Robinson, Meghan Hoyer, Wendy Galietta, Frances Moody and Stu Werner.

Originally published April 20, 2018.

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How to Talk to Kids About School Shootings

"School shootings" are two words no parent ever wants to hear in the same sentence. But news of these tragic events is now so familiar, the topic is unavoidable. Unlike other conversations you have with your kids about scary stuff in the news , talks about school shootings are much more emotional, for both you and your kids. Add in the facts that kids as young as 5 are practicing active-shooter drills at school, and that any kid with a phone can get notifications of every mass killing and follow minute-by-minute updates on social media -- and it's even more of a challenge to provide calm.

Focus on helping kids understand the news and information they're seeing and hearing, while allowing them to express their questions and feelings. Cutting through the noise and chaos provides the stability and security kids need to process what's going on -- and to ultimately feel safe again.

Take an age-based approach

One of the great joys of parenthood is watching how kids' thoughts and feelings about the world evolve over time. That's why we often avoid difficult topics like sex, drugs, and violence: so we won't disrupt the magic of this wonderful process. Take an age-based approach to discussing school shootings, being mindful of how your kid's developmental stage affects their understanding.

Kids under 7

Young kids tend to think concretely , understand simple ideas best, and think of their immediate family as the center of their world. During times of stress, they may get whiny or engage in difficult behavior. It could be a sign that they need comfort even if they can't articulate it.

What to say

Ask open-ended questions. If your kids don't know what happened and don't bring it up, you don't necessarily have to fill in the blanks. If they bring up an incident, you can ask, "What did you hear?" or "What do you think is going on?"

Use simple sentences. Feel free to oversimplify if you have to. You can say, "Someone hurt people." And if an idea is too complicated to explain -- maybe you don't need to.

Don't overtalk. Once you've conveyed the news, you can wait until your kid asks questions to reopen the conversation.

Reassure them that they're safe and that people are working on the problem. Even if you feel iffy about the situation, you want your kids to feel like you're in charge and that it will be resolved.

Emphasize that emergency drills help keep them safe. Encourage them to follow the procedures and stay calm. Active-shooter drills are somewhat controversial, but if they're mandated at your school, it's best to be supportive when kids are within earshot.

Try to keep the news away. You might be eager for information, but try to be discreet. If you can't turn off the news, try distracting your kid or changing their focus with a book or an activity.

Save strong emotions for your adult support community. You don't have to be a robot, but avoid displaying strong emotions related to these tragic incidents around young kids. Kids often get scared when they don't know why parents are upset. Make sure to say, "I'm upset about what I heard on the news. It's not you."

Allow them to express themselves how they want. You may see a wide range of reactions when you discuss bad news. Some kids may cry or act out when they're upset and don't know what to do. Some kids want quiet time with you. Some kids like to talk. Some like to draw their feelings.

Make it a normal day. Try to maintain a typical schedule so kids feel the safety of regularity. But feel free to indulge in extra comfort and togetherness.

Tweens and teens

At this age, kids are developing their moral beliefs , which means they can delve deeper into a subject. More exposure to peers, social media, and news means they'll receive lots of information -- some of which you may need to correct. You don't need to sit them down for a formal talk: Sometimes, just doing an unrelated activity, such as watching TV, can lead to opportunities to have conversations about difficult topics.

Find out what they know. It's likely that kids this age will have heard about a shooting before they get home from school. You can ask, "What did you hear today?"

State the facts. If they've heard about the incident, ask what they've learned. If they don't know, you can say, "I need to tell you that there was a school shooting. I know you'll hear about it, and I want it to come from me so we can talk about it."

Check in. While it's important to talk, tweens and teens may be more open if they can set the pace. The conversation can happen when it feels right. You can say, "I want us to take a few minutes to discuss what happened. Let's talk either now or a little later."

Encourage them to express themselves. Tweens and teens are learning how to communicate their ideas, but they may need prompting. You can ask questions, share what you know, or get a conversation going in other ways. Ask, "Do you have any questions?," "How do you feel about this issue?," and "Why do you feel that way?"

Read their cues. Sometimes kids are just done and can't handle any more discussion. Be on the lookout for signs of information overload.

Share your feelings. Telling kids how you feel about what happened is a good thing to do even if they don't ask. Saying you're sad, mad, or whatever else will unburden you -- plus it models empathy and compassion.

Talk about emergency drills. Many schools mandate active-shooter drills, even though their efficacy is debatable. Still, your kids need to comply. Make sure they understand the importance of following procedures and staying calm. It may take the edge off to discuss the duck-and-cover drills students practiced during the Cold War.

Help them feel secure. This is important for kids of all ages: Tell them that they're safe, that you're always there for them, and that the authorities are investigating. Provide emotional support by saying, "It's OK to feel sad -- or to not even know how you're feeling."

Look out for signs of anxiety, generalized worry, or traumatic stress. When bad things happen, kids can develop a fear that it will happen to them, their family, or their school. Allow your kid to express all of their concerns, even if they don't seem directly related or even realistic. Validate their feelings, talk about ways they can calm themselves in times of intense stress (including calming thoughts, breathing exercises, and activities), and make it clear that you're always available to talk things through. Your kid may benefit from a meditation app , but if their anxiety or sensitivity increases, you may want to talk to your pediatrician.

Model behavior. The truth is, no one really knows what to do in these situations. But if you want your tweens and teens to think more deeply about news and other information , you may need to start that process by demonstrating it for them. You're showing them how to think about things, instead of what to think -- which is essential for kids' ability to view information critically. Try, "I always wonder why these things happen," "What drives a person to do this?," "What happens to the families, teachers, and other people who are affected?," "I wonder if this will have an impact on gun laws," and "Is there anything we can do?"

Filter news, or watch together. Tweens and teens get a lot of information from online sources like YouTube, which, as you're well aware, is hit or miss. Point them toward quality, age-appropriate news sources such as Xyza: News for Kids or the New York Times' The Learning Network , which handle mature news in youth-friendly terms. If you're going to watch the news on television, do it together, and turn it off if it gets too graphic.

Compare different news sources. News coverage can vary by publication, and information about one story can vary wildly. Consider looking at how a youth-oriented source like Snapchat covers a school shooting versus, say, the Washington Post. Make sure kids know how to vet news sources by checking the URL, the reporter, and the site or app sponsors. Check out AllSides , which compares news across partisan lines.

Get involved. Since youth activism is well documented on social media and other outlets, tweens and teens can see how their actions make a real difference in the world. Explore ways kids can get involved in making changes about issues they believe in by checking out sites like DoSomething , Never Again , and March for Our Lives .

Teaching Kids Media Smarts During Breaking News

Don't believe everything you read -- and other lessons for kids growing up with a 24/7 news cycle.

News Literacy 101

Follow these steps to help kids (and you!) resist fake news, fact-check, and think critically about news and information.

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The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20500

Remarks by President Biden on the School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas

Roosevelt Room

8:41 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good evening, fellow Americans.

I had hoped, when I became President, I would not have to do this again.

Another massacre. Uvalde, Texas. An elementary school. Beautiful, innocent second, third, fourth graders. And how many scores of little children who witnessed what happened see their friends die as if they’re on a battlefield, for God’s sake. They’ll live with it the rest of their lives.

There’s a lot we don’t know yet, but there’s a lot we do know.

There are parents who will never see their child again, never have them jump in bed and cuddle with them. Parents who will never be the same.

To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. There’s a hollowness in your chest, and you feel like you’re being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out. It’s suffocating. And it’s never quite the same.

And it’s a feeling shared by the siblings, and the grandparents, and their family members, and the community that’s left behind.

Scripture says — Jill and I have talked about this in different contexts, in other contexts: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” So many crushed spirits.

So, tonight, I ask the nation to pray for them, to give the parents and siblings the strength in the darkness they feel right now.

As a nation, we have to ask: When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?

It’s been 340- — 3,448 days — 10 years since I stood up at a high school in Connecticut — a grade school in Connecticut, where another gunman massacred 26 people, including 20 first graders, at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Since then, there have been over 900 incidents of gunfires reported on school grounds.

Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Santa Fe High School in Texas. Oxford High School in Michigan. The list goes on and on.

And the list grows when it includes mass shootings at places like movie theaters, houses of worship, and, as we saw just 10 days ago, at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.

I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage.

I spent my career as a senator and as Vice President working to pass commonsense gun laws. We can’t and won’t prevent every tragedy. But we know they work and have a positive impact. When we passed the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down. When the law expired, mass shootings tripled.

The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong.

What in God’s name do you need an assault weapon for except to kill someone?

Deer aren’t running through the forest with Kevlar vests on, for God’s sake. It’s just sick.

And the gun manufacturers have spent two decades aggressively marketing assault weapons which make them the most and largest profit.

For God’s sake, we have to have the courage to stand up to the industry.

Here’s what else I know: Most Americans support commonsense laws — commonsense gun laws.

I just got off my trip from Asia, meeting with Asian leaders, and I learned of this while I was on the aircraft. And what struck me on that 17-hour flight — what struck me was these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world.

Why? They have mental health problems. They have domestic disputes in other countries. They have people who are lost. But these kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency that they happen in America. Why?

Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with it and stand up to the lobbies? It’s time to turn this pain into action.

For every parent, for every citizen in this country, we have to make it clear to every elected official in this country: It’s time to act.

It’s time — for those who obstruct or delay or block the commonsense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget.

We can do so much more. We have to do more.

Our prayer tonight is for those parents, lying in bed and trying to figure out, “Will I be able to sleep again? What do I say to my other children? What happens tomorrow?” May God bless the loss of innocent life on this sad day. And may the Lord be near the brokenhearted and save those crushed in spirit, because they’re going to need a lot of help and a lot of our prayers. God love you.

8:48 P.M. EDT

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How to Identify and Prevent School Violence

Sanjana is a health writer and editor. Her work spans various health-related topics, including mental health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

Ann-Louise T. Lockhart, PsyD, ABPP, is a board-certified pediatric psychologist, parent coach, author, speaker, and owner of A New Day Pediatric Psychology, PLLC.

Yasser Chalid / Getty Images

Recognizing the Signs of School Violence

School violence refers to violence that takes place in a school setting. This includes violence on school property, on the way to or from school, and at school trips and events. It may be committed by students, teachers, or other members of the school staff; however, violence by fellow students is the most common.

An estimated 246 million children experience school violence every year; however, girls and gender non-conforming people are disproportionately affected.

"School violence can be anything that involves a real or implied threat—it can be verbal, sexual, or physical, and perpetrated with or without weapons. If someone is deliberately harming someone or acting in a way that leaves someone feeling threatened, that‘s school violence,” says Aimee Daramus , PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist.

This article explores the types, causes, and impact of school violence and suggests some steps that can help prevent it.

Types of School Violence

School violence can take many forms. These are some of the types of school violence:

Physical violence , which includes any kind of physical aggression, the use of weapons, as well as criminal acts like theft or arson.
Psychological violence , which includes emotional and verbal abuse . This may involve insulting, threatening, ignoring, isolating, rejecting, name-calling, humiliating, ridiculing, rumor-mongering, lying, or punishing another person.
Sexual violence , which includes sexual harrassment, sexual intimidation, unwanted touching, sexual coercion, and rape .
Bullying , which can take physical, psychological, or sexual forms and is characterized by repeated and intentional aggression toward another person.
Cyberbullying , which includes sexual or psychological abuse by people connected through school on social media or other online platforms. This may involve posting false information, hurtful comments, malicious rumors, or embarrassing photos or videos online. Cyberbullying can also take the form of excluding someone from online groups or networks.

Causes of School Violence

There often isn’t a simple, straightforward reason why someone engages in school violence. A child may have been bullied or rejected by a peer, may be under a lot of academic pressure, or may be enacting something they’ve seen at home, in their neighborhood, on television, or in a video game.

These are some of the risk factors that can make a child more likely to commit school violence:

Poor academic performance
Prior history of violence
Hyperactive or impulsive personality
Mental health conditions
Witnessing or being a victim of violence
Alcohol, drug, or tobacco use
Dysfunctional family dynamic
Domestic violence or abuse
Access to weapons
Delinquent peers
Poverty or high crime rates in the community

It’s important to note that the presence of these factors doesn’t necessarily mean that the child will engage in violent behavior.

Impact of School Violence

Below, Dr. Daramus explains how school violence can affect children who commit, experience, and witness it, as well as their parents.

Impact on Children Committing Violence

Children who have been victims of violence or exposed to it in some capacity sometimes believe that becoming violent is the only way they‘ll ever be safe.

When they commit violence, they may experience a sense of satisfaction when their emotional need for strength or safety is satisfied. That‘s short-lived however, because they start to fear punishment or retribution, which triggers anger that can sometimes lead to more violence if they’re scared of what might happen to them if they don’t protect themselves.

Children need help to try and break the cycle; they need to understand that violence can be temporarily satisfying but that it leads to more problems.

Impact on Children Victimized by School Violence

Victims of school violence may get physically injured and experience cuts, scrapes, bruises, broken bones, gunshot wounds, concussions, physical disability, or death.

Emotionally speaking, the child might experience depression , anxiety, or rage. Their academic performance may suffer because it can be hard to focus in school when all you can think about is how to avoid being hurt again.

School violence is traumatic and can cause considerable psychological distress. Traumatic experiences can be difficult for adults too; however, when someone whose brain is not fully developed yet experiences trauma, especially if it’s over a long time, their brain can switch to survival mode, which can affect their attention, concentration, emotional control, and long-term health.

According to a 2019 study, children who have experienced school violence are at risk for long-term mental and physical health conditions, including attachment disorders, substance abuse, obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and respiratory conditions.

The more adverse childhood experiences someone has, the greater the risk to their physical and mental health as an adult.

Impact on Children Who Witness School Violence

Children who witness school violence may feel guilty about seeing it and being too afraid to stop it. They may also feel threatened, and their brain may react in a similar way to a child who has faced school violence.

Additionally, when children experience or witness trauma , their basic beliefs about life and other people are often changed. They no longer believe that the world is safe, which can be damaging to their mental health.

For a child to be able to take care of themselves as they get older, they need to first feel safe and cared for. Learning to cope with threats is an advanced lesson that has to be built on a foundation of feeling safe and self-confident.

Children who have experienced or witnessed school violence can benefit from therapy, which can help them process the trauma, regulate their emotions, and learn coping skills to help them heal.

Impact on Parents

Parents react to school violence in all kinds of ways. Some parents encourage their children to bully others, believing that violence is strength. Some try to teach their children how to act in a way that won’t attract bullying or other violence, but that never works and it may teach the child to blame themselves for being bullied.

Others are proactive and try to work with the school or challenge the school if necessary, to try and keep their child safe.

It can be helpful to look out for warning signs of violence, which can include:

Talking about or playing with weapons of any kind
Harming pets or other animals
Threatening or bullying others
Talking about violence, violent movies, or violent games
Speaking or acting aggressively

It’s important to report these signs to parents, teachers, or school authorities. The child may need help and support, and benefit from intervention .

Preventing School Violence

Dr. Daramus shares some steps that can help prevent school violence:

Report it to the school: Report any hint of violent behavior to school authorities. Tips can be a huge help in fighting school violence. Many schools allow students to report tips anonymously.
Inform adults: Children who witness or experience violence should keep telling adults (parents, teachers, and counselors) until someone does something. If an adult hears complaints about a specific child from multiple people, they may be able to protect other students and possibly help the child engaging in violence to learn different ways.
Reach out to people: Reach out to children or other people at the school who seem to be angry or upset, or appear fascinated with violence. Reach out to any child, whether bullied, bullying, or neither, who seems to have anxiety, depression, or trouble managing emotions. Most of the time the child won’t be violent, but you’ll have helped them anyway by being supportive.

A Word From Verywell

School violence can be traumatic for everyone involved, particularly children. It’s important to take steps to prevent it because children who witness or experience school violence may suffer physical and mental health consequences that can persist well into adulthood.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Preventing school violence .

UNESCO. What you need to know about school violence and bullying .

UNESCO. School violence and bullying .

Nemours Foundation. School violence: what students can do .

Ehiri JE, Hitchcock LI, Ejere HO, Mytton JA. Primary prevention interventions for reducing school violence . Cochrane Database Syst Rev . 2017;2017(3):CD006347. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD006347.pub2

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Understanding school violence .

Ferrara P, Franceschini G, Villani A, Corsello G. Physical, psychological and social impact of school violence on children . Italian Journal of Pediatrics . 2019;45(1):76. doi:10.1186/s13052-019-0669-z

By Sanjana Gupta Sanjana is a health writer and editor. Her work spans various health-related topics, including mental health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio, a member-supported public media network.

School shootings: It's hard to spot the warning signs. Prevention steps can help

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, HOST:

We want to start today with a conversation that may be tough to hear but also important to listen to. It's inspired by last week's deadly shooting at a high school in Oxford Township, Mich. That was the 29th school shooting in the U.S. this year. That's according to Education Week. The suspect, a 15-year-old, is being charged as an adult for the deaths of four of his fellow students at the high school. Six other students and a teacher were also injured.

The decision to charge him as an adult was unusual given the suspect's age. The decision to charge his parents with involuntary manslaughter was also unusual. Certain other aspects of the case, however, reflect an all-too-common pattern in school shootings, a pattern of alarming behavior by a suspect before the shooting ever happens and a pattern of opportunities missed to intervene and possibly prevent the tragic outcome.

So why is it so hard to know when to intervene? And why so many shootings? Jillian Peterson has spent years seeking answers to just those questions. She is a co-founder of The Violence Project, a nonprofit research center dedicated to analyzing the life histories of mass shooters. Jillian Peterson, thanks for joining us today.

JILLIAN PETERSON: Thanks so much for having me.

FOLKENFLIK: We mentioned there have been 29 school shootings this year. The year's not quite concluded. Is that a lot?

PETERSON: It is a lot. We have also been tracking school shootings and also threats of school shootings. And both are at absolute record highs this year compared to other years.

FOLKENFLIK: At The Violence Project, you've worked up a detailed database of the life histories of 180 mass shooters and the patterns that connect their behavior, their past, their backgrounds. Walk me through what's a sadly typical path to such violence.

PETERSON: Yeah. The thing about the Oxford shooting is that the circumstances of this case are so similar to what we've uncovered over and over and over again. It tends to be a 15- or 16-year-old white male student of the school. Oftentimes, they have a significant trauma history. They are in a noticeable crisis. So their behavior is changing, and it's being noticed by people around them. Often, they're actively suicidal. And they leak their plans. They tell other people. They post about it on social media. They write about it as a cry for help, in this case, a literal cry for help. He wrote, help me.

FOLKENFLIK: Right. The boy drew pictures of a gun. He sort of foreshadowed the idea of violence would occur and wrote, help me.

PETERSON: Yes. And we see that again and again.

FOLKENFLIK: It suggests that there are signs school officials, counselors, other adults can look for to identify students who may be hitting those crisis points. What might some of those signs be?

PETERSON: Our research shows that a crisis is really a change in behavior from baseline. So it's just the student acting differently than they normally do and then any sort of fascination with school shootings, with past shootings, with violence, any sort of leakage about threatening violence towards themselves or others. But really, that crisis is a noticeable change in behavior. And it's always easier after the fact to identify that. But what we advocate for is teams and systems in schools so it doesn't fall on any one person's shoulders to be the one to evaluate how serious this is. But you want a crisis response team with mental health professionals, teachers, administrators, law enforcement, people who can say, OK, how serious is this, and how quickly do we need to intervene and with what?

FOLKENFLIK: Why is it so difficult for us to register and catch warning signs in the moment and do something with it?

PETERSON: It's such a hard question. Schools are strapped for resources. They're strapped for time. They don't have necessarily school-based mental health professionals who can jump right in and do an assessment. So part of this is really building the systems and giving schools the resources that they need to adequately investigate these. A lot of times, it ends up being law enforcement that looks into it. Is it an immediate threat or not? And if it's not, there's kind of - that's it.

FOLKENFLIK: And so instead, what you encourage is what?

PETERSON: So things like suicide prevention, having everybody in the school trained in suicide prevention and crisis intervention, having school-based mental health right there, easily accessible, having relationships with community providers but really having the time and space and people whose job it is to dig into these threats, to do the assessments, and to really deeply understand what's going on with the student who's saying that, why they're saying it and what they need, and then have continued follow-up.

FOLKENFLIK: You also said that a consistent part of the pattern was the availability of guns. How do you think about that as you approach it in your research?

PETERSON: Yeah. That is absolutely a key component because the majority of school shooters, the majority of school mass shooters, the guns they're bringing to the scene they've taken from their family and friends because they're not secured. I mean, in this case, it's even more egregious, where they actually bought him and handed him the gun. But gun laws, things like universal background checks and assault weapon bans and the laws that we tend to talk about after mass shootings, they're less relevant when it comes to school shootings because these are kids not buying guns. These are kids taking guns from their family members. And in many ways, that's an easier problem to solve. Requiring safe storage is something we can do without needing major acts of Congress.

FOLKENFLIK: We should note in the Oxford Township School shooting that the parents of the accused shooter have pleaded not guilty in the charges of involuntary manslaughter.

We've been listening to the voice of Jillian Peterson. She's co-founder of The Violence Project and associate professor of criminal justice at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn. Jillian Peterson is also the co-author of the book "The Violence Project: How To Stop A Mass Shooting Epidemic" that came out earlier this fall.

Professor Peterson, thanks so much for joining us.

PETERSON: Thank you so much for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Nationally, there have been 2,069 shootings on K-12 school properties from 1970-2022

Since 2000, shots have been fired 20 times on Wisconsin K-12 school grounds.

Those incidents include an incident in 2006 when nearby gunfire accidentally struck a Milwaukee student on a playground; a 17-year-old who died by suicide in a parking lot after school in Sheboygan in 2009; and a Milwaukee school employee's handgun accidentally going off in 2019, injuring a 10-year-old-student.

On Wednesday morning, the Mount Horeb School District reported on its Facebook page there was a shooter at its middle school, but the person “did not breach entryway." It added, “We have no reports of individuals being harmed, with the exception of the alleged assailant.”

Get daily updates on the Packers during the season.

Mount Horeb is a small village of 7,700, roughly 40 miles southwest of Madison in Dane County.

The Center for Homeland Defense and Security maintains an online public database showing all U.S. instances of K-12 schools when a gun is brandished, fired, or a bullet hits school property. The CHDS K-12 School Shooting Database shows there have been 2,069 shootings, 684 deaths, and 1,937 injuries on K-12 school properties nationwide between January 1970 and June 2022.

The dataset also tracks whether the shots fired were related to gang violence, a preplanned shooting or domestic violence. It also indicates whether any victims were targeted or hostages were taken, among other datapoints.

Just one Wisconsin shooting since 1970 involved a hostage situation, the dataset shows. On Nov. 29, 2010, at Marinette High School, a 15-year-old student left class to use the bathroom and returned to the classroom with a backpack containing two guns. The student fired at the classroom projector, then took the class and teacher hostage for several hours.

Students said their Marinette classmate "appeared sad and depressed" and they attempted to keep him calm, according to the dataset. The shooter died by suicide.

At least two shootings in Wisconsin were preplanned. At Weston High School in Cazenovia on Sept. 29, 2006, a 15-year-old student entered school with a long-barrel shotgun around 8 a.m. The principal and janitor wrestled the gun away, but while the janitor left to call 911, the student pulled out a .22-caliber handgun and fired multiple shots at the principal "before being subdued by other teachers," according to the database.

The Weston High School principal died. The student had been bullied by other students and abused by his father and had a history of mental illness, according to the Homeland Defense and Security database.

At Oshkosh West High School, a school police officer shot a student in the hallway on the morning Dec. 3, 2019. The 16-year-old student stabbed the police officer several times with a barbecue fork, and the police officer later reported being unable to reach a stun gun in time.

There were another six instances when shots were fired on K-12 school grounds in Wisconsin between 1970, when the dataset began, and 2000.

Cleo Krejci covers higher education, vocational training and retraining as a Report For America corps member based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at [email protected] . Follow her on Twitter @_CleoKrejci. Support her work with a tax-deductible donation at bit.ly/RFADonation .

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Nationally, there have been 2,069 shootings on K-12 school properties from 1970-2022

Law enforcement officers stand outside the Mount Horeb Intermediate Center in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin on Wednesday, May 1, 2024.

Active shooter drills aren't making our kids safe. They cause unnecessary stress and fear.

It is one thing to prepare faculty and staff for what to do and how to instruct students in case of a violent episode. it's quite another to involve children whose innocence need not be compromised..

There was a time when school drills meant practicing multiplication tables and expanding one’s vocabulary. But for students of this millennium, they involve barricading the classroom door and sitting quietly in the corner during an active shooter simulation — possibly featuring fake blood pretend victims, and someone playing the role of an armed assailant lurking about in the hallways. And to enhance the sense of realism, some schools stage unannounced drills, even going so far as declaring over the PA system that it is not just a drill — like an unannounced, realistic drill held in December at the Hawthorn Center in Northville that prompted four parents and six workers to file suit against the youth facility.

Michigan law requires schools to hold three lockdown drills a year. The hope is that students and faculty will be prepared, should some dispirited student or deranged intruder decide to turn the school into a battle zone.

These drills are well-intentioned. But despite positive comments from some survivors, there is no hard evidence that these drills actually make children safer. To the contrary, they appear to do considerable harm to the emotional well-being of many students, needlessly scaring impressionable youngsters by reinforcing the notion that they are in constant danger.

School shooter drills terrify students: We've taught kids to fear school shootings. But lost sight of how uncommon they are.

Stop pointing fingers on guns: Gun violence from Texas to Nashville should call Americans to prayer − and to action

Active shooter drills cause students stress, fear

A recent analysis by a team from Georgia Tech of social media posts from students in more than one hundred schools, before and after an active shooter drill, showed a significant increase in messages reflecting stress, fear and despair in the wake of these exercises. No wonder that professional organizations of educators – the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association – as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics have expressed deep concerns over the negative effects of active shooter drills.

Emergency drills are nothing new to the school day, of course. Drills to prepare students in the event of fire are commonplace, but hardly scary. Students are well-aware of the tragedies at Uvalde, Texas, and Parkland, Florida, but who can recall a school fire making headlines?

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Gen Z is tired of waiting on gun reform: I'm a Nashville high school student. We're tired of waiting for a solution to gun violence.

The psychological harm that may come from shooting drills is not warranted, considering the low probability that such an event will actually occur. According to FBI data on active shooter events, from 2000 through 2022 there was a total of 48 incidents in K-12 schools — an average of two per year. And that’s out of more nearly 130,000 public and private schools in America.

It is one thing to prepare the faculty and staff for what to do and how to instruct students in the case of a violent episode; it is quite another to involve children whose innocence need not be compromised. Furthermore, it is far from certain that students would recall what they had learned during occasional lockdown drills amidst the panic associated with the real thing.

Emergency preparedness training can help save lives – but at what cost?

The potential downside of active shooter drills involves more than just traumatizing students. There are a few students for whom the opportunity to wreak havoc on their schoolmates can seem exhilarating, inspiring them to call in a false threat — like the rash of threats made in Michigan schools after the Oxford shooting and the so-called “swattings” that have hit schools around the country. At the extreme, an assailant could use what was learned from participating in drills as strategic intel for planning an attack, as the Parkland school shooter reportedly did.

School shootings are not the only rare yet terrifying events for which emergency training and preparedness can help to save lives. School officials can learn an important lesson of moderation and restraint from other venues that grapple with improbable yet deadly hazards, be they of natural or intentional origin.

No more 'thoughts and prayers': We don't need more 'thoughts and prayers' about gun violence. We need meaningful reform.

'This is my first lockdown. In college.' A day in the life of the school-lockdown generation

Commercial airlines train their flight crews to handle disaster situations — such as the unlikely ''water landing''— but passengers are only asked to watch a brief demonstration of grabbing hold of oxygen masks, without having actually to practice this maneuver. Cruise ships require that guests don life jackets and learn the location of their muster stations, but no one must step foot inside a lifeboat. In case of a catastrophe in the air or at sea, the passengers will be directed where to go and advised what to do.

This same reasonable posture should apply to schools: Prepare the staff, but spare the students. As with the usual pre-flight or pre-cruise protocols, a few simple instructions on escape strategy may be sensible. However, overpreparing students needlessly risks intensifying their fears and anxiety. And if active shooter drills are required by law (as they are in as many as 40 states), then they should be low-key, age appropriate, announced in advance, and definitely not designed to be realistic.

James Alan Fox is the Lipman Professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Policy at Northeastern University, a member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors, and author of "Violence and security on campus: From preschool through college." Follow him on Twitter @jamesalanfox.

IMAGES

School shootings in the US compared with the rest of the world
Resources for Talking and Teaching About the School Shooting in Florida
Santa Fe school shooting one of America's deadliest
How mass school shootings affect the education of students who survive
School shootings have fueled a $2.7 billion school safety industry
Timeline of The Covenant School shooting in Nashville

VIDEO

U.S. reflects on yet another school shooting massacre
Nashville school shooting: How to talk to your kids about school shootings
Why Are School Shootings So Common In The U.S.? (In The Loop)
Uvalde school shooting: A look at the timeline of the massacre
Special Coverage Of Deadly Texas School Shooting
Parents Explain School Shootings

COMMENTS

School shootings presentation by Rachel Sun on Prezi
Our presentation looks at some infamous cases, social developments, national and state laws that deal with school shootings, political stand points and the NRA strong involment in blocking legislation that would help pass gun control laws. 57 incidents, 39 deaths, and 84 injuries.
School shootings: What we know about them, and what we can do to
On the morning of Nov. 30, 2021, a 15-year-old fatally shot four students and injured seven others at his high school in Oakland County, Michigan. It's just one of the latest tragedies in a long ...
School shootings in the US: Fast facts
CNN —. There have been at least 18 school shootings in the United States so far this year, as of April 18. Four were on college campuses, and 14 were on K-12 school grounds. The incidents left ...
School Shootings: Five Critical Questions
School Shootings: Five Critical Questions. By Evie Blad — February 16, 2018 6 min read. Students are evacuated by police from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14 ...
Preventing and Addressing School Violence including Gun Violence
There have been an estimated 394 school shootings that exposed more that 360,000 students to gun violence since the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. The Biden-Harris Administration is taking significant action to prevent and address gun violence through enacting the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BCSA), creating ...
What We've Learned From School Shootings : NPR
When school shootings happen, experts work backwards to connect the dots. After the tragedies at Columbine High School and Virgina Tech, a number of studies have been conducted to identify ...
What This Week's Mass Shooting Can Teach Us About School Safety
Paul Sancya/AP. The mass school shooting this week in Oxford, Mich., marks the deadliest such incident in the United States since the 2018 shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, in which 10 people died. And ...
Inside a month of America's school shootings
February 2023 was five years since the high-school massacre in Parkland, Florida, in which a gunman killed 17 students and staff. It was also representative of a typical month of school gun violence.
Five Facts About Mass Shootings in K-12 Schools
The Averted School Violence Database enables schools to share details about averted school violence incidents and lessons learned that can prevent future acts of violence. 3. Threat assessment is a promising prevention strategy to assess and respond to mass shooting threats, as well as other threats of violence by students. ...
School shooting
school shooting, in the typical case, an event in which a student at an educational institution—an elementary, middle, or high school or a college or university—shoots and injures or kills at least one other student or faculty member on the grounds of that institution. Such incidents usually involve multiple deaths. Rampage school shootings are a type of school shooting where no single or ...
School shootings in the United States since the 1990s
Although school shootings occur worldwide, the U.S. has been the scene of the vast majority of the attacks, especially since the late 20th century. Although school shootings have a long history in the U.S., the 1990s were a pivotal point, with high-profile occurrences in Pearl, Miss. (1997); West Paducah, Ky. (1997); Springfield, Ore. (1998 ...
School Shootings Once Again Frequent in the U.S.
In August, police officers fatally shot an 8-year-old girl outside of a high school football game in Sharon Hill, Pa., and a middle-school student killed another student in a lunchtime shooting in ...
PDF Preventing School Shootings: The Effectiveness of Safety Measures
School shootings and the corresponding moral panic While these tragic events are newsworthy, the media portrayal that school rampages are becoming epidemic and are an emergent social problem is ﬂawed (Burns & Crawford, 1999; Elsass et al., 2016; Muschert, 2007). Crime in the United States, and particularly in
Preventing School Shootings
Building a cohesive and supportive school environment is key to preventing school shootings and traumatic events like other types of mass shootings. In this environment: Students feel safe to talk to each other and to staff. There is mutual trust and respect among students and school staff. There is on-going dialogue and relationships with ...
School shootings in the United States
Share of school shootings in high/low minority schools U.S. 2009-2019, by situation. Share of shootings occurring at K-12 schools with 75 percent or more minority students and with less than 25 ...
US school shootings double in a year to reach historic high
The number of shootings that led to no deaths or injuries also showed a startling increase. In 2021-22, there were 139 shootings without casualties, more than double the 53 registered the year before.
American classrooms increase safety measures due to school shootings
In January 2017, a student at West Liberty-Salem High School in Ohio stepped onto campus and opened fire — shooting and seriously wounding a classmate. About 400 students evacuated through their ...
There have been 404 school shootings since Columbine
More than 370,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine. 370,000. There have been 404 school shootings since 1999, according to Post data. One dot represents 20 children ...
How to Talk to Kids About School Shootings
Take an age-based approach to discussing school shootings, being mindful of how your kid's developmental stage affects their understanding. Kids under 7. Young kids tend to think concretely, understand simple ideas best, and think of their immediate family as the center of their world. During times of stress, they may get whiny or engage in ...
Remarks by President Biden on the School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas
Roosevelt Room 8:41 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Good evening, fellow Americans. I had hoped, when I became President, I would not have to do this again. Another massacre. Uvalde, Texas. An elementary ...
School Violence: Types, Causes, Impact, and Prevention
School violence can take many forms. These are some of the types of school violence: Physical violence, which includes any kind of physical aggression, the use of weapons, as well as criminal acts like theft or arson. Psychological violence, which includes emotional and verbal abuse. This may involve insulting, threatening, ignoring, isolating ...
School shootings: It's hard to spot the warning signs ...
It's inspired by last week's deadly shooting at a high school in Oxford Township, Mich. That was the 29th school shooting in the U.S. this year. That's according to Education Week. The suspect, a ...
Nationally, there have been 2,069 shootings on K-12 school ...
The CHDS K-12 School Shooting Database shows there have been 2,069 shootings, 684 deaths, and 1,937 injuries on K-12 school properties nationwide between January 1970 and June 2022. Just one ...
PDF Effectively Responding to Incidents of School Violence
-Preventing and Addressing School Violence Miniseries - Effectively Responding to Incidents of School Violence MAY 8, 2024 3:00 - 4:30 PM ET 1 The content of this presentation does not necessarily represent the policy or views of the U.S. Department of Education, nor does it imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education.
Kids fear school shootings. Active shooter drills don't make them safe
Active shooter drills don't make them safe. Active shooter drills aren't making our kids safe. They cause unnecessary stress and fear. It is one thing to prepare faculty and staff for what to do ...