Politics

This school’s response to school shootings should upset parents everywhere

Published

2 years ago

November 12, 2024

This school’s response to school shootings should upset parents everywhere

The day after police say a 14-year-old was arrested Georgia’s Apalachee High Schoola radio report about that murderous attack began to play as I drove my 7th grader to school. She wanted to know if anybody had died. I said, “I think so,” deliberately avoiding giving her the details that two students and two teachers were dead. She had just recently participated in her school’s “See Something, Say Something” campaign and had recently had a lockdown drill, and I felt sick with the realization of how much she’s been forced to think about threats at school and what she’d do if one arose.

It was upsetting to hear what a Catholic school in Virginia Beach did when an 11-year-old told officials there that a classmate had brought a bullet to school.

That’s one of the reasons it was so upsetting to hear about what a Catholic school in Virginia Beach did when an 11-year-old 6th grader told officials there that a classmate had brought a bullet to school. He should have been effusively thanked for reporting what he saw. But in a move that epitomizes the trend in American schools of making innocent actors outlaws, the principal, who reportedly commended the boy, at the same time, punished him with a suspension. His waiting two hours for the opportunity to make the report anonymously, they said, was unacceptable and warranted punishment.

It filled me with a rage to think that our daughter, or anybody’s child, would be made to feel bad in such a situation.

Worse still, the boy who reported that his classmate had brought a bullet to school was given the same punishment — a 1-1/2 day suspension — as the boy who brought the contraband. To punish the boy who alerted school officials to a possible danger is by itself indefensible, but to give the other boy the same punishment renders their actions equivalent. It beggars belief that officials at St. John the Apostle Catholic School are acting as if they are.

But school officials and leaders of The Catholic Diocese of Richmond are defending their actions. “Failure to report a safety concern affects the safety of everyone in the school,” Leslie Winneberger, a lawyer for the diocesewrote in a letter obtained by The Washington Post. “… The school cannot, and will not, take chances when it comes to student safety, especially true in light of the school shooting in Georgia this past week.”

But thanking the boy who reported what he saw and using his delay as an opportunity to emphasize the importance of acting with urgency would not have represented the school taking chances. It would have been humane and gracious and in keeping with the school’s mission to provide a “Christ-centered learning environment” with a focus on students’ “moral development.”

What Christ-centered message is St. John the Apostle communicating here: that rain falls on the just and the unjust?

All schools have a role to play in students’ moral development. They should all foster — and at a minimum not impede — students’ discernment of good and bad and right and wrong.

All schools, not just religious ones, have a role to play in students’ moral development. They should all foster — and at a minimum not impede — students’ discernment of good and bad and right and wrong. But whether it’s pre-kindergarteners getting suspended for hugging or elementary students getting sent home for playfully shaping their fingers into a gunwe’ve witnessed a trend over the last couple of decades of school officials letting their fear of being sued justify their punishing undeserving students.

When you add those decisions to policies that criminalize certain hair stylesand demand that students eat lunch without talking to one another and remain just as quiet while walking the halls in perfectly straight linesthere seems at times to be a concerted effort in our country’s schools to stamp out any and every sign of young people’s humanity. And to replace their human-centered sense of right and wrong with the latest download from the school’s risk-management team.

Not only is punishing a boy who alerted school officials to his classmate’s bullet likely to give the entire student body a warped sense of ethics, as an attorney hired by his mother rightly points out, it sends students the message that they’d be “better off not saying anything,” as reported by the Post.

The last thing school officials should want is students who are fearful that reporting something suspicious will get them in trouble from school officials who say they took too long. For many students, the fear of getting in trouble — especially suspended — may be a the worst thing they can imagine. I was such a child, and I don’t think our daughter is much different. And while we may hope that a student who senses a threat rightly prioritizes school safety over fear of getting in trouble, the best way to encourage them to make that a priority is to remove from them the fear of getting in trouble.

Ironically, the boy waited till the end of a standardized test — which the educational establishment has succeeded in convincing students are all important — before he said anything.

For many students, the fear of getting in trouble may be the worst thing they can imagine.

The mother of the boy who told school officials what he knew says he wanted to make the report about the bullet quietly, “because one of the things he didn’t want was to be bullied and didn’t want to be labeled a ‘snitch,’” but because he and the other kid disappeared from their classroom at the same time and they served their suspensions simultaneously, his peers quickly figured it out.

Speaking of a warped sense of right and wrong, a North Carolina man was arrested after officials say he emailed a bomb threat to St. John the Apostle and caused officials to shut down school for two days. It should go without saying that nothing justifies threatening a school, and school officials are right to be angry at the threat.

But that arrest does nothing to address the anger from the mother of the boy who was wrongly suspended or ease the fears of parents who may fear that their school will adopt a policy just as wrongheaded as St. John the Apostle. We all want our children to be safe. But we don’t want them to be made out as villains if they try to keep their school safe but don’t do it quickly enough according to some ridiculously arbitrary standard.

Jarvis DeBerry

Jarvis DeBerry is an opinion editor for BLN Daily.

Politics

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

Published

18 hours ago

September 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

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Politics

Trump wants the Postal Service to radically overhaul mail voting. But ballots are already going out.

Published

2 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s controversial demands for the Postal Service to overhaul and monitor millions of mail ballots hit another snag on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state in the nation to start sending out ballots for the November election.

In March, Trump signed the initial executive order, which aimed to crack down on mail-in voting — which he regularly alleges without evidence is a vector for widespread voter fraud — and assert an unprecedented amount of federal control over the upcoming elections.

Under this order and the subsequent rule drafted by the U.S. Postal Service, the USPS would refuse to deliver ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible mail voters or did not adhere to an approved envelope design style.

Since then, the order has faced legal challenges, and it remains paused by a federal judge’s orders. But the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the new rule to proceed — something current and former election officials from both parties say would be both a legal nightmare that oversteps the federal government’s traditional role in elections and a logistical one that is happening far too close to the November election to implement even if they agreed with it.

“Why the hell are you rocking the boat this late in the game?” said Stephen Richer, a former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has clashed with Trump allies for defending the security of the 2020 election.

Still, election officials are trying to project a sense of normalcy for voters, particularly in North Carolina, which serves as a test of whether established local election systems can operate normally amid intensifying federal scrutiny.

“I want to emphasize this point because there has been a lot of outside noise: Our county workers are ready,” Sam Hayes, a longtime Republican lawyer in the state and now executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.

He added, “All we can do is what we’re doing. … It is business as usual as far as I’m concerned.”

Despite the legal challenges, the Trump administration has continued to press the courts to let it proceed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift an order from a Massachusetts judge which temporarily prevents the USPS from enforcing their rule. It is the second time the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in, after winning an earlier victory in which the high court dismissed an earlier hold on the rule as premature.

“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”

The USPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Election officials said that if the rule goes into effect this close to November, it would cause chaos and place added strain on the USPS and election officials. And an anonymous federal whistleblower said in a report circulated earlier this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that the USPS was moving forward in a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process” to try to implement the new system ahead of the midterms.

In the coming weeks, states across the country will follow North Carolina’s lead. Nine other states will begin mailing ballots in the next two weeks, according to a tracker from the National Conference of State Legislatures — with the biggest day for mailing coming 45 days before the election in mid-September.

“It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect. It’s hard to even imagine,” said Ben Hovland, a senior fellow for democracy at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress and former Democratic commissioner with the Election Assistance Commission who was fired by Trump in July.

He added, “It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy.”

The rule would require meticulous changes to ballot handling and tracking practices that Hovland said are impossible to implement before Election Day in about two months, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters.

“Ballots are printed. Envelopes are printed. You can go on and on with all the practical reasons that show that implementing something like this at this time is not feasible,” he said.

Richer said he doubted the new rules would bring about more security. Even if the USPS received lists from the states, according to the postal service’s final rule, it would not do any additional vetting of the list, Richer said.

“It’s just that the mail ballots have to be on that list, and I don’t see what added value for election integrity that does,” he said.

He added, “It creates a lot of administrative burden, and I think it creates a lot more opportunity for error.”

While a decision looms in the courts, election officials and experts cast doubt on the likelihood of the rules going into effect before November. A more pressing issue, they said, is the confusion and uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots, which could subvert and change the behaviors of voters.

“It makes things seem messy or difficult, and it can dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote,” Hovland said. “It certainly also helps establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results.”

Hovland said that while none of these claims of voter fraud are backed up with facts, they could cause Americans to lose faith in the voting process.

Still, some current officials contended they were well-prepared for whatever happens — and that they’d be able to communicate effectively with voters who have become increasingly buffeted by dramatic rhetoric about the once-unmentioned nuts and bolts of actually running an election.

“There’s always a lot of noise around elections, that’s not going to change, and it can be hard to differentiate that from what’s actually going on on the ground,” said Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

As Election Day approaches, Tyson and election officials said they urge voters to check their registration status and make a plan to vote.

He added, “I think we’ve got a really well-trained, solid staff who are ready, and who have gone through all of the checks and balances and points of contact that we need to do to get to where we are.”

Politics

Missouri Supreme Court pauses GOP gerrymander, likely netting Democrats 1 House seat

Published

3 days ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Missouri’s Supreme Court suspended a congressional map that state Republicans drew last year that would have netted the GOP an additional House seat, likely keeping the seat in Democratic hands this November.

The court ruled unanimously on Thursday that a referendum petition organized by Democrats to put the new congressional maps to a vote was incorrectly deemed insufficient by Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and ordered that the gerrymandered map be put to a vote in the fall.

Voters will ultimately decide the fate of the new lines in November. But in the meantime, it cannot be in place for the midterms, meaning Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s original Kansas City-based district will likely stay in Democrats’ hands this fall.