Pascale Small is like many parents with kids returning to school for a new academic year.

She wants them to stay safe and secure.

“I have two beautiful children that I want to be able to drop off in the morning and pick up safely in the afternoon,” said Small, who lives in Waldorf, Maryland, about an hour south of Washington D.C.

Her kids are in kindergarten and first grade at Charles County Public Schools.

Also, like many others, Small has her own ideas about how to ensure schools are safe after recent mass shootings in places like Uvalde, Texas, in May.

Small said she hopes school systems have proper technology and security equipment to keep campuses and classrooms safe. That, she said, needs to include installing high-quality camera systems instead of just relying on school resource officers deployed by local police departments..

“Safety needs to be a multifaceted approach and the community should be part of those conversations,” Small said.

Across the country, parents, students, teachers, staff, administrators and others on the frontlines of school are all looking for a safe return to classrooms after a summer dominated by retrospectives on the handling of the Uvalde shooting that left 19 elementary school students and two teachers dead.

The path to get there can diverge greatly, however, depending on locality, and some people are more apprehensive than others about school security and the potential for violence in the coming year.

Layla Hostetler, a 16-year-old junior at Great Mills High School in Maryland, near the confluence of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, said she has confidence in her campus’ security plan.

"I'm not too worried because our security team…does a really good job at stopping fights. Teachers take extra precautions. Fights will start, but they're over in 2 minutes," said Hostetler.

Hostetler’s mother, Ashley, said she favors having armed security on school campuses. Ashely Hostetler also said she wants an assurance that side doors and other access points are fully secured. She pointed to an incident last year in which a former student who was allegedly stalking a female student was able to breach security.

"I want to make sure we have an armed security officer that is trained in the building at all times," Ashley Hostetler said.

Views on posting police officers in schools vary and there are disparate opinions on gun control and outfitting schools with more cameras and other security equipment.

For some, cops, cameras and metal detectors on campuses are welcome as the prospect of mass shootings becomes an anxious staple of contemporary American life.

Others see such measures as amplifying anxiety for students and staff already stressed about returning to school after pandemic shutdowns and remote learning.

Some students, parents and teachers say they’re concerned that school security efforts — including police officers and security guards — may turn campuses into militarized zones.

School security consultants and administrators also see cameras as doing double duty, to surveil students for other behaviors beyond violence and threats. That can sometimes lead to cameras being vandalized or disabled.

Others prefer not to get caught up in the anxiety cycles.

“While I do think about security and the safety of my children, honestly a shooting could happen anywhere and it is not productive to worry,” said Jennie Beltramini, school board president for the Anacortes School District mid-way between Seattle, Washington and Vancouver.

Beltramini said she’d rather focus on the positive.

“We are excited for the school year to begin. Starting a new school year is always full of anticipation and excitement in our house, seeing friends again, starting sports and activities, getting back into routines, and learning is what we focus on,” she said.

That doesn’t mean heading off school violence isn't a priority, she said.

“My family has been personally affected by a school shooting, so I've been engaged in conversation and action around this epidemic for many years,” Beltramini said. “I believe there are many root causes that need to be addressed to make public spaces across the country safer.”

Views on what those root causes are and how to address them can differ greatly across the country, with renewed pushes for gun controls and in other corners a heightened focus on anti-bullying efforts and mental health counseling.

Some conservatives and gun rights advocates have also pushed to arm teachers and other school staff. That faces opposition from teacher unions.

“The people who are in classrooms every day —teachers, school staff and students — don’t want more guns in schools. The answer to gun violence is not more guns; guns are the problem, not the solution,” said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten in a recent statement. Weingarten cited an August nationwide poll showing 75% of teachers and staff oppose arming public school employees.

“Educators, parents, administrators, counselors and students want teachers to teach, not engage in a shootout with AR-15s,” Weingarten said.

Beyond the politics and pushes for security solutions, mental health counselors said parents, students and staff need to process their emotions and be more transparent about their concerns.

“It’s normal to have fears. We all have some sort of fears,” said Lorna Wooten, a licensed mental health counselor with Thriveworks counseling services in Orlando.

Wooten has worked with local schools in Florida — including students, teachers and parents as they process the harsh realities of school shootings as well as the returns to classrooms after the COVID-19 shutdowns.

“I just advise the parents to process your own emotions first,” Wooten said.

She said that can help build trust and communication — and encourage kids to talk to parents or school staff about bullying

“I would say talk to the students about their fears,” Wooten said.

Sharon Hoover, a clinical psychologist, professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and co-director of the National Center for School Mental Health, said school districts and police departments too frequently rush to do something to look prepared after a high-profile shooting.

“Unfortunately, that leads to quick reaction investments in products — like bulletproof white boards — marketed to fearful communities,” Hoover said.

That has helped school security grow into a $3.1 billion industry, according to consulting firm Omdia.

Police departments across the country are also trying to ease concerns that the bungled response at Uvalde won’t happen on their watch.

Anacortes Police Chief Dave Floyd said his officers won’t be found waiting outside a school when there is a threat inside.

“Our response for many years now has been to pretty expeditiously get into the school and start addressing those threats,” Floyd said.

Washington state requires school districts to have a shooting response plan that involves law enforcement, and that is updated annually. Schools and police in Anacortes have had a plan in place for over a decade, Floyd said.

“As a parent of two kids in the district, I’m very confident in our response plan,” Floyd said.

Regular practice is also key, he said.

Anacortes police held an active shooter drill at an elementary school in early August, and part of the focus was on single officer response.

New officers practiced what they would do if they were the only one on scene during a threat, Floyd said.

Officers will take an aggressive approach if something happens, Floyd said.

“That means getting into the school as fast as possible and immediately going toward what the threat may be,” he said.

Officers also don’t have to wait for command authorization to act when danger is immediate, Floyd noted.

“Your job is to make those decisions,” he said. “We hire intelligent people here to be able to make those decisions on their own without approval of a command officer. If you see someone that is carrying a gun in a school and they’ve already taken shots…you need to address that.”

When Floyd was a patrol officer, active shooter protocol said to first find a custodian or janitor when something happened because they generally had all the keys to rooms and building entrances. That’s not the most efficient way to gain access during a crisis, he said.

During construction of new high school buildings a couple of years ago, an electronic locking safety system was put into place.

Now, all police officers have a key fob that allows them access to the building at any time, including during a lockdown. The system is tracked by computer and logs who accesses a door and when.

“We can have a lot quicker response to getting in the building,” he said. “We want to eliminate wasting valuable time,” Floyd said.

Floyd said he would like to add another school resource officer in the district. One currently splits his time between the middle and high schools. Ideally, two full-time officers could also spend some time at the elementary schools, he said.

School districts have their own protocols for keeping their buildings safe.

All external school doors stay locked, Anacortes District Superintendent Justin Irish said. Anyone who wants to enter must speak with the front office and sign in.

Anacortes schools also go through a safety drill each month just as they do with other drills including for fires, earthquakes, lockdowns and lockouts.

“Our goal is to put a system in place that is predictable. We want them to be able to exit the building efficiently or lock down efficiently.”

A district safety committee includes staff members plus the school resource officer provided by the police department.

“Throughout the year we are going to use these policies and procedures with our drills,” Irish said. “We want to make sure this isn’t something that just sits on a shelf.”

Practice, education and discussion mean the policies and procedures are clear and consistent across the district, Irish said.

“Our main thing is making sure we have one document, one routine,” he said.

Irish implemented an easy alert system that connects leaders at each school and the district office with the police and fire departments. An alert goes to the administration immediately, keeping everyone in the loop and communication and instruction clear, Irish said.

Drills with students focus on what they should do in a crisis situation, like staying quiet, locking doors and staying out of sight, Irish said. They do not include any dramatization of violence but can still be scary for students. As part of those, the school resource officer talks about safety and being prepared.

“Our goal is to put a system in place that is predictable,” Irish said. “We want them to be able to exit the building efficiently or lock down efficiently.”

So far, Irish said he hadn’t heard this summer from any parents afraid to send their kids to school.

“I believe we have an amazing set of professionals and with new tools and practice, through routine, I think people’s anxiety will be reduced,” he said.

Jamie Copsey, interim principal at Leonardtown High School in Maryland, is also confident about school safety in the new school year.

"I am very much excited to return to school this year. I am confident in the security measures that [St. Mary's County Public Schools] has in place to keep our students and staff safe." Copsey said.

Darryl Kinsey Jr, Caleb M. Soptelean and Briana Alzola contributed to this story.

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