Warren County Public Schools Superintendent Greg Drescher gave the county supervisors a perspective on why additional school security funding is a priority this year.

FRONT ROYAL – At its first April meeting the Warren County Board of Supervisors was presented with one request and one perspective related to our local and national histories.

The request from the Blue Ridge Heritage Project for the use of bricks from the remains of what was once the oldest surviving home in Warren County, the Robert McKay House circa 1731, would aid in construction of a memorial remembrance to local families relocated from the Blue Ridge Mountains to allow establishment of the Shenandoah National Park.

And while that sometimes contentious and involuntary relocation may bring painful memories to the descendants of some of those families, a perspective offered by Warren County Public Schools Superintendent Greg Drescher in support of an additional budgetary request struck a more far-ranging, contemporary and painful national chord – the rising specter of fatal gun violence targeting public schools.

Speaking in support of an additional $326,905 in the Sheriff’s Office School Resource Officer (SRO) budget to enhance school security, Drescher traced the history of fatal attacks on schools in America dating back to 1764. And while that Indian attack on a Pennsylvania school during the European expansion into Native American lands may have been an interesting footnote and starting point, it was the rise of violence from within in recent decades that was Drescher’s focus.

Beginning in the decade of the 1940’s Drescher recounted a total of eight times a gun was fired in anger on school grounds. Jumping forward to the 1980’s he cited 39 incidents; followed by 62 in the 1990’s; an identical 62 in the first decade of the 21st century; then 92 in the five-year period between 2010-14; and another 57 in what he specified as a 3.25-year period between 2015 and 2018. Drescher elaborated that his numbers reflected statistics related to “school shootings” found on Wikipedia – “school shooting” defined as “an attack at an educational institution, such as a school or university, involving the use of a firearm or firearms.”

The referenced Wikipedia article states, “According to studies, factors behind school shooting include family dysfunction, lack of family supervision, and mental illness.” It observes that “The United States has the highest number of school-related shootings” and notes the debate over gun violence and gun control launched by these incidents and the rising numbers of fatalities associated with the phenomena.

Warren County’s public schools superintendent said he would skip the political debate side of the equation to simply deal in realities, a primary one being WHY such incidents occur.

“What would possess a student or adult to want to shoot people in schools? When you look at the data sometimes it’s an accident; sometimes it’s an argument or a flash of anger; sometimes it’s a gang thing; sometimes it’s a crazy person; and sometimes we just don’t know,” Drescher reported. “In our schools we’ve been attempting to address some of this why. When a human being doesn’t experience love; feels disenfranchised or has severe emotional trauma one result is to lash out. However, most don’t end up shooting schools up; however they still have issues.

“In our schools we’ve focused on practicing gratitude … We have multiple programs in place that have staff address some of the terrible experiences that our children have had to face in their young lives. In the past year we’ve added the concept of teaching mindfulness to our students. This program teaches skills on how to cool down and address problems constructively so they don’t end in violence. We have multiple anti-bullying programs; we attempt to discipline with dignity to teach proper behavior because we know that punishment alone can create further issues.

“Far too many of our kids don’t get the love or the support that they need. As a school system and a community we do many things to help fill that need. Some of those things are a result of the funding direction you have provided,” Drescher told the supervisors, moving toward the end game of his presentation, and one might imagine the presentations of school administrators across the country this budget season – preparation.

“The second reality is planning for the worst case scenario that we hope never happens,” Drescher said of the funding request for the additional SRO deputies on site at county public schools. As Royal Examiner has previously reported the increased SRO budget request will provide some additional command staff supervision and four additional School Resource Officers so that all nine of the system’s schools will have a sheriff’s office deputy on site full time during school hours. The system’s two high schools and two middle schools have fulltime SRO’s, but there is one resource officer that circulates between the five county elementary schools. See related story

“Doing so will create a line of defense in each of our schools I believe the data shows is needed,” Drescher said of the funding the additional SRO positions for the sheriff’s office. “We cannot eliminate all threat; however, I believe installing a lock-door buzzer system at every school and having an armed officer at each of our schools is a common sense step that will eliminate several possibilities if someone wants to do harm at a school.”

Drescher added that he believes an SRO presence, not only is a safeguard against the type of worst-case scenario incidents he addressed, but other day-to-day problems that can arise in the school environment that a law enforcement presence is best qualified to handle. As he has observed during this budget process, increasingly SRO’s are viewed as an integral part of the school communities they serve and are seen as a positive presence by staff and students alike.

Drescher thanked the board for advertising a budget with a 1-cent tax increase that will help cover the additional SRO cost, and closed his presentation with a quote from the late, great musician-philosopher-visionary Jimi Hendrix – “Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens” – “You guys have been a model of listening and taking action, thank you.”

Dan Murray has been the staunchest board opponent of a tax increase tied to this year’s budget – however, he has supported the increase to fund additional school security.

He then referenced feedback and input from parents whose fears have been accentuated by the recent Parkland, Florida and St. Mary’s County, Maryland school shootings, the former that left 17 dead, and the latter with one fatality much closer to home.

“We can become defeated in our fear or we can live well knowing we are doing our best,” Drescher said in closing an impassioned plea that Warren County bite the budgetary bullet to do its best in coming to terms with the realities of a heavily-armed society with an increasing population of psychologically-isolated, emotionally-troubled and sometimes angry individuals, both young and old.

The county budget public hearing will be held at a special meeting on April 10, with a vote coming at the regular meeting of April 17. Both meetings will start at 7 p.m.

And in a footnote to Drescher’s public schools report, the following evening the School Board approved a school calendar ending the school year on June 1, with a final administrative/staff day on June 4.