Say Goodbye to Law and Order with a School Shooting

This week we said goodbye to Television's 20 year long run of Law and Order. There have been so many amazing stories and situations. It was interesting that the plot of the finale was a shooting in a public school. The show was broadcast on May 24, 12 years and 3 days after the shooting at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon and 11 years 34 days after Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado. In the Law and Order episode the shooter was a ruined teacher not a student.
A couple of frightening statistics: Since 1998 there are 119 students and adult deaths in shootings at schools. Those shootings were during a total of 54 shootings in American schools.
As per the usual Law and Order program the setting of the final episode was New York City and in this case the New York Public Schools. It was dramatic in emphasizing our American approach to most things including critical issues such as school shootings, we are reactive rather than proactive. Wait until the shooter is in the building before we try to prevent it.
An interesting part of the plot in the final episode was the "rubber room" maintained by the New York City school system where teachers were required to report and spend all day waiting for their "day in court" for "infractions". The interviewed teachers had in one case defended herself from a student who was beating her, in another had refused a student permission to go to the bathroom five minutes before the end of the period so the student urinated in the trash can in the front of the room and when the teacher approached him the student charged him with sexual harassment. Similar statements went on and on to the dumbfounded district attorney lawyers. Some of the teachers had been in the "rubber room" for two years waiting for their hearing.
I had heard about the "rubber room" from a retired teacher of the New York system. He had not been confined to it, thank goodness. But he had had some choice words to say about conditions that led to teachers landing there.
I can't help but think that this in itself leads to part of the problems kids have who are being harassed. I wonder if a child is having trouble with a bully, can he or she go to a teacher for help, if he or she sees that the very teacher that might give that help is powerless against those same bullies to provide the help. Is the teacher going to be thinking, "Will I end up in the rubber room if I tell Hector to lay off and leave Cliff walk down the hall in peace!"
Fortunately my daughter and daughter-in-law both teach in systems where they don't have to worry about that yet.
Respectfully submitted,
Kenneth Fenter