Because They're Kids

The last several days have had some heightened stress around here for any number of reasons. But key among them is that a disgruntled person (assumed parent) at my daughter's school decided to release some event safety protocols to a right-wing site that fancies itself a "news source," and that the kids at the school are now — at least to some extent — targeted.

For the sake of argument here, I am going to put a lot of issues to the side, though that does not mean they are not constantly occupying my mind. If you know me, you already know how I feel about these. I'm putting aside feelings about ICE and the Minnesota occupation. I'm putting aside any issues I or anyone else might be having about the school's current administration. I'm putting aside some people's assumption that teenagers are somehow just mini-adults. I'm putting aside my own feelings about the final semester of my daughter's high school education.

What someone did, for the apparent trade-off of being able to make a smart-ass remark and get a few likes on social media, was to endanger an entire school full of children. There are now several hundred keyboard warriors who have somehow deemed it appropriate to criticize and threaten these kids. Trolls like that are usually cowards, but I know some part of almost every parent at the school now has a worry that someone is going to put that disgruntlement into action and target a teen walking into school, or eating lunch out on the patio, or at a baseball game, or during graduation held on the North Lawn. And the very fact that we already live with those feelings every day when our children go to school, and now they are heightened, is a stark and damning reminder of where we are as a society. 

We're six weeks into 2026, and there have already been six campus shootings this year, with five dead and three injured. I don't want my daughter's school on this list — but then, I don't want ANY more schools on this list. It's time to stop pretending this is ok.



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Anonymous said…
amen amen amen
February 23, 2026 at 11:30 AM
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