On May 18, a teenager took the lives of ten and injured another ten inside Santa Fe High School. It was one of ten school shootings in 2018 that has produced at least one fatality. Additionally, there were another 11 active shooter incidents in American schools this year.

In the twenty-one separate incidents, there are undoubtedly many unique factors behind each situation. However, there are two common factors in every one of these dangerous incidents. In each violent episode, there was a gun and there was a school. That school was either with or without an active shooter plan.

My personal belief is that certain legislation is a necessary and obvious step in curbing this epidemic. Union and the thousands of other schools in the United States should not wait around for such reform though. There are proactive measures that we as a college community can take before then. The school needs to create and implement a campuswide active shooter plan.

On any given day, there are roughly 2500 people on campus; coordinating the safe evacuation or sheltering of that many people during a real time active shooter crisis would be chaos, even with a plan. Without a plan, chaos doesn’t begin to describe the madness that would ensue.

Now is the time to identify vulnerabilities and potential issues the College community may face in such a situation.

As a New York State EMT, I have seen first-hand how experienced first responders handle a dire situation. They resort to carefully designed plans and protocols. Of course, emergency situations are often unpredictable and plans are not always applicable, but when they are, they are used. Planning for an emergency prior to it occurring is a time and time again proven advantage to those encountering the emergency. If the local firehouse ever came to your school growing up, or if you were shown one of those fire emergency videos, you probably remember hearing “Go home and make a plan with your family.” Well, for good reason, having a plan works.

It’s fair to say a majority of the student body and staff have never faced such an immediate endangerment as the one this piece is referring to.With respect to everyone, we can’t expect people to just know what to do should such an event occur.

Once a month we all get a text message and email from the school’s emergency alert system. Kudos to the school, this is a great start. The efficacy of this invaluable resource could only be amplified with a plan in place.

I encourage the school’s administration to work with local authorities, such as the Schenectady Police Department and the FBI’s Albany field office – both of which would definitely respond to an active shooter on campus – in creating such a plan. Once completed, the plan should be relayed to the entire student body and staff before each term.

A plan would not safeguard the Union community against every possible situation. However, I think to have no plan would be a mistake.

To further protect schools, we’ll need bipartisan legislation enacting a number of measures. Rather than standing idle, waiting for others to make the necessary changes, let’s work together to institute achievable productive measures.

Making a plan is a step forward. Let’s begin taking these sensible steps in the near future.