Many Christian schools are struggling to secure the funding necessary to increase security.
The shooting that claimed six lives at Nashville’s Covenant School has triggered heightened security and a heightened sense of awareness at Christian schools throughout the country. Teachers and administrators are waiting to learn more about whether religious animus motivated the attack.
This week’s events also puts the safety precautions of private schools in the spotlight. Private schools face both regulatory and financial hurdles to developing safety plans that are comparable to their public peers. To dive deeper into these challenges and others, National Review spoke to Dr. Jeff Walton and Dr. Larry Taylor, leaders at two of the country’s largest Christian school associations.
“We are grieving,” explained Taylor, the president of Association of Christian Schools International, an organization that has thousands of members schools. “Every Christian school leader the next morning, they were having meetings with their teams,” Taylor said, adding that he is having regular Zoom calls with heads of schools.
According to Walton, the executive director of the American Association of Christian Schools, which has over 700 member schools, “at almost every school, there have been meetings of safety teams and school leadership teams and people looking at what happened Monday at Nashville and what are we doing to beef up security and protect our students.”
“As far as I know the school shooting in Nashville at a private Christian school was the first mass shooting at a private Christian school since the 1970s. Our schools have been in some ways protected from that. They’ve been very safe places, but there’s been an elevated level of concern today because of what happened in Nashville,” he added.
The security measures at private Christian schools are like those at many other schools: single and monitored entry into the school building, security cameras, and volunteer security personnel that are on campus to create an awareness.
“I’ve been in schools where there were retired men in golf carts patrolling the property all the time, just greeting people. That’s a form of security. They would notice that someone is on campus that wasn’t supposed to be there,” Walton said.
Both public and private schools increased security after the school shooting at Columbine, according to Taylor. However, Covenant may be another turning point.
“Christian schools tend to be smaller organizations and really tight-knit communities. That was true of Covenant. That generally contributes to student safety, but not perfectly as was evidenced on Monday,” Walton said.
When he spoke to National Review, Walton said he had just talked to two school leaders who had temporarily hired private security to be on campus for the next several weeks. However, increased security has a financial impact and private schools throughout the country are wondering how they can fund their increased expenditures. Walton had even fielded a phone call Thursday from a school leader in Illinois who was asking the association if they knew of any grants to help fund security at their campus of 900 students.
“Private schools have taken security very seriously for the last 20 years and they’ve put a lot of good things in place, but I’m not aware of any grants or programs that help them with the funds for that,” Walton explained.
Asked whether such funding should exist, Taylor replied in the affirmative.
“Private school families are taxpaying citizens. They add value to the overall common good of every community,” Taylor explained to National Review.
“We don’t rely on the government,” he explained. “But there’s no doubt when you look across the globe it is not an issue for the government to subsidize private schools. When I go to our Europe office or our Canada office or when I go to Australia, there are subsidies for private schools.”
There are sometimes strings attached, Taylor said, but even when that’s the case “private schools still usually have the liberty to still teach every single thing that they want to teach.”
For Taylor, ideally there would be additional security funding for private schools with no strings attached so that the religious character and religious liberty of every Christian school is preserved.
Walton concurred, saying that a commitment to school choice shouldn’t preclude greater funding to increase the security of all schools.
“Funding for education should be funding for the education of every child. So instead of funding particular systems we should be funding the educational system. The same thing applies then to security. Instead of funding the security of children in certain buildings, we should be funding the security of children,” said Walton. “I’m a supporter of school choice, but I’m also a supporter of security for kids who are in those alternative settings.”
Another regulatory issue Christian and private schools face is that there are only a handful of states which allow schools to contract with local sheriff’s deputies or police departments to hire a sworn School Resource Officer, or SRO.
“In only a few states can they even legally contract with the sheriff or the police department for an SRO, so these do have to be off duty people or security people that they have to hire with school funds,” Walton explained.
Building relationships with legislators throughout the country is a focus of Taylor’s organization. He said he would welcome legislation to make SROs available to private schools along with any other bill that promotes private school safety
Some states have begun to address this issue. Just on Sunday, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear signed a piece of legislation that allows private schools to do just that.
In Tennessee, where the attack occurred, a bill was transmitted to Governor Bill Lee last week which would enable private schools to begin hiring SROs. National Review was told by the office of Tennessee house speaker Cameron Sexton that they are currently discussing funding for the SRO solution.
Tennessee senate majority leader Jack Johnson explained to National Review that it’s important to focus on the security measures of private schools after the recent attack.
“The recent tragedy at Covenant has made us all aware that it is imperative for private schools to also have strong security measures in place. The Tennessee General Assembly is working on ways the state can assist private schools in their efforts to protect their students, teachers and staff from outside threats,” Johnson said.
“We are also working with Gov. Lee on improvements to this year’s school security legislative proposal, which I am sponsoring, to make sure we do everything possible to provide safe learning environments for all students in Tennessee at both public and private schools,” he continued.
Schools around Nashville are following this situation closely. Joe Cacopardo, communications director for the Roman Catholic diocese of Nashville explained to National Review that Catholic schools in the area already have mandatory training for faculty, staff, and administration. The training accompanies annual site and safety protocol reviews and regular safety drills conducted with staff and students. But the Diocese is also closely following discussions at the state level about providing funding to private and public schools for SROs and other security measures.
Walton confirmed that developing a security plan is an expectation for Christian schools and all schools throughout the country. However, mandates from states that also cover private school security plans are rare.
“There is an expectation that every school creates and implements a security plan. There are model plans. They are from the U.S. Department of Education. In our group, and probably true with every accrediting organization, you can be a member and purchase services without being accredited, but if you get involved with our accreditation, then part of your review for that is your security plan and pieces that you have in place,” Walton said.
Taylor explained that his organization’s accreditation requires security protocols, crisis management plans, and proof that schools have communicated with local authorities.
“We have people that actually visit the school. It’s not a long-distance accreditation,” he said.
National Review asked both Walton and Taylor whether Christian schools are on high alert because Covenant School is Christian in background.
“There actually is heightened security because we don’t know what the motivation was,” explained Walton. “That’s a question we’re all intensely interested in.”
“From this person there is not any further risk but, from someone else who may copycat, some person who might have an emotional disorder or some other motivation that we don’t know about, there’s heightened security and heightened awareness because of that,” Walton said. “I think everybody’s mind will be eased somewhat if we find out that the motivation had nothing to with religion in any way.”
Taylor argued that copycats are a real concern. “We don’t want copycat ripple instances,” Taylor asserted.
He added that Christian schools are extra vigilant because parents are concerned that religious animus motivated the Covenant attack.
“Parents will rightly be anxious,” explained Taylor, adding that “they will want to know that their school’s physical plan and all the safety protocols are of the highest standard.”
The release of the Covenant shooter’s manifesto is currently a controversial issue. LGBT groups have cautioned against it despite the fact the manifestos of other school shooters have been released previously. Others like the well-known social conservative Robert George have called for its release.
Audrey Hale’s so-called “manifesto” needs to be released. It is likely to show that Hale was a domestic terrorist who targeted and murdered school children and adult employees on account of their Christian faith. If that is in fact the case, the public has a right to know.
— Robert P. George🇻🇦🇺🇸🪕 (@McCormickProf) March 29, 2023
Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) has suggested the attack should be investigated as a hate crime.
Both Taylor and Walton also weighed in on the question of why private Christian schools have been for the most part able to evade the issue of school shootings so far.
In Taylor’s view, the fact that such shootings are rare is due to two factors. On the one hand, there are fewer private schools and Christian schools than public schools, so the disparity can be explained that way. On the other hand, Taylor said “there are specific features at private Christian schools that minimize school shootings.”
“We’re really looking at the soul and heart of a student, not just teaching them, that’s naturally part of our mission of being Christians. Also, there are benefits to being smaller — the facility is smaller,” Taylor explained.
“It’s the culture and the ethos of Christian schools where we notice behavior changes and we begin to intervene,” he added.
It’s hard to determine how many school shootings have been prevented because of this focus, Taylor said.
To Walton, “we can talk a lot about leaves and branches, foliage, but if you try to get to the root of this I would say it’s a deep cultural issue and Christian schools are in many ways countercultural. In most American culture today teachers believe and students are taught that truth is personal and that the ultimate goods are individual autonomy and self-love and that kind of teaching breeds a lot of cultural ills.”
“In Christian schools teachers believe and children are taught that truth is eternal and that the ultimate good is submission to God and self-sacrifice,” he continued. “And I think we saw that modeled on Sunday when Katherine Koontz, head of school, paid the ultimate sacrifice. Ultimate good is self-sacrifice.”
Walton was referring to Covenant’s head of school, who was one of the six victims.
“If you’re going to change culture, you have to change those fundamental understandings that people have,” Walton concluded.