After Texas massacre, parents worry: Could a gunman walk into a Kansas City school?

As we begin to learn more about the 19 children and two teachers who were shot and killed by a gunman who walked off the street into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Kansas Citians may be wondering: Could such horror happen here?

Sadly, yes. But most local schools have taken steps over the years to avoid admitting a stranger with intent to do harm.

Most metropolitan-area high schools and middle schools on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas state line have at least one armed school resource officer, or SRO, in their buildings. And Kansas City Public Schools also have hired security at their high schools.

More and more school districts are also putting SROs in elementary school buildings.

In Blue Springs, “each elementary school has a school resource officer assigned to it,” a district spokeswoman said in an email. “We are hiring an additional four officers in July 2022 and another four in July 2023. We currently have 15 police officers on staff.“

But school districts know that it is not enough to have armed security on site. That was made clear during the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings in Parkland, Florida, where an armed officer waited outside as a gunman killed 17 people and injured 17 others. Just days ago at the Buffalo, New York, grocery store shooting, 10 people were killed, including the store’s security guard, by a gunman wearing bulletproof body armor.

The 18-year-old alleged gunman in Uvalde made it past a school resource officer before barricading himself in the fourth-grade classroom where the killings took place. He was later shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer who arrived after the shooting started.

After a quick and unofficial survey Wednesday, we have learned that most local schools have changed the way anyone can enter their buildings, spurred in part by the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.

Most districts revamped school entrances with a vestibule system that lets visitors into a completely enclosed area before they are buzzed into a locked office area. Staff checks their identification and reason for entering before admitting them into the main building.

In places where the entrance could not be revamped, schools use a video and buzz-in method where people show their ID to a camera outside and request admittance through an intercom system.

Districts that responded to our inquiries said their school doors are locked while classes are in session.

Details of what happened Tuesday in Uvalde are still emerging, but the shooting is horrific and heartbreaking. And even with all that has been done to better secure buildings, and with active-shooter drills to train children and staff, we know that these practices are not infallible.

But it does help to know that Kansas City-area school districts have indeed taken steps to do something to prevent anyone with ill intent from entering their buildings. We are grateful for those measures — and sick that they’re our 21st century reality.