The Paw Print

By Steven Jiang, Opinions Editor

On the first day of school, a loaded handgun was discovered by security guards at Whitney Young High School. It was concealed in a backpack that set off the x-ray machine, according to a letter sent by Principal Rickey Harris. The school administration immediately confiscated the weapon, called the police, and ensured that there was no active threat. Per ABC7 Chicago, a 15-year-old boy was taken into custody and later charged with illegal possession. The incident sent shockwaves throughout the Near West Side school of over 2,000 students, including the Academic Center — Whitney Young’s middle school that shares the campus. That night, “Whitney Young” flashed in Chicago’s local news headlines for all the wrong reasons. 

As an Academic Center alum, I was struck with both sheer disbelief and poignant sympathy. The hundreds of incoming students, especially the seventh graders, must have been horrified. It was their first day navigating a brand-new, unfamiliar school campus with thousands of unknown faces milling about. The first floor of the Main Building is even nicknamed “The Maze” due to its notoriously confusing layout of lockers and classrooms. I imagined parents anxiously calling their children at one of the city’s flagship selective enrollment schools, just to make sure they were safe. 

And above all, unsettling thoughts permeated my stream of consciousness, which I could not force out of my mind. In many ways, our privileged school environment shelters us from the darker social issues that plague students across our district and our nation as a whole. We hear about school shootings and chronic violence on the news, but no, we tell ourselves, that would never happen here. (It is quite the indictment of our tragically selfish human nature.) Now, it feels too…real. What if this had happened here at Payton? Are any of us ever completely safe? 

I won’t speculate on the motives behind the weapon. In times of turmoil and amidst an active investigation, fearmongering rumors can dangerously engulf our school district. No one can prove as of the time of publication that there was, God forbid, an intent to perpetuate a mass shooting, the likes of which have sadly become all too familiar in this country. But regardless of the circumstances, a privately possessed and loaded weapon potentially endangered the lives of every single student, teacher and administrator in that school building. 

While Young’s Principal Harris correctly acknowledged that the system “worked as designed,” many felt that it was an incredibly close call. “Not everyone [gets pulled over for security screening]…usually when they start checking, they check 15 people at a time, but that creates a backlog so people are just let through,” said a student at Whitney Young, speaking on condition of anonymity. “That’s really some luck if they found it in the backpack during a random search and it wasn’t visible.” Though I cannot independently verify the exact logistics of Young’s current screening process, this description corroborated my own experiences at the school two years ago. 

What rattled me were the striking similarities to our own security screening process at Payton. At the main entrance, of the hundreds who flood in every morning, only a few are randomly selected for bag and body checks. (In my third year at Payton, I have been pulled over at most once every two weeks at the main entrance, consistently arriving between 7:45 and 7:55 AM everyday.) At the auxiliary entrance at the soccer field, although most students walk through a metal detector, their bags are checked less frequently. It surely seems as if the odds of detecting a potential threat to the Payton community rest on little more than dumb luck. 

To be clear, I am not pointing fingers, and I have the utmost respect for Payton’s security officers, who work tirelessly to keep us safe everyday. Furthermore, the Whitney Young security team deserves commendation for successfully identifying and neutralizing a potential threat. The point is: while ultimately harmless, the gun incident at Whitney Young remains a shrill wake-up call for our school. 

In the aftermath of the situation, the Whitney Young principal reflected, “Today’s incident has been one that I would not have ever imagined having to deal with in my 29 years as an educator.” I do not blame Principal Harris. No one should go to school everyday with the fear of the unspeakable hanging over their conscience. No one should report to work on the first day of a new school year and consider what safety threats may unfold. No one should have to worry about becoming yet another statistic on a gruesome list that once seemed so far removed from our own backyards. 

Principal Harris declared that he prioritized safety first above all else, just as every other school rightfully does. I firmly believe that Principal Shabazz and the Payton administration also have our best interests at heart with regard to safety. Now is the time to transform those convictions into a significant revamp of our security screening. 

It is true that many factors, including mental health and fear for personal safety, can cause a student to carry a weapon to school. Our strong academic performance and high test scores absolutely do not render us immune to these challenges. The administration and our elected officials must continue to target the “root causes” of student violence. But at the very least, if all preventative measures fail, we must strengthen our last line of defense: our security system. 

Simply put, a student carrying a weapon on school grounds must be stopped. There is no acceptable margin for error. Our safety is non-negotiable, and when lives are at stake, we must prepare for the worst. 

Yes, screening 1,200 students every single day is a logistical nightmare. Picture a long line of half-asleep, miserable teens stretching down Wells Street on a freezing January morning (with the obligatory windchill warning). Imagine how many (more) students would trudge into the classroom halfway through first or fifth period, disrupting their teachers’ instruction. It may seem ridiculously draconian, but there will be no laughing and joking if tragedy strikes as a result of a security lapse. In the meantime, we should take small steps toward our ambitious but necessary goal. For instance, we could purchase additional X-ray machines and metal detectors. We could also reform our current no-nonsense attendance policy that penalizes three tardies with a “discipline infraction” on a student’s permanent record, among other revoked privileges. If a student is late to class due to a security check, they could receive a grace period pass in the new Minga system.  

Even if it hurts to think of the unimaginable, we must act proactively and focus on what we can control. Administrators, students, parents and teachers can and must rally together for our collective safety. I also implore our Local School Council, including our student representatives, to advocate for improvements to our security system, no matter how small. With such a jarring incident in our recent memory, let us seize the moment and demand a safer community here at Payton.