I am a high school student in the state of Pennsylvania. I currently go to Kennett High School and I think classroom safety needs to be changed. On the first day of school, every student across the country learns how to protect themselves from a bullet by “ducking and covering”. The majority say, "It will never happen to us" or "do you know the probability of a shooting happening at our school”. While I agree the event of a shooting is rare, this can, has and will continue to happen unless we take measures to change and protect our schools. Most recently, for the students at Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida this was not a rarity this became THEIR reality. This was also the case for countless other schools, yet we are still wondering, “what can we do?”and still saying, “Our thoughts and prayers go out to you. How can we help?”. These heartfelt sentiments have been said, however, no significant changes have been made to protect our schools in this country. In addition, we had a “March For Our Lives” rally in Washington D.C. to bring awareness and change to this growing epidemic. Personally, I don’t want to be a statistic and I don’t know any other student who does or any parent who wants to be on the national news pleading for change. I have learned about school shootings all my life that have happened even before I was born in 2003, yet no significant changes have been implemented in our schools. Classroom safety has been a critical concern for me and many other students, parents and teachers nationwide. My goal is to make people aware that school shootings don’t discriminate and can happen to anyone, anywhere, but they can be prevented with school safety. There are many prevention methods I’m working on currently including some bullet proof objects in our school classrooms. A tremendous amount of lives could have been saved in many school shootings if we had any type of bulletproofing in past shootings. The second law i would like to make, unannounced drills twice monthly, one lockdown and one a fire drill. Students and teachers should not know about the drill until it happens because students and teachers DO NOT respond to the drills seriously. For example the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas were unprepared due the fire alarm going off for the second time in one day. They simply thought the culinary class set this alarm off because of burnt food or someone billed the alarm. Unfortunately none of that was true. The students and teachers rushed out into the halls to find the gunman shooting down their fellow classmates and teachers. Many students were killed in classrooms because their designated safe zones were not marked with tape or another type of material. These laws will help keep students safe from school violence. Students should not need to worry if they are coming home today or will they be gunned down in their classroom hunted like deer in a field. I would like to implement a silent alarm just like what bank tellers use in banks all across America in the event of an emergency. This law would be called the Alyssa's law, in honor of Alyssa Alhadeff who was killed in the Stoneman Douglas shooting. This bill in almost a law in the state of New Jersey. Whether it is an app on a smartphone or a physical button that needs to be pushed. I think this would help save many lives, even if it's not in the case of an active shooter but just an emergency. Please involve students, teachers, and parents for an outcome because this must have change. Additionally, start fighting and protecting your lives before it’s someone else’s job to fight for you.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to email, call me or instant message me on Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook or instagram also any survivors of any school shooting please contact me I would love to hear your stories or ideas you may have.

Ben Strusowski

Phone: 302-518-2060

Email:[email protected]

Snapchat- BenStrusowski1

Twitter- Secure_Schools_

Facebook- Stop.The.School.Shootings

Instagram- stop_the_school_shootings

Thank you for your time and together we will make a change

I want to give a special to Lori Alhadeff for helping me out with this petition and giving me different ideas that have worked since the Florida shooting.

Please pass this to your friends family members and anyone else possible to help make our schools across the country safer.