I’m not really sure that I have a post but I know I need to write.

Every principal’s greatest fear occurred on December 14th, 2012 in a small town in Connecticut.  Principal’s don’t think about this everyday or we would drive ourselves crazy.  It is never far from our mind.  Every time you get a call from an irate parent or an unfamiliar person rings the door bell, there’s that slight chill of what this person is capable of.  The quick run through your head about what you will do if this moment goes completely out of control.

I haven’t yet heard what the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary did to protect her students except to hear that she died trying to protect her students.  I think we all can relate to that. I don’t think there is an elementary principal in the country who wouldn’t die to protect his or her students.

It doesn’t make me fell any better to say that I know that I would do anything in my power to protect my students.  In fact it scares the hell out of me. I’m not saying it because I want people to see me as a hero.  I’m saying those are the facts and whether we ever say it out loud. which we don’t, or we keep it inside, in the backs of our collective minds, we know that it is a reality of out position.

I guess the point of writing today is to let people know that even the best laid plans don’t prevent senseless acts of violence.  If we could prevent them all we would.  There is no compromise on that point. There never has been.  

The latest shooting undoubtedly will revive the discussion on school safety and rightly so.  No matter your political bent, classrooms full of kindergarten students should not go to school and never come home.  Nobody goes to work in a school expecting that they will never see their families again.  And no amount of finger pointing is ever going to change those facts.