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Editorial

What if you woke up this morning and it was the last with your child? That was the reality for the parents of 19 children in Uvalde, Texas following a school shooting on Tuesday, May 24.

In another senseless tragedy that also killed two teachers, leading to a total of 21 deaths at the hands of an 18-year-old gunman, we sit here again in the tragic aftermath unsure of what to do.

We aren’t here to debate gun control with you, but with two members of our staff having spouses who teach—one a second-grade teacher and the other a special education teacher and baseball coach—this tragedy is one that hits close to home for us.

It’s a heartbreaking reoccurrence that hits close to home for us and the conversations since the devastating day on Tuesday have been full of fear and uncertainty about how to handle these issues.

Since the tragedy occurred, there have been the spurred arguments of gun control, arming teachers and more school security, but there has been less of what we need to see.

In what seems to be a recurring theme from our staff, we continue to preach kindness, but in the day of social media, that continues to slip through the cracks and set us back even more in the category of mental health.

For every post praying for the families impacted by the deadly shooting, there were two sharing their views on political stances about how to stop it. In the comments of those posts, even more negativity and arguing.

Something that is natural in the world, sure, but something that seems to have no bounds.

There is a lack of respect and compassion when it comes to our disagreements now, whether that be in person or through the internet.

Many will look at a statement like that and roll their eyes and say, “Suck it up.”

That’s not a statement meant to generalize that all of us get our feelings hurt by the comments rather than shrugging them off, it’s a statement to help some realize not everyone has the mental capacity at that time to shrug something off.

And that leads back to the ultimate problem—mental health.

As adults, our number one job has to be to see the future and give kids their best chance to cope and be successful.