Counselors can have a big impact

To the editor:

I’m glad to see the approach that Noblesville schools are taking to prevent school shootings from happening again. 

They are using studies and research to guide their actions to protect their students.  They hope to add more school resource officers; however, of equal importance, they plan to add school social workers and mental health specialists. I hope they make sure they have an elementary school counselor in each school to help children having social or scholastic problems early in their school experience. Prevention is the key.

Having taught in a school system that did have elementary school counselors, I have witnessed the excellent results.

Of course, most of these positive, proactive approaches will depend on passage of the next referendum.

Hopefully, other school corporations will enact similar plans.

What is sad is that our public schools are not getting the financial help they need from the Republicans in control of state government. What is yet more tragic is that they have done nothing to pass common sense gun safety laws such as requiring guns to be locked up if children are in the house—laws that no responsible gun owner would oppose as my father, a gun collector, would say.

The governor’s offer of wand metal detectors may be a good political move; however, having been to mass shooting presentations and having friends and relatives in law enforcement, I have yet to hear one say that wands will make a difference in school shootings. Wands are a waste of tax money which is better spent on school counselors.

Mike Boland

Fishers