Secretary on it Nuclear Threats facing the u. S. And the world. Then cavett phillips. Later, meredith i dont believe teachers should be armed. I believe teachers should teach. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016]] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] but thats exactly whats wrong with this country. We have people in washington, d. C. Representatives, senators and legislatures telling teachers what they should do without asking teachers what do you want to do . [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016]] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Isit ncicap. Org] host that was sheriff steve israel, part of cnns townnal florida last night which followed yesterdays white house listening session on School Safety and guns. The president meeting this morning with state and local officials on School Safety and thats where well pick up the conversation this morning on this thursday, february 22, 2018. Welcome to washington journal. Our conversation asking you how would you make schools safer . Weve divided the phone lines like this. Students, 2027488000. Educators and administrators or parents, 2027488001. For educators and administrators, 2027488002. We welcome your comments on facebook as well. Facebook. Com cspan. Send us a tweet with your thoughts. Thats cspanwj. Well show you some more from that town hall, some more from yesterdays listening session at the white house and get to your calls and comments in a moment. Heres how the miami herald and miamiherald. Com reporting the event last night. A look here at senator marco rubio, bill nelson and ted deutsche. Rubio admit boos at town hall says young adults shouldnt be able to purchase guns. Senator marco rubio walked into an arena, alumni and parents on wednesday, most of them in no mood to consider arguments from the Florida Republican one week after the nations deadliest high School Shooting. But even though rubio was booed and jeered by the crowd at times, the politician who enjoyed the support of the National RifleAssociation Since ntering elected office in a look at some of the hero newspapers across the country, the front page of the wall street journal this morning. The picture, anyway, is leading the walmart. A solemn white house gathering on School Gun Violence and a picture of the president and some of the students and parents that surrounded him. Well also show you the Washington Post front page this morning from the Washington Post. Theyre looking at both the gathering yesterday in tallahassee with the students meeting with educators and rallying at the capital in tallahassee and also the story this morning. Fix it, parents plead with trump for action to stop shootings. They write that President Trump leaned forward and listened intently for nearly an hour wednesday afternoon as students, parents and teachers begged him to do something, anything, to prevent a mass shooting from happening to another school they wouldnt group offered a wide ariety of suggestions host lets go to steve from maryland. Go ahead, steve. Caller good morning, sir. As i was listening to the people yesterday at the white house, especially the dad with the three sons and he lost his daughter, he just you just really have to feel this these people. For me, i have a stepson right now and i have a daughter on the way, im like i have to need changes. We all need to see changes. We cant accept this everyday as a society. Maybe something starting off simple in schools like schools have what, 44 main interests . You put a barrier when you walk in at the entrance with doors. You have automatic locks. You have some kind of security. Somebody shouldnt be able to walk in the school all willy nilly. So you have a barrier. You check them out. You have Automatic Door you unlock the doors and you walk in. You should be able to check out people when you walk in. Nobody should have all the other entrances closed off. Have more automatic looks like firearms and stuff like that locks and firearms and stuff like that. It should be something simple like that that we could start off with. And make the age limit older for people that goes. Why 18 that you could get an assault rival . Arrive until i dont nderstand. Assault rifle . I dont understand. Caller i think there should be armed guards in schools because it doesnt necessarily have to be teachers. It just has to be somebody who has the training and who has, you know, experience. Hire former marines or air force or whatever. They should have lockdown procedures. And also just one other side note. People say the n. R. A. Is responsible for all of it. The n. R. A. Hardly gives anything to congressmen. The most is about 12,000. And there is no such thing legally as an assault weapon. Host jarrett, you talked about armed guards. Do you have police officers, resource officers in your high school . Caller no, no. But there was dish actually go to a private school but there was a law passed. The guards with more than 300 people but they werent armed guards and Small Schools didnt have that. So if your armed personnel, the schools wont have to pay for the guards. Host lets go to stony brook and hear from janet from our parents line. Caller hi. What i wanted to say as i was listening to the president s meeting with parents and what nicole hawkley, the mother of the child who was killed at sandy hook said is what i totally agree with. I have two sons. One went through our School Systems with no problem. Its not stony brook, its a Different School and the second one was a little bit more he was more rebellious than the other. And what happened in our school is my son was in an incident with a bunch of other boys when he was about 13 years old and decided to so they wouldnt get sued by the other childs mother, the girl, they decided to suspend the boys. And what they did was they hired a very high priced overnight this particularly up does most of the suspect hearings on long island and they superintendent hearings in long island and it was like a Kangaroo Court and they made the case like a criminal when it was sort of like a minor incident. And i thought at that point, you know, im getting my son in therapy, im doing this. I was very involved participate, involved in my son, not involved with the school because i worked fulltime and i took it personally to make my son understand like, you know, dont even be involve and when somethings going on. But i could see that child who did this act and he was a child, 19 years old is really still a child, needs, you know, rather than a school expel and nobody said that the school did something wrong but i feel like why expel a kid in youre putting them into Society Without support. The school needs to step up like the parents did in sandy hook and help them out instead of just throwing them out in society like theyre already criminals. Theyre teenagers and they need our support. Host the suspect in that shooting expelled from Douglas High School. One of the apartments was andrew pollack, the parent of meadow poll whoik died in the shooting. Heres what he had to say. Im very angry that this happened because it keeps happening. 9 11 happened once and they fixed everything. How many schools have to get shot to stop here at this administers and me. Im not administration and me. Im not going to sleep until it is fixed and mr. President , were going to fix it. Because im going to fix it. Im not going to rest. And look at my boys need to live with this. I want to see everyone. You guys live with this. Me, im a man, but to see your children go through this, very so thats what i keep saying because i want it to sink in. Not forget about this. We cant forget about it. All this School Shootings, it doesnt make sense. Fix it. Should have been one School Shooting and we should have fixed it and im pissed because my daughter, im not going to see again. Shes not here. Not here. Shes in north lauder dale, whatever it is. King david cemetery. Thats where i go to see my kid now. It and all stops. We come together and come up with the right idea that School Safety. Its not about gun laws right now. Thats another fight, another beach. Lets fix the schools and then you guys could battle it out, whatever you want. But we need our children safe, months, tomorrow, whatever it is. Your kids are going to go to school. You think everyones kids are safe . I didnt think it was going to happen to me. Host andrew pollack, the father of meadow pollack, killed in the douglas high School Shooting. D he also said in the hill saying we protect airport, we protect concert stadiums, embassies, the department of the education that i walked in today has a Security Guard in the elevator. How do you think that makes me feel . On twitter at twitter. Com cspanwj. An english teacher with a nine milliliter blasting an ar15 . Lease. They significantly reduced violence. Protect the campus like a bank or politicians with guns. Your thoughts on how to make schools safer. Weve divided the lines like this. 2027488000 for students. 2027488001 for parents. And for educators, administrators, 2027488002. Westminster, maryland, amy, an educator there. Good morning. Kd caller im a School Psychologist in a Public School system in maryland and, you know, we see so many kids that have Significant Mental Health needs and theres so much more that needs to be done in schools. We need to do training for staff care and adverse childhood experiences. Our kids are experiencing so many things in their lives at home that impact them at school and impact them in the community. So we need to be able to provide those Mental HealthServices Within schools as well as having those Services Available in the community. Of students that have assists but we have assistants but we have parents that parents are involved and the Mental Health providers are not able to cover the high needs of kids that need those services and, two they dont all accept different forms of insurance. So then a lot of that Mental Health support comes from schools where you have School Psychologists, school councilers, social woveragese theyre also spread so thin because there arent enough of us to meet those needs. You know, it is interesting that betsy devos was at that meeting with the president. Host right. Caller because we have, you know, every Student Succeeds act which included components for Mental Health support and that wasnt something shes champion. And funding for education has een cut. It doesnt seem like people actually are going to follow through and do things. And i know the whole gun discussion is really uncomfortable for a lot of people and, you know, personally, i dont think school staff should have guns in school. I dont want that. I think that we need to address the needs before it gets to that point. We need to help these kids that have trauma in their lives that are not being addressed through Mental Health services. We need to train our staff so they know what signs to look for kids that will in crisis and train students in how to identify their friends and the other kids in their class that, you know, somethings not quite right with that kid. Somebody needs to talk to them and make sure theyre ok. We need to have violence assessments for these kids and follow through from that if determined they are prone to violence. Host amy, you talked about looking for signs. First of all, after a shooting like this or shootings like this, do you notice an uptick on students coming to you with concerns . And secondly, without giving any privacy information, have you had a student that youve been so concerned about that youve spoken to your administrators or to law officials about . Caller well one thing i will say that weve had a huge increase in children from puerto two who have to social, emotional conference. The School Shootings were talking about High School Students but that doesnt start t high school. We need to front load that support for elementary students. We have students at the elementary level who were attacking other students, theyre threatening others. Theyre threat it can themself, were bending over backwards of trying to get these kids mental support which were able to provide because these kids need deeper therapy other than conflict resolution and feeling identification at schools. They have significant deep seated issues that they need to work at and that really cant happen. We need to have community resources. Like my School System is really fortunate that we have partnerships with our Mental Health facilities in the community where theyll come in to schools and provide support. But a big issue with that is that many of the students that need those services would need medical assistance to get that additional support. I have a parent whos been trying to get their child hospitalized because theyre so concerned about that child and there arent able for inpatient support. Host and the parent is concerned because of violent tendencies . Caller theyre concerned about violent behavior, attacks on other adults, on students. Host amy, i appreciate you weighing in this morning. I think thank you for listening there at 90. 1 f. M. We go to james next in brooklyn. Brooklyn, connecticut, whos on our parents line. James, thanks for waiting. Go ahead with your comments. Caller how are you doing . Listen, i live not far from sandy hook right here in brooklyn, connecticut. And the day the that shooting happened, i was in school lking to my psychologist inside a school about how they were handling the way that these kids are segregated in these schools. One thing the main problems thats happening is that people are not looking at these teachers. Its the teachers thats the problem. These teacher come and they favoritize these children. They put some children in the point to where that they are successful and other children are not. Soninlaw children feel like they are headed for the future, some children feel like they are failures. And they take these kids and they purposely separate them so that they can have some thats going to be prosperous and some thats going to be a failure. And when these children get in their minds that theyre going to be a failure because they can the way they grade things, they are destroying these children. Its the teachers thats doing that. And they talk about this money that they have, they got football teams, they got gymnastic teams, and they get them top of the line uniforms and everything that they need. You go there and you see our team, our team, our team and at the same time, i cant even get a book inside my sons school. Its the teachers that are creating these problems and we need to address the way we are learning in school make everybody feel equal inside the classroom. Until we start doing that, all of these things thats going on, because theyre creating it. And when they create this thing, this problem for a part of iting and they say oh, he got a Mental Health problem. Oh, he got this kind of problem. Oh, theres some kind of trauma going on. And they do this so they can ake money on it. Thats job security for them, talking about Mental Health. This is a big giant game to separate people so they can keep a job just like the teacher cant be fired. They have the ability to stop this. The teachers do. Host thats james in connecticut. Well go to bill whos a student from jefferson township, pennsylvania. Caller the best answer was when the president got the people together, the father from Columbine High School who lost a child at columbine. He gave the best answer. And he says it starts at home with the parents. The parents must know what their children are doing at home. Its not a Mental Health issue. Respect to students to respect one another. Communicate with one another. And to love one another even. But that the school, what goes on in the school, its like fix the violence and the society that we live in, the culture of death that we live in. Theres no respect for human life. Host an article this morning reporting about this. Conservatives stay on gun message even as Florida Shooting stirs anger. They write that as conservatives prepare to gather today for their closely watched national summit, the strategy for talking about guns seems deceptively simple. Dont shy away from the issue. Be compassionate, dont let antigun activist hijack the debate no matter your viewpoint on the Second Amendment. These are moments for intro pecs, says the chairman of the American Conservative Union which organizes the Political Action congress. Gets underway today in nearby maryland suburbs and well have coverage here on cspan beginning at 10 35 a. M. Eastern. Vice president pence is speaking this morning and the education secretary betsy devos who was at that meeting yesterday at the white house and speaking today, senator ted cruz of texas. All of that getting underway at 10 35 a. M. Eastern.