(TheRedAlertNews.com) – Christian K-12 schools nationwide have resorted to heightened security measures after the recent Nashville school massacre in which a woman identifying as a “trans man” killed six people, a report reveals.
28-year-old woman Audrey Hale, who recently identified as a “trans man” called Aidan, killed three nine-year kids and three elderly staffers at Covenant Presbyterian School, a private Christian institution, on March 27. The shooter was shot and killed by police officers.
As teachers and administrators of Christian schools nationwide await to learn whether she was motivated by religious hatred, private institution’s safety precautions are hampered by “both regulatory and financial hurdles,” The National Review reports.
“We are grieving. Every Christian school leader the next morning, they were having meetings with their teams,” commented Dr. Larry Taylor, the Association of Christian Schools International president.
“At almost every school, there have been meetings of safety teams and school leadership teams and people looking at what happened Monday at Nashville and what we are doing to beef up security and protect our students,” reacted, in turn, Dr. Jeff Walton, the executive director of the American Association of Christian Schools (AACS).
The two groups in question are the largest Christian school organizations in the US, with ACSI having thousands of member schools, while AACS counts over 700 member schools.
Walton pointed out that the Nashville attack was the first mass shooting at a private Christian school since the 1970s.
“Our schools have been in some ways protected from that. They’ve been very safe places, but there’s been an elevated level of concern today because of what happened in Nashville,” he explained.
In his words, while Christian schools throughout the United States are now hiring extra security guards, that would strain their budgets substantially.
“Christian schools tend to be smaller organizations and really tight-knit communities. That was true of Covenant. That generally contributes to student safety, but not perfectly, as was evidenced on Monday,” Walton said.
He noted that while private Christina schools had taken security “very seriously for the last 20 years,” there hadn’t been programs or grants to help them pay for that.
“We don’t rely on the government. But there’s no doubt when you look across the globe, it is not an issue for the government to subsidize private schools. When I go to our Europe office or our Canada office or when I go to Australia, there are subsidies for private schools,” ASCI leader Taylor commented in turn.
Walton argued that a commitment to school choice should go hand in hand with funds to boost security at all schools.
According to Taylor, parents of Christian students are extra concerned due to the suspicions that the Nashville attack was motivated by “religious animus.”
“Parents will rightly be anxious. They will want to know that their school’s physical plan and all the safety protocols are of the highest standard,” he stated.
