On Wednesday, February 14th at approximately 2:30 P.M. Nikolas Cruz opened fire inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He killed 17 people, some teachers, some students and injured 15. The nation, including many members of the WA community is still grieving the loss.

Dean Robert Ware was deeply saddened by the shooting, but firmly believes students are safe in everyday life at WA.

“We take security very seriously here. We do our best to educate students and staff on our procedures, but also it is the day-to-day operations,” Ware said.

Ware talked about how WA always makes sure the doors are locked, utilizes their cameras, and has all guests sign in, along with being diligent about people already in the building. He also talked about trying to increase ALICE drills from the two WA currently does per year at school for preparation if an incident were to occur.

“I’m all for it,” Ware said, “It’s just hard to do it during the day because it causes anxiety. […] Taking time away from learning, we just got to have everybody on the same page.”

Along with administration, many students had thoughts about the shooting, security at WA, and different ideas on ways to solve school shooting problems U.S. schools are suffering from.

Eric Fan, Senior 

What were your first thoughts when you saw the shooting in Florida take place?

“It’s pretty terrible, I mean school shootings are really bad in general. Also, I think all us have gotten a little desensitized to the fact, cause school shootings are happening more and more often now and so therefore we don’t think of it as big as it used to be.”

What do you think of the security at WA?

“I honestly think our security is not that great, we can’t even keep vaping out of school grounds, so how are we ever going to be able to prevent a school shooting if it happens?”

What do you think about arming teachers at WA?

“It all depends on the teacher I think, because the danger with arming teachers is they could get really mad at a kid one day, and then you don’t know what could happen there […] if they are going to arm the teachers they can’t have students know about it.”

Alejandro Acosta, Senior

What are your thoughts on the safety of WA?

“I do feel safe here. However I do think it’s kind of messed up that if you are coming into school, like after school or something you can easily just press the buzzer and if you had a bomb you could plant it there for the next day.”

What do you think should be done about gun control?

“I don’t think that gun control is a political thing, I don’t think it’s left or right. For me it’s common sense.”

Do you think metal detectors are a good idea at WA?

“I think I would be a nice next step. It depends on how much it cost. It’s not against gun laws and a lot of people are against taking away guns.”

Emily Blatt, Sophomore 

What are your thoughts on the security at WA? Do you think about metal detectors and armed teachers might be needed?

“I feel safe and good, I would not want armed teachers. I think [metal detectors] are a little too much. We have laptops.”

Do you think there should be changes in government about gun control?

“I think that we [students] shouldn’t have guns. I think we should just get ride of all that.”

Shreyas Mosurkal, Sophomore

What do you think about the security at WA?

“I think we have precautions set already, but I think we need more practice doing more of these drills cause if something happens in the future we need to be ready.”

What are your thoughts on having metal detectors at school?

“One thing I think it will make students feel that their security is being breached. There is a level of comfort people have and if the student population votes for it and they say it is ok I guess so.”

Should there be changes in the government to protect against this?

“Right now we have a government which is heavily funded by lobbyists especially from the NRA and things like that, and one thing we can do as citizens is voice our opinions to our political leaders and tell them what is best for us, not what they think is best for us.”

Vishal Raghunath, Senior

What were your thoughts when you saw this shooting had taken place?

“I wasn’t shocked which is not how this should be […] we shouldn’t be living in a society where that is typical.”

What are your thoughts on the security at WA?

“These kids in Florida, at any school they all probably felt safe until somebody infiltrated their system because these are all suburban towns. These are all kids who come to school to learn, to hang out with their friends. […] They felt like we feel now.”

An idea that has been circulating is metal detectors at school. What are your thoughts on these?

“At the rate things are going at, I think it’s important that we have them […] with the way technology is going I’m sure you can just place them above the doors.”

Cam Bortolussi, Senior 

What are your thoughts on the shooting?

“Seeing on Youtube all these late night comedy show hosts have to add it in to their dialogue it’s just become so normal for their monologue they have to talk about it. Its concerning it is such a normal thing now.”

What are your thoughts on metal detectors at WA?

“It is hard because there are so many entrances people come in each day, so that’s the biggest concern.”

What do you think about arming teachers?

“I think having the safety team of teachers at the school, who work together, like I know there are teachers here that are part of a group to go, if someone did come in, to help. I feel like arming the teachers is being really contradictory.”