Report School Gun Violence Prevention and Response Guide

On April 20, 1999, I had been a middle-school science teacher in Pennsylvania for 23 years. None of my two decades of experience and training had prepared me to answer the questions my frightened students had about the shooting happening at Columbine High School that day.  Along with my fellow educators, I shared the country’s profound shock and grief that a school building—a place that should always be safe—had become the site of a massacre. The only thing that comforted us was the belief that this—then the deadliest mass shooting at a K–12 school in U.S. history—was a terrible anomaly. We believed our country would learn from the tragedy and take every measure to ensure it never happened again.

But the Columbine death toll was surpassed at Sandy Hook Elementary School…and Parkland High School…and Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School. Each time, we thought, “They have to do something now.” But close to 400 school shootings later, the biggest change seemed to be in 2020, when firearms finally surpassed car accidents and disease to become the No. 1 killer of children in America.  

We must put a stop to the gun violence that continues to terrorize our students, our educators, families, and communities. As President Biden, who finally passed the most comprehensive gun safety legislation in 30 years, said, “We all want our kids to have the freedom to learn to read and to write instead of learning how to duck and cover in a classroom.”

Gun violence in schools affects all students and educators, and its ripple effects spread out to the entire community. There is the constant fear that your school, your children, will be the next victims. According to the American Psychological Association’s report, “Stress in America 2023: A Nation Recovering from Collective Trauma,” 56 percent of U.S. adults report mass shootings as a significant source of stress. And we know that the long-term effects of toxic stress can change the brain and body's makeup, particularly for children, severely affecting both physical and mental health.

According to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, with whom NEA partnered to create this guide, 107 incidents of gun violence on school grounds have already caused 29 deaths and injured 61 people in 2024—and this is just through the end of May.

This is unacceptable. No matter how many school shootings we have seen happen, they are just as unacceptable today as they were in 1999. We cannot, we must not, accept the lie that there’s nothing we can do to stop them.

While we are grateful for the strides President Biden has made, it is clear that more still needs to be done, which is why NEA set out to issue a call to action to end gun violence in our schools and communities. The result is this Guide—a collection of hundreds of calls to action for educators; for school district, college and university boards and administrators; for politicians; and for students, parents, and families. We look to the day when this Guide will be unnecessary and obsolete, but for now we—the members of this nation’s largest labor union—must focus our attention on how to end gun violence in our schools and our communities.

And we must take a hard look at what that violence really looks like. While the picture most people have in their minds about schools and guns involves young White male shooters and White victims, the truth is that our students of color are disproportionately affected by gun violence. According to Everytown, “2 in 3 incidents of gunfire on school grounds from 2013 to 2021 occurred in schools where one or more racial and/or ethnic minorities constituted a majority of the student population.”

The good news is that gun violence is preventable. Not by absurd and impossible measures like arming teachers or putting armed security officers in every school, but through common sense gun laws and trauma-informed schools that create safe environments and that have the staffing and mental health resources necessary to do it right.

The guide focuses on the roles of state and local education association leaders, staff, building representatives, faculty liaisons, and more. But it is meant to serve as a bridge between what NEA affiliates can do to facilitate gun violence prevention, preparation, response, and recovery and the crucial work of so many others in the broader school community. We know that each community varies with respect to their approach to guns and their experiences with gun violence. This guide is designed to help educators of all types and all levels of experience join with others to end gun violence in our schools.

NEA, we must find a way forward together. We must stop our children—our hope for the future—from continuing to fall prey to this country’s epidemic of gun violence. And we must help the survivors recover and succeed despite their trauma.

Thank you for picking up this Guide and committing to being part of the solution!

Rebecca S. Pringle
President, National Education Association

The National Education Association (NEA) is more than 3 million people—educators, students, activists, workers, parents, neighbors, and friends—who believe in the opportunity for all students and the power of public education to transform lives and create a more just and inclusive society. NEA has affiliate organizations in every state and more than 14,000 communities across the United States. The Association brings the expertise, drive, and dedication of our educators and allies to focus on providing the best public education to each and every student across race, place, background, and ability. Our members work at every level of education—from prekindergarten through graduate-level university programs—and in other types of public service.

The NEA Health and Safety Program, within the Association’s Education Policy and Implementation Center (EPIC), developed this guide. It draws on the expertise and work of several centers, departments, and initiatives across the organization, including EPIC, the Center for Advocacy and Political Action, the Center for Communications, the Center for Organizing and Affiliate Support, the Center for Professional Excellence and Student Learning, the Office of General Counsel, and the Center for Racial and Social Justice. Audrey Soglin—whose career in public education includes service as the executive director of the Illinois Education Association, a local association president, and a 25-year classroom teacher—worked with the Health and Safety Program staff as a consultant on this project.

The guidance and feedback of NEA state and local affiliate leaders, staff, and members has been crucial in conceptualizing, developing, and fine-tuning this guide, which incorporates, in part, material from the NEA School Crisis Guide, published in 2018. You can contact the NEA Health and Safety Program at [email protected] and find NEA Health and Safety Program content on NEA’s website.

The NEA developed this guide in collaboration with the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund (Everytown Support Fund), the education, research, and litigation arm of Everytown for Gun Safety (Everytown), whose staff provided their expertise on gun violence prevention, research and education to help create a comprehensive and data-driven resource. As the nation’s largest gun violence prevention organization, Everytown has more than 10 million supporters and more than 700,000 donors, including parents and guardians, students, survivors, veterans, mayors, and everyday people throughout the United States who are fighting for commonsense gun safety measures that can help save lives. The Everytown Support Fund seeks to improve our understanding of the causes of gun violence and help reduce it by conducting ground-breaking research, developing evidence-based policies, communicating this knowledge to the public, and advancing gun safety and gun violence prevention in communities and the courts.

The leadership and guidance from subject matter experts on gun violence prevention at Everytown were pivotal in the content creation and development of this guide. You can contact Everytown Support Fund’s team at [email protected] and find their Research and Policy content on Everytown Support Fund’s website.