Under Parents Matter, Students Don’t

On the first day of school, I no longer pick a seat closest to my friends. On the first day of school, I no longer question the presence of police officers in our hallways- only their absence. I no longer turn my phone into pouches in classrooms; it’s in arms reach, always.

On this first day of school, I pick a seat that can’t be seen from windows or doors. I pick my seat based on how quickly I can slide into a cabinet, behind a desk, into a closet. I pick my seat based on how fast I can run out of the room. 

I look for the officers now, count the number of badges and compare it to the number of hallways. Their absence is now stranger than their presence because schools have become synonymous with crime. 

I will never not have my phone. My parents will hear a last “I love you”, my sister, boyfriend and friends will too. 

The fear of being a high school student in the United States is not a singular one. I am fighting for the safest seat with classmates who are looking for the same sense of “safety”- we’re never completely safe, so a “sense of safety” is not an accurate term. My parents are gun owners, my family a long-line of hunters, as many Texas families are.

I know it’s not the guns, but until someone can guarantee a child won’t run with scissors they aren’t offered to them by their supervisors. There is no safety in the current gun-owning process, not enough regulation. So public schools like mine have shifted to paying for security on campuses. It is now a requirement by the state. 

But the state- namely Governor Abbott- has refused to raise public school budgets to cover the new regulation’s cost. This means students like me are forced to be the victims of a two-sided slash by the people meant to be looking out for me: either I give up opportunity and the quality of my education, or I face the chance of dying by chasing the latitude education is supposed to offer. 

My gut twists at the sight of our Governor standing behind signs boasting that “Parents Matter.” It twists because- yes, parents do matter, but the majority of parents are also more worried about the safety of their children than being able to move them to a private high school across the street- one that usually offers the same or less security than the public one since private schools are not required to follow state guidelines. Under the voucher system, nothing will change. Private schools will still not be required to follow state guidelines, despite receiving state funding, and public schools will receive less funding as they lose students. 

This past weekend, Governor Greg Abbott declared vouchers an “emergency item,” fast-tracking it in the Texas State Senate. Behind the political jargon, safety in schools and communities was never explicitly treated the way vouchers will be this week, not after Sandy Hook, not after Parkland. Not even when it reached our own state, not after Santa Fe, not after Uvalde. The best action taken was the creation of better communication programs to report threats and terroristic events. Which at best feels like recognition of the issue, but a flip of a hand towards a solution. 

No doubt there are multiple issues with the education system not only in Texas but in the United States, however, vouchers are a minimal one. As someone who was once in a private school, huddling against a wall I was not concerned with how the government wasn’t paying for my education. I was scared that the scissors my classmate was holding weren’t going to be enough to save us.

Students are now less concerned with their education than with their safety. In arguably a make-or-break generation, our education has taken a seat behind survival instinct. This backwards way of thinking trickled down from the adults above us: our government. If our lives matter less than vouchers- which, at the most basic definition of them, is money- then why should we be expected to keep up with the increase in intelligence of the rest of the world? If so much of our brain power is used to plan for hiding and escape, then how are we meant to completely focus on the studies we were sent to school for? 

Texas and the United States are facing an education crisis. Unlike what the Texas government seems to believe, this is not a result of lack of school choice for parents. Yes, students should be able to have access to environments where they have the best opportunities to thrive, but when all of these different environments are unsafe, the aspect of choice is less important than that of safety. 

The Texas governor needs to realize that his voucher game- holding funds from public schools until he gets his way- is threatening not a way of life, but the very lives of over five million students. His attempt to give us more opportunity has blinded him to the issue of the threat to our opportunity of life. It’s time to prioritize safety of students, and stop using money as an excuse for the disregard of human life.