Interesting - what about the mental health cost of being sexually assaulted at school and your school administrators not making sure you feel safe at school, or helping you continue to access your education? Wouldn't that be interesting to find out?

Given some of the scares that have happened locally over the years, I think attention to safety of all kinds is important.

It makes me sad when the headline-grabbing things take up everyone's time and resources, when something as straightforward to address as asthma languishes.

Over 4,000 people a year die of asthma in our nation, and while it's actually more deadly in adults than young people, the number of children who die every year is still greater by far than in school shootings. Asthma, serious allergy, and air-quality health issues (for all students) are a significant public health problem nationally, including in wealthy districts like ours.

I'm not suggesting it's an either-or, but rather, that we need leadership with a more proactive stance on safety.

Re the above -- it needs to be said that school environments are a significant reason for asthma development and attacks, despite well-researched, low-cost, evidence-based steps that can reduce them -- which our district overtly ignores.

Illness-related absenteeism is directly related to increased stress and depression in districts like ours, too, and the same air quality factors are known to be causative factors. Again, there are evidence-based steps to substantially reduce such problems -- we have even been promised in our facilities bonds -- that have not been implemented or taken seriously.

It would be nice if we weren't just following the headlines but also looking at safety and health holistically. The state of Minnesota passed a funding bill specifically for health and safety, and this in turn gave local districts a much healthier attitude toward all health and safety improvements. Though our district proves you can have all the funding in the world and it doesn't make a difference if administrators are willfully ignorant about a safety issue.