Sandy Hook Promise Showcases The New Back To School Experience

Bella Chan

A few weeks ago, Sandy Hook Promise debuted a back-to-school advertisement highlighting school supplies, clothing and the potential dangers that lie ahead for school children.

It starts off innocently with a student showing off his new backpack, along with a young girl praising her new folders and binders. The setting quickly became terrifying as students began to scatter to get away from an attacker.

Two students prepared to use their art supplies as a weapon of protection, followed by a girl calling her new pair of socks “a real life saver” as she used them as bandages for a wounded classmate.

The commercial turned morbid as the ending scene was a young girl crying in a bathroom stall, texting her mother “I love you” while slow footsteps entered the room.

Needless to say, the intense scenes were spine-chilling to witness, but it embodied an all too real reality for this generation of school children of how fearful returning to school can be.

Since 1970, there have been 1,316 school shootings in the United States, according to a study by Naval Postgraduate School. Following the attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the number of school shootings has increased by 18 percent in the past seven years.

These acts of violence have become ingrained into our society’s culture and behavior to the point in which several K-12 schools have incorporated active shooter and attacker training into their curriculum. The programs are said to train students and educators on the signs of an attacker and how to confront the situation.

Sandy Hook Promise, founded by family members whose loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, is one of many organizations that teach such programs in schools. They emphasize that although school shootings are inevitable nowadays, it is important to learn how to prevent them.

For some, this may seem to be a bit of a stretch for children’s protection, but it truly is a much-needed precaution.

This training is essential and all schools and parents should be in favor of implementing it in some capacity. The sad reality is that school shootings are imminent nowadays so it is better safe than sorry when it comes to saving lives.

As a parent, nothing would be worse than losing your child to this sort of incident and if parents could do anything to prevent tragedy, they should.

The Sandy Hook Promise video put the whole school shootings crisis into perspective for many. Seeing children in that setting, running for their lives, was the final push some needed to actually realize what is happening.

For many, they have not been in that situation, so it was hard to visualize what was happening but Sandy Hook took the viewers in and out them in the kid’s shoes.

That is why the video received so much attention, whether it was good or bad.

In Connecticut, while tragic, it was important that the Sandy Hook shooting took place in the state because more schools will realize this is a possibility and adapt the new security measures. The rest of the country is further away from the tragedy but should still adapt.

Overall, the video by Sandy Hook Promise was a very important and very powerful move in an ongoing battle to prevent school shootings and keep everyone safe.