Thanks to the leadership and advocacy of local Students Demand Action volunteers in State College, Pennsylvania, the State College Area School Board of Directors recently agreed to pass a resolution to distribute Be SMART-branded education information around secure firearm storage to parents across the school district. State College Area School District joins dozens of school districts from across the country who have adopted secure storage notification policies, covering over 2 million students.
This move is part of a larger trend of school districts in nearby states who in recent months have taken similar important steps to keep students safe on campus. In Virginia, Fairfax County School District’s Superintendent agreed in December to distribute secure storage materials, then in 2022 the school board passed a resolution to prohibit guns on all school-used property. In Maryland, Montgomery County Board of Education recently announced that they would also be distributing secure storage information to parents. These actions would not have been possible without the work of Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action volunteers.
The action taken by the State College Area School Board of Directors comes at a critical time. New analysis from Everytown shows that the first half of the 2021-2022 school year had the most gun violence in recent history; between August 1 and December 31, there were 136 instances of gunfire on school grounds — nearly four times the previous average for that period. In 2021, there were at least 11 incidents of gunfire on school grounds in Pennsylvania, resulting in 2 deaths and 11 injuries.
The Be SMART program, developed by the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and Moms Demand Action, helps parents and other adults normalize conversations about gun safety and take responsible actions that can prevent child gun deaths and injuries, youth suicides and gunfire on school grounds.
The program encourages parents and adults to:
- Secure all guns in their home and vehicles
- Model responsible behavior around guns
- Ask about the presence of unsecured guns in other homes
- Recognize the role of guns in suicide
- Tell your peers to be SMART
For more information on the Be SMART program and how to safely secure your firearms, visit the Be SMART website. Additional information about gunfire on school grounds can be found here and about unintentional shootings by children can be found here. More information about gun violence in Pennsylvania is available here.