Schools, Security and Campus Community

Given the recent shootings at Virginia Tech, we are again confronted with the reality of such incidents. I was in my second year of teaching when Columbine occurred and that was indeed a frightening wake-up call for large suburban schools with "cliquey" student bodies. The high school where I worked at the time was about 1760+ students and growing. There were over 120 adult staff members. Prior to Columbine we had parking lot attendants and hall monitors on walkie-talkies with the assistant principal (for discipline) and after Columbine, all doors to the outside would be locked except for the very front entrance with with a security station. Students could not carry around backpacks or large purses, they could not wear jackets or coats to class. It took three years for the security staff to recognize me as a staff member and there were other teachers whom I barely said hello to in three years. My point is that when our schools get to be so large, we really lose a sense of community; students and staff alike unfortunately do not get the opportunity to become acquainted and develop (respectful) relationships. A friend of mine grew up in a small community in the upper midwest where his graduating class was only a couple dozen students. And that's small, most definitely. But he speaks very highly of his school system that had "a rural school complex" which, according to him, was why his school compensated students with huge tech grants (plenty of computers around), distance learning opportunities for AP courses and Latin, and many specific programs catered to the interests of the students. I think back to my high school graduation (367 students) and I remember kids walking across the stage and whispering to my neighbor, "who's that?". Even for someone like me who was on the yearbook staff, I still didn't recognize names and faces of students in my graduating class. It's too bad in a way. I also attended a Big 10 university and certainly had an excellent educational experience, but aside from a roomate and one other person, I have no contacts with any of the people I went to college with, while friends of mine who went to rather small schools get their alumni newsletter and know just about everyone featured in it from the time they attended. Again, it goes back to the idea of community and as I've gotten older and realized more and more how valuable community is, I wish that perhaps I had entertained the idea of going to a small college, even one without a recognizable name, if anything, to be a part of such a community later on in life. And of course when I got out of college, I quickly realized employers could care less as to where I went to school, but rather could I do the job and do it well and a Bachelor's diploma from a big university may not matter all that much, although some would disagree with me (I have a friend in business/banking and for him, it's all about the institution and diploma). At any rate, I think many out there would agree that community is important and that we need to value community on a number of levels. When I look at schools' mission statements using such language as "all students" or "all learners", I have to point out that when you have a school that is large, you cannot use "all" in a mission statement: it is false advertising. In large schools, we simply cannot accomodate "all" students, yet our schools claim that they do. With smaller schools, at least we could better attempt to accomodate "all" students and that goes for smaller classrooms as well, but that's a whole other issue I won't indulge in at the moment...