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Open letter to the Clarksville-Montgomery County School Board from Aron Maberry:

It is my understanding with the incident at Rossview (Tuesday) we have had five guns confiscated this year which has affected New Providence Middle, Montgomery Central High, West Creek High, Northeast High and Rossview. (Wednesday) at Richview Middle, we had a student on social media declare “I’m shooting Richview Middle School up! Today Dec 8th!” Thank God the proper authorities saw this and intervened in this situation. According to local media, there have been 53 assault incidents and 22 threats of violence within Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools within the last four months. Things are escalating inside the school system just as they are everywhere else.

The TikTok challenges have made it cool to do acts of vandalism and violence that have added to this escalation. Thank God we have not seen serious acts of violence on a massive scale, but we as a community must wake up.

To that end, I am calling upon and requesting, along with a local parents advocacy group the Freedom Fighting Collective, a multi-organizational active shooter training take place for CMCSS. It is important that these are held regularly to keep response protocols fresh in everyone’s mind. Hosting one as a collective effort with city, county, CMCSS, and EMS services, all working simultaneously, I believe will give responders a clear view of exactly what unforeseen obstacles might possibly take place during such an event. It takes cooperation from all these local agencies to make this happen.

Also, we are requesting that the SRO’s in each school do a presentation for our students and staff as well.

Lastly, when I was at Rossview High School, it was fresh on our minds about the horrific 1999 Columbine High School shooting where 12 students and one teacher were murdered. I remember sitting through a moving presentation from the family of Rachel Scott. I in fact still have the book and keep it on my bookshelf here in my office as a reminder. The Freedom Fighting Collective and I are calling upon the district to reach out to the organization that tells Rachel’s story called Rachel’s Challenge to come to speak directly to all our middle and high school students. We must generate anti-bullying and anti-violence awareness in our schools and this will be a great, potentially life-saving start.

Thank you in advance for your response and hope to support these causes. Our children and community need this message right now in the midst of this challenging time. You can learn more about Rachel’s Challenge at https://rachelschallenge.org.

Aron Maberry