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    Making Schools Safer: Harsh Consequences, Or Second Chances?

    The tragedy in Parkland, Fla., this year kicked off a national debate over how to reduce school violence: through tighter security and tougher discipline ... or more help for troubled students?
    by Anya Kamenetz Jun 22, 2018 6 minutes
    Students wear clear backpacks outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Monday. The bags are one of a number of security measures the school district has enacted as a result of the Feb. 14 shooting at the school that killed 17.

    "For the last 14 years I had been a stay at home mom and a soccer mom of three kids," says Lori Alhadeff. "On Valentine's Day my daughter was brutally shot down and murdered and I became a school safety activist."

    That day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, when a 19-year-old former student killed Alyssa Alhadeff and 16 other people, changed many lives.

    And it pushed the question of school safety once again to the front and center.

    The school discipline policies in Broward County, Fla., designed to be more equitable and more effective than what they replaced, have become exhibit A in what's already a national debate.

    The debate in many ways comes down to this: What's more important — cold steel or warm hugs? Harsh consequences or second chances? Do we achieve safety and security by making schools harder — or making them softer?

    To understand the debate that's raging now, between the "hards" and the "softs," you have to go back first to March 31, 1994. That's

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