A record number of school shootings have taken place since the spring, a troubling sign as parents, teachers and students prepare for a return to full-time in-person learning this fall following the coronavirus pandemic.
Since March, there have been 14 school shootings across the United States, the highest amount over a four month period since 1999, according to a Washington Post analysis published Thursday.
More than a quarter-million children have been exposed to gun violence during school hours since the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, the Post reported.
The most-fatal school shooting in U.S. history was in Parkland, Fla., at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed and more than a dozen others were injured.
Most schools have remained only partially open for in-person instruction as elected officials work to reopen their communities, but with mass vaccination efforts fully underway and many American returning to work, students are expected back in classrooms on a more regular basis this fall.
The first school shooting of 2021 occurred on March 1 at Watson Chapel Junior High, the Post reported, where ninth grader Daylon “DayDay” Burnett was shot and killed at school.
Another incident on April 26 involved a 12-year-old sixth grader in Minnesota who told police he suffered from depression and wanted to commit suicide by cop after shooting up his school.
“I hope my death makes more senses then my life,” the 12-year-old wrote in a notebook before carrying out the shooting, later telling police he did not want to take his own life because “that way it wasn’t a sin.”
Three people have been killed and eight have been wounded in school shootings so far this year, the Post analysis found.