In the last decade shootings in schools are on the rise. According to investigative magazine Mother Jones, 81 students have been killed at school in a mass shooting in the last decade.

At the October UFCW Presidential Forum in Altoona, Iowa, Mayor Pete Buttigieg shared an experience he had with a 14 year-old girl on the campaign trail, “…she said she hugs her family and tells them goodbye every morning before she goes to school because she is afraid she might not come home,” Buttigieg said.

He continued on to say that when young people come to him with concerns similar to this he makes sure to tell them “You shouldn’t be worried about it. We need to fix it so you don’t have to.”

School districts across the country have implemented different plans to protect their students in the event of a mass shooting. Mark Leuschner, former principal for a Texas school district said his district had a program to provide guns for trained teachers and administrators to keep their students safe.

“After Columbine and other mass shootings, there was a lot of concern, particularly in the rural parts of Texas and how we would handle a mass shooting,” Leuschner said. The [Texas School District] schools are located in an area 20 minutes away from help if there were to be an event such as a mass shooting at their school.

The school board proposed arming select teachers and administrators and surveyed the community to see if this would be something they would support.

“[There was] well over 95 percent approval and support of arming specific teachers that would have to go through a certain training, psychological evaluation, [and more] it was overwhelmingly supported by our community and so we implemented a program for certain teachers to carry on them,” Leuschner said.

The school board felt that arming teachers with handguns was not enough to keep the students safe. Questions were raised as to how to eliminate threats from long distances.

“There were a small number, there were three of us I think that had actually assault rifles,” Leuschner said. “I had an AR in my closet in my office. So in the event it was a long range shot.”

Having AR-15 assault rifles in schools may seem jarring to some considering the controversy surrounding the weapon. Democrats have pushed for a nationwide ban on the weapon. However, Leuschner said that there is no such feeling about the weapon in schools in his area.

“Texas is a gun culture state, I mean kids and teachers adults most of us deer hunt and stuff like that so it wasn’t that crazy, it’s just more formal.”

While overwhelming approval might be the case for arming teachers in rural Texas it is not something that is likely to appeal to the communities of central Iowans.

Cate Miller, a teacher in the Des Moines Public School District said though she is conservative she does not believe that guns have a place in our schools.

“[Recently] we did an active shooter drill and you can’t be in charge of kids and not recognize that there is an issue,” Miller said.

Active shooter drills are something that schools struggle with finding balance in.

“It’s too much for us to have an active shooter drill that is a full fledged one, we just aren’t there yet. Schools are trying to find this balance of what’s over the top, what’s necessary, what’s scaring people, what’s appropriate.” Scott Blum, principal at Dallas Center-Grimes High School, said.