The community in Bend, Ore., was left reeling this week after a 16-year-old shot and killed three children and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School in the Bend-La Pine district. A 7-year-old and another teacher were also critically injured.
The child victims, ages 5, 8, and 11, include the youngest person killed in a school shooting since Education Week began tracking these incidents in 2018.
Of the 267 shootings Education Week has tracked in those years, at least 20 have been at elementary schools.
When such young children are the victims, outrage and calls for change tend to intensify, said Jaclyn Schildkraut, the executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y. She’s researched policy responses to school shootings.
“What happened yesterday, with the age of these children, brings us right back to 2012 with Sandy Hook,” Schildkraut said, referencing the shooting in Newtown, Conn., in which a 20-year-old shot and killed 20 first grade children and six staff members.
“There tends to be a lot of outcry: If we’re not protecting our most vulnerable, then who are we protecting?”
A chorus of state leaders has begun to call for action since Thursday’s shooting. But some observers fear that while the death of elementary-age children may prompt fury and powerful statements, it won’t spur real change that could stop future school shootings.
Kevin Lein was the principal of Harrisburg High School in Harrisburg, S.D., when a 16-year-old student shot him in his office in 2015. In the years since, Lein has advocated for legislation to prevent the deadly attacks.
He is a founding member of the National Principals Association’s Principal Recovery Network, a support and advocacy group for school leaders who have survived school shootings.
“When Uvalde happened, we thought, ‘This has to make a change,’” said Lein, referencing the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, when an 18-year-old former student shot and killed 19 students and two teachers.
“When Sandy Hook happened, ‘This has to make a change,’” he continued. “And it doesn’t.”
Calls for ‘harder’ schools likely to emerge, some say
Shootings, especially in elementary schools, can reignite political will for policy change, said Schildkraut. Often, the policy movement happens at the local level.
“Obviously, there was a lot of change in Connecticut after Sandy Hook,” she said. “There was a lot of change in Texas after Uvalde. There’s going to be pressure.”
In Texas, lawmakers passed several measures aimed at bolstering school safety in the years after the shooting at Robb Elementary, training school personnel, increasing the presence of armed security officers, strengthening emergency response, and providing mental health resources.
Some Uvalde parents pushed for stricter gun laws, too, but legislative proposals died in the face of Republican opposition.
The Uvalde shooting did prompt federal legislative action, but the resulting bill—the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act—focused more on school mental health services and student safety measures than gun restrictions.
On Friday, Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit organization advocating against gun violence that formed after the Sandy Hook shooting, issued a statement calling in part for stronger gun control.
“What I cannot accept is that we keep allowing this to be the story of childhood in America,” said Sandy Hook Promise co-founder and CEO Nicole Hockley, in the statement.
“Preventing tragedy means securing firearms from unauthorized access, recognizing the early warning signs of a young person in crisis, making it safe to speak up, ensuring someone is ready to respond, and intervening long before a crisis turns deadly.”
In the aftermath of the Bend shooting, it’s also likely that some policymakers and advocates will call for “harder” schools that add more barriers to entry, said Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a consulting firm that works with districts.
In Thursday’s attack, the shooter forced his way into Silver Rail Elementary by shooting at locked doors, according to an AP report.
“People are going to clamor for increased physical security,” Trump said. But the best security measures are often “less visible,” he said, referencing staff training in situational awareness and how to make difficult decisions under stress.
Lein voiced a similar perspective.
“We keep talking about hardening. How is it working out for us? It isn’t; he shot through the door,” he said, referencing the Bend incident.
Authorities said the incident at the Oregon school could have been worse had it not been for the intervention of a man who shot the assailant.
On Friday, the mother of the man who intervened said he was the father of two girls at the school.
“He is not seeking recognition,” the mother, Kenda Freeman, said of her son, identified as Kaylub Giamanco. He instead “wishes to express his gratitude to the first responders, school personnel, and community for the outpouring of love and support.”
Option of Arming Educators Has Mixed Support
In the wake of previous school some shootings, some have called for arming educators.
As of 2025, at least 29 states allowed schools to arm teachers or other staff, not just school resource officers, according to an analysis from the RAND Corporation.
It’s a controversial approach. The majority of teachers oppose the policy, though a substantial minority of American adults—45 percent—say they are in favor of the idea.
Last year, lawmakers in a handful of states introduced legislation aimed at addressing some of the “human factors” in school security, like training, threat assessment, and encouraging students to report concerns about potential violence.
When state lawmakers ask districts to put in place new policies to bolster school safety, schools need continued support and funding to maintain that work, long after the news cycle about a shooting ends, said Denise Fredericks, the principal of Townville Elementary School in Townville, S.C., and another member of the Principal Recovery Network.
“Whatever we’ve done, we’ve got to sustain,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
