CHARLOTTE, N.C. — East Mecklenburg High School student Madison Kreutzer had just returned home from school Tuesday when she saw the news about the Texas elementary school shooting.

“It’s just crazy getting that news,” Kreutzer said. “I want to say that it’s unimaginable … but it’s not in America. It’s imaginable.”

 

What You Need To Know

Junior Madison Kreutzer learned about the shooting Tuesday afternoon

She's been doing active shooting drills since third grade

She wants more to be done to stop violence at schools

 

The high school junior says her first introduction to a lockdown was when she was just in kindergarten.

“We were all locked in a bathroom,” Kreutzer said. “And I just remember it being horrifying. And it was because the bank down the street got robbed. But I can’t imagine someone being in our building and having that fear as an elementary schooler. Just not being able to comprehend what’s happening to you.”

A few years later, in third grade, Kreutzer says she and her classmates completed their first active shooter drill in class.

“We do them constantly,” Kreutzer said. “But it’s always confused me a little bit with the active shooter drills, because a lot of these active shooters are students or past students, and they know how these things work.”

It adds to the anxiety she and her classmates feel, every time they hear of another school shooting across the country.

“It’s just scary to know that going to school every day puts you in danger,” Kreutzer said. “Or walking to a supermarket puts you in danger.”

Just this year, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools have found 28 guns on school campuses, leaving students like Kreutzer on edge, wondering if they could be injured at school.

“It’s so frustrating to, you know, I feel like there’s, I feel powerless. I feel hopeless,” Kreutzer said. “Like it’s been so long that me and my loved ones have been fighting to change, and I’m just starting to feel really hopeless.”

This school year, CMS has changed a number of policies to address the weapons on campus, including introducing the Say Something app, created by the Sandy Hook Promise to schools, and even installing metal detectors to high schools across the district.

But Kreutzer says there still needs to be more done.

“I think bans are necessary,” Kreutzer said. “I think we need to work on background checks. It shouldn’t be as easy to obtain a gun as it is.”

And without help from lawmakers intervening, Kreutzer believes school shootings will continue.

“It’s like why don’t these other people see it,” Kreutzer said. “Why don’t these adults see what’s happening? Like it’s scary for me to go to school every day. It just seems like they should recognize it already. They should recognize how scary it is for us.”

Kreutzer says the Say Something app, an anonymous reporting app for students launched this semester throughout CMS, was first met with hesitation from students. However, she says as students have become more accustomed to the app, they have learned how helpful it has been for students to reach out to administrators about things before they happen.