Letter to the editor:
As a concerned parent and former Perry resident, I made the incredibly difficult decision to move my family out of the Perry Community School District. That decision was driven by one thing: the district’s continued failure to address the safety concerns raised by parents like me after the Jan. 4, 2024, school shooting.
Despite repeated outreach, a validated petition, public comments at school board meetings, coverage by local media outlets and a District Needs Assessment conducted by the School Improvement Advisory Committee (SIAC), meaningful preventative safety measures were never implemented.
I could no longer wait for a second tragedy to force action.
Everyone in Iowa and across the nation must awaken to the necessity of implementing preventative safety measures in our schools. For more than a year, many people called on the Perry school board to implement common-sense protections, including weapon detection systems, to pair with their School Resource Officers.
Our requests have been met with silence—even after I hand-delivered a validated petition, signed by more than 700 people, including 185+ from the Perry district, to all school board members and the superintendent at the Feb. 12, 2024 board meeting.
The petition called for preventative safety measures and improved communication from the school district—yet it was never acknowledged, added to the agenda or formally addressed.
Gracie Castro of Perry, a member of the SIAC, Gracie Castro added the following comments to this letter:
The District Needs Assessment conducted by the School Improvement Advisory Committee received over 140 responses from concerned parents and community members. While there were some positive highlights, there were also very fearful and frustrated undertones. Concerns about safety and ongoing parental and student fear and anxiety following the Jan. 4 school shooting. Many participants — across multiple sections of the questionnaire — expressed concern over the lack of proactive safety measures, such as weapon detectors, bag checks and consistent security screenings. They stated that bullying remains a significant concern for some families — with some under the impression that bullying is not consistently addressed. There was a recurring theme for the need for serious, consistent handling of bullying incidents and expanded mental-health supports for students. Extreme safety concerns, consistency and lack of effective communication seemed to be the focus in many of the answers obtained. The results for this survey have been handed over to the Perry School Board for review as of June 9, 2025. We are hopeful the board will give these concerns a considerable amount of attention and action.
While the district has applied for substantial funding — more than $1.1 million through programs like Project SERV — for security upgrades and school restoration, it remains unclear how much of those funds are actually being used for preventative safety. We were told about plans for cameras, window film and door hardware, but questions remain:
• Do the new cameras include AI-powered gun detection?
• Has Phase II of the Project SERV application (for January–June 2025) been submitted?
• How much funding has been approved in total, and how exactly is it being spent concerning safety?
I am part of a group of concerned parents who formed HALL PASS, which stands for Honoring All Lives Lost Parents Advocating Secure Schools, in order to advocate for safer schools across Iowa and, ultimately, this nation. Together we have repeatedly called for transparency and accountability. Parents and community members deserve clear answers — not vague assurances — when it comes to protecting our children.
We’ve already proposed a possible solution: the Evolv Weapons Detector system, which I first shared with the board on March 30, 2024. The technology is there. The money appears to be there. What’s missing is the will to act before it’s too late.
If we’re reacting, we’ve already failed. Let’s be proactive — for the safety of our kids and school staff and for peace of mind in every home across Iowa. While there is no single strategy or even a combination of strategies that can provide a 100% guarantee, these measures might deter threats and make shooters think again.
We have to learn from this and do better. It is our duty to provide the best security that we can, to say we did everything within our power to prevent this horrible nightmare from happening again.
Despite contacting several legislators by email and submitting requests and calls to meet with Gov. Kim Reynolds, we have yet to bring attention to this urgent issue. The silence is unacceptable.
Miranda Cumming
Greenfield
