Letters: Oregon school safety, peacemaking and schools; AI
Published 8:04 am Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Make schools safer
The recent shooting at the Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend brings to light several issues that should concern every Oregon resident. First, what can the state do to make schools safer? There were four bills in the 2023 Oregon legislative session — HB 3261, HB 3350, HB 3101 and HB 3354 — which were voted against by Janelle Bynum, among others; these bills would have significantly improved school safety. One has to ask why? Oregon spends $19,700 per student (one of the highest amounts in the nation), yet we cannot afford additional school safety measures? We spend tens of millions of dollars on homeless programs, yet we cannot find the money to make schools safer?
A second concerning issue is the lack of support in Oregon for mental health services. Oregon leads the nation in teen suicides. It also ranks at the very bottom for adult and youth mental illness prevalence. 27% of adults and 15% of youth experience significant mental health challenges. Access to care is limited, and the consequences are obvious, as witnessed by the Silver Rail shooting.
Finally, where is the accountability of parents when disaster strikes? The Silver Rail shooter was given a shotgun as a 16th birthday present by his mother, according to news reports. Was he joining a duck club? Probably not. Parents have a responsibility to monitor and control their children and should be held accountable when they fail.
Ed Murrer, Bend
Peacemaking: Our antidote to tragedy
Someone, before the Silver Rail tragedy, commented that “teachers must be allowed to discipline students.” The words had a jarring effect.
Campus discipline today is more likely shaped by the chilling presence of police amid a larger culture of permitted and unpermitted guns.
Children and youth “learn” how to function within society’s unjust power arrangements. Survival is part of the unspoken curriculum. But “power over” is the wrong kind of discipline, a tragically harmful curriculum.
The antidote to school “discipline” is grownups teaching and modeling the disciplines of Peacemaking, with teachers, coaches, and staff skilled, curious, and courageous enough to ask a troubled student: What’s going on in your world? What can you tell me? I’m here to listen.”
There’s room in such curriculum for parents, guardians, and family elders, too.
Young people need to hear from caring elders that they are more than the messes they’ve gotten into, the rage in their heads, or the depression that consumes them.
Our state’s and nation’s schools need a peace curriculum, enabling young people to live from a deep taproot of Peace, so that when they show up, Peace, not terror, enters the room.
Kindness — the reminder that we are all “of a kind,” Humankind — matters.
Mary Sharon Moore, Springfield
Delay deployment of artificial intelligence
The breakneck pace of generative Artificial Intelligence development has greatly outrun our collective ability to control and govern it. While the promise of AI dominates headlines, the mounting societal and environmental risks demand a profound and immediate slowdown. We must significantly delay the build-out of advanced Artificial Intelligence systems until comprehensive regulatory and safety frameworks are firmly established.
The current trajectory is unsustainable. We are deploying this powerful technology without a clear understanding of its long-term impacts on the labor market, data privacy, and truth itself. The proliferation of hyper-realistic deepfakes is already destabilizing public trust and complicating our democratic processes.
Furthermore, the massive energy and water consumption required to cool and maintain these gargantuan data centers represents an acute environmental crisis that undermines our ability to stop climate change.
Technological progresses should serve Humanity, not outpace our capability to manage it safely. A deliberate pause on large-scale Artificial Intelligence expansions would allow policymakers, ethicists, and scientists the necessary time to build robust guardrails, establish international safety standards, and address critical questions of copyright and bias.
Proceeding blindly without these protections is irresponsible. We must prioritize caution over corporate competition before the technology evolves past the point of effective Human oversight.
Ron Sadler, Bend
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